Powerlifting to Win

[Tom Narvaez]

Real lifting is gay so I don't do that because gay things are bad.


BW: 185.8lbs

Even Narrower Low Bar:
up to 190kg x 1 @ 8.5ish
Got locked into an interesting discussion and waited like 10-20 minutes between the last set and the previous set. Derp. I don't think narrow stance is going to be the solution, but I'll see what Joey thinks.

Max Grip Bench:
up to 145kg x 1 @ 10ish
Got the competition bench back in the gym after it was gone for like a week. I'm a little detrained right now after doing pretty much jack shit for three weeks. Nonetheless, this is a really shitty bench.

Sumo /w TPB, Hook Grip:
up to 255kg x 1 @ 9
Safe to say that hook grip isn't a problem anymore. Like, at all. It was a surprisingly super easy conversion.

[Tom Narvaez]

So some big updates:

1) Joey wants me to compete at 83kg. Considering I'm ALREADY waking up at 84.x every day this week, the diet is over. I'll be switching to "conservative reverse" on Avatar starting next week.
2) He thinks I should pull conventional. No more sumo. I guess I won't get to be a gay faggot liberal pussy anymore.
3) I'm going to split time between wide stance, flat shoe low bar and narrow stance, heeled shoe low bar in my intro block. We're going to see how the narrower stance responds to training but, most likely, he thinks I'll end up medium/wide in flats. As long as the knee cave doesn't cause pain, he doesn't think it is that big of an issue. I didn't expect that but, hey, there goes all of my biggest time-suck, overthinking B.S. out the window in one day. That's why a coach is nice.

Training footage:
I Switched to Hook Grip... EASILY - YouTube

[Mahendra]

Those are some big updates indeed, good sir.

Looking forward to your video on switching back to conventional.

[Aaron Montgomery]

So some big updates:

1) Joey wants me to compete at 83kg. Considering I'm ALREADY waking up at 84.x every day this week, the diet is over. I'll be switching to "conservative reverse" on Avatar starting next week.

I guess that means you'll be eating carbs and being happy again?

[BenM]

Enjoy eating moar!

PS - I only lasted a week on conservative reverse before I switched to standard

[Tom Narvaez]

I'm on track to weigh-in at like 184.xx tomorrow so I may push to standard as well if I'm still losing significant weight after the initial boost.

[BenM]

I lost weight the first few weeks on standard. Last week (6th) was the first time I actually gained on average, but it's dropped again this week....

[Les Hahn]

How does your new coach determine that you should pull conventional or squat without heels? Is it based off some of your previous training, or is there something he is seeing in your form? I was just curious since I squat in flats too. I sort of figured it out on my own that I squat more that way, but it would have been nice if someone looked at the mechanics of my lift and helped me years before I finally made the switch on my own. :-)

[Tom Narvaez]

The suggestion to switch to conventional was mine and he agreed. The main basis is that I've been trying to pull flat/flatter with sumo for years and it just rounds anyway. Round back sumo pulls produce horrible positioning at the top. The thinking is that I'll most likely pull more conventional because I'll be more capable of grinding out the round back attempts. Even though my rep work is better sumo, it never translates well to maxes because of this IMO whereas I always overperform my conventional rep work for maxes.

Squat is more a question mark. Neither of us really know. I don't have much knee cave narrower so we are just gonna try to train a narrower stance and see if it responds well to training. Right now, it feels like it is 40kg behind my wider stance. However, I've literally never done a cycle of narrow low bar so it might respond great to training. If it does, I may switch because knee cave is inherently inefficient and does cause me a little knee pain from time to time.

[MBasic]

Looking forward to your video on switching back to conventional.

Lol