Originally Posted by
Michael Wolf
I know I've made passing comments about a meet but I can't remember if I mentioned that about 3 weeks ago, I did officially sign up for the USPA Texas State meet on March 14. The very next day was the day I tweaked my back doing the tandem DL thing. Meanwhile, since then, my pecs have failed to come back to even near normal, I tweaked the other side of my back a week ago while getting up from the bench AFTER a set, and the tandem DL tweaked side has improved faster than usual but is still not 100%.
At this point it's 12 days out and I'm seriously considering not doing the meet, and since there may be some speculation about that if I don't do it, I want to explain why.
tl;dr: With my current training and health status, and competitive nature, it is too likely for my comfort that I will try to lift more than my body is ready for, incurring reinjury and lengthening the recovery process even further, wasting even more time than needed to recover back to normal training status for a future meet.
Longer version: While I am not good enough to be competitive on the national stage, I'm very competitive internally and have a hard time holding back when in a competitive atmosphere with something I'm decently good at and care about. So I could go to a ping pong tourney and do it purely 100% for fun, but not a lifting meet. I'm too competitive to just chill and have fun and hold back significantly.
Now, I'm not such a competitive psycho that I can't hold back at all - I did this at the USSF meet last fall when I pressed 275 and pulled 595, both of which moved like somewhere between last warmups and easy openers. But they were both numbers that while submax, I considered respectable and could live with.
So originally, it was looking like I had an 1800 total on a normal day (600/475/725), with a solid shot at upper 1800s (620/500/750) if I hit my stretch goals in all 3 lifts. But even a somewhat sub-par day would've yielded something like 1740 (585/455/700). My mistake was training for the 1870 as a main goal, instead of 1800 and hitting 1870 if I was having a great day. Anyway, after the hammy strain and then pec strain, I figured that 1800-1870 was out of the cards, but 1700-1800 still doable. OK.
Then the tandem DL tweak happened and my pecs still weren't healed enough to resume normal benching after a couple weeks, so I was mentally lowering my expectations to the 1600-1700 range. Not ideal, but I could still consider these numbers respectable, if not ideal, for my current strength level (something like 535-565/415-435/650-675) and do the meet.
Then I had the other side back tweak a week ago - and the pec still not healed - and now it looks like I'd need to keep my total to around 1400-1450 to keep my risk of re-injury low enough to be comfortable with. And I'm just too competitive to hold back that much. Oh, I can go to the meet with a plan to just do 500/350/600 all I want, but I know when I get there seeing guys squat 600 and 700, bench 5, pull 700-800, I won't be able to hold back, knowing that I was "supposed" to be going for 600-620, 475-500, and 715-750.
And I think the chances of re-tweaking something before it's healed are just too great if I do that. So it seems smarter to not go at all, instead of trying to unsuccessfully resist a temptation that is likely to cause another setback.
So I haven't decided for certain yet, but I'm leaning against it. If I knew I could go and just have fun, I'd do it. But, like the tandem DL meet, I will see people lifting big weights and get pumped up to do more, before my body is recovered and ready. So I'm thinking better to stay home, and plan better next time.
While the hamstring strain was inexplicable by anything other than bad luck, the pec strain and back strains in this case were probably avoidable if I'd trained for the 1800 and hoped for a good day with 1870, instead of training for the 1870.
So that's my lesson for next time - train for the probable, and be open on meet day for the higher possible. Instead of training for the high possible, but improbable, outcome.