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Thread: Perpendicular to the Surface of the Earth

  1. #561
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    • starting strength seminar april 2024
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    Thanks for the encouragement guys I made it here anyway, one of the windows says half the battle is just showing up so I've got that going for me
    Last edited by ithryn; 10-24-2015 at 07:55 AM.

  2. #562
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    You'll do well. After all, you've shown up!

  3. #563
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    Saturday 24 October 2015

    Starting Strength Fall Classic - Chicago




    Just a quick meet recap

    Weighed in: 211

    Squat
    355
    370 - got it up, walked it back, missed a hook, so no lift per the rules (ha, I'm still mentally counting it)
    405 - PR

    Press
    155
    165
    172.5 - got it over my head, start coming down on the left side, no lift

    Deadlift
    315
    345
    370 - PR

    Total = 940 lbs!

    A friend pointed out that if it was a benching meet and I benched my current PR of 225, I'd've had an even 1000.
    Last edited by ithryn; 10-24-2015 at 06:30 PM.

  4. #564
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    Nice job!

  5. #565
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    Solid! How were your deadlifts?

  6. #566
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    Great lifting this weekend!! Congratulations on the PRs!!!!

  7. #567
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    So, the meet.

    Sat 24 October 2015 - Fall Classic @ Chicago Elite Fitness

    tl;dr:

    Weighed in at 211.2
    Wilks: 264.23, whatever that means
    Squat 405, Press 165, Deadlift 370
    Total 940

    This was a nice way to cap off my second year of lifting. I started in November 2013 squatting, I dunno, 95? I still remember the bar alone feeling heavy like I might drop it. By the end of year 2014 I was in the low 300s, though goofing up my training half the time. Now it's the end of October 2015, hitting PRs at a real meet.

    I woke up at 5:45am to get there, since it was on the other side of town. I made three bottles: one whey, one water, and one bcaas/creatine/beta alanine. I made a PB&J. The cupboard was still kinda bare from our trip to Colorado last weekend.

    I showed up at 7 am. It was still dark and I was one of the first ones there. Bucktown Crossfit is in an old mechanic's garage, but it's pretty cool inside. They seem to have quality racks and bars. There was a chalkboard wall with a list of rules from floor to ceiling - like no kipping unless you can get 10 strict pullups, eat lots of meat, partial reps = partial muscles, etc. So I guess this is one of the 'good' Crossfits? There was a record chart and unsurprisingly David Abdemoulaie was at the top of most of the lifts.

    There wasn't much to do in the morning. I think a lot of the folks were members there, and it was still early and I wasn't awake yet, so I just kinda lurked around.

    As people started arriving one of the first things I noticed was the preponderance of butts. Well, actually I've been realizing lately that everybody in the gen pop is top heavy. Even fat people have proportionately scrawny asses and legs. So being in a large room full of muscular gluteii is a noticeable difference, no bromo. It's like when I go back home to Florida and I notice almost every single person in a crowded restaurant has gray hair, which I never thought about when I lived there, but now that I live in a land of families and young people I can't stop noticing it when I'm there.

    It turns out I was the first person to sign up for the meet (what a dweeb), so I got called first for the weigh-in, but of course I was aimlessly wandering around outside at that point so I missed it and had to weigh in later. Half the people were stripping down, I don't know to what, their skivvies? behind a curtain for the weigh-in. I knew I was fairly over 198 so I didn't bother. I had signed up for 198 (my weight at the time) but weighed in at 211.2. One girl was a fraction of a pound over so she asked to reweigh later. She said she was going to run around the block but I'd think you could just, ya know, hit the bathroom...or maybe she didn't want to say that.

    There were a lot of girls there, a lot of guys of different sizes, and a couple of older gentleman. It was an interesting mix. I think I prefer that to what I imagine a regular powerlifting meet is like, where I figure everyone'll be hy00ger than me.

    David asked me my starting weights. I hadn't given them definite thought, so I just told him 355 squat, 150 press, 315 (!) deadlift. Karl had given me the sage advice to pick openers that were 100% doable, because bombing out of a meet without a total sucks.

    Everyone was stretching and foam rolling and doing all sorts of gymnastics. I assume these supple leopards were the Crossfit folks? I was just standing there. Eventually turned to the guy next to me and said "Uh, should I be stretching or something?" He also had his eyebrows raised and said "I dunno, I just warm up."

    Dave went over the rules and where to warm up. The flights went fast, surprisingly fast, but I still had a fair amount of time to warm up. I just did lots of empty bar pause squats, then worked up to a single 315. Then kinda stood around waiting for the flight to start and hoping that was enough.

    355 pounds sounded frickin heavy to me, but I theorized I could do it if I did 390 last week. I guess I could've been more conservative, because a form fault or the unfamiliarity of the bar, or really anything could've made it fail. I was worried the slightly uneven ground (it's hard plastic mats over the cement floor of old mechanic garage, after all) would throw me off, but it didn't. What I wasn't prepared for? Watching the person in front of me fail. No matter how different or big or little the person is compared to you, it kinda does something to your brain to approach rack that someone else just failed on. So I tried to not pay too much attention to the person in front of me, unless they succeeded and people were cheering, then I'd parasitically use some of that energy to ramp myself up.

    Also, I had actual stage fright I walked up to the bar calm and realized crap, I'm facing all these people, I could really screw this up and look ridiculous! I'm usually pretty calm in front of a crowd, so that surprised the heck out of me. The adrenaline probably helped though.

    I didn't bury 355 as much as I would've liked, or at least I didn't feel like I did, but the lift passed. Also the video of my later attempts looks almost too low, so maybe I shouldn't trust my ass to know where it is in space. Incidentally, a surprising number of guys were squatting too low. Half the failures were because the rep went too low in my opinion.

    One guy was actually too high for all three attempts. He was a coach-less lone wolf Starting Strengther from downstate Illinois. I felt bad for the guy, as this was obviously jarring. However, he pulled 500+ if I remember right, and the crowd went nuts at that, so I'm sure he felt better after that.

    After my opener I had to tell them my second weight. I wanted to try for 405 so I played it safe and said 370, seemed not too close to hurt my chances.

    Thanks to my friend Joe who came out to watch, I got some video:

    Squat, second attempt, 370:

    Squat 370 - Starting Strength Fall Classic 2015 on Vimeo


    The rep was hard but easy (you know what I mean) but I bounced it off the uprights and missed a hook, so a bad lift per the rules. I'm sure I could've raised the bar back into it, but the spotters quite understandably grabbed it. Probably wouldn't count anyway. I'm used to banging the bar into big sturdy uprights and then letting it down onto the hooks, so I think I was trying to gingerly set this down onto the squat rack's hooks. I really wasn't fazed by this though, because I got the rep. So I told her 405 for my next attempt. I guess if I missed 405, then 350 still isn't shabby. But of course I wasn't really here for my total, I was here to use peak adrenaline to nail a PR. They nicely offered to lower the pins for my next attempts.

    Squat, third attempt, four plates, big milestone PR:

    Squat 405!! PR - Starting Strength Fall Classic 2015 on Vimeo

    So happy about this. A couple months ago I would've thought 350 was hitting my limit AND I was even wrong about that since it would've been at or above parallel. So happy Karl Schudt fixed my dumb squat.

    I was one of the last three or four guys squatting, I think? So that felt really cool. I felt like one of the 'real' lifters. Then I remembered, of course, that I was actually a weight class up from half these guys, and the rest of the 220 crowd would be lifting in the afternoon and blow me away.

    Then I stopped thinking about that because I preferred feeling like a beast.

    I can't even remember if my initial press was 150 or 155 but it was easy.

    Press second attempt, 165:

    Press 165 - Starting Strength Fall Classic 2015 on Vimeo

    No real problem.

    Press third attempt, 172.5:

    Press 172.5 fail - Starting Strength Fall Classic 2015 on Vimeo

    *shrug* I got it above my head but gravity won. On the video it's so fast that I almost wondered if I just gave up, but I'm pretty sure I was still giving the "up" command to my arms and it just failed to go on one side. 170 would've been a successful PR, but this is fine. I'll count 172 as a half-PR (I can do that, right?). 175 is on the horizon obviously.

  8. #568
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    (cont'd)

    Deadlifts...here's my bane. If you've been reading this log you know I lost my groove in the last few weeks. I warmed up to a single 315 in the warmup area, and figured I'd at least get my first attempt. I steeled myself to embarassingly tugging on an unmoving bar for the other attempts. A guy I was talking to said he's done that before at meets when he's failed his second and still has his third, you just eat your pride and do it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chebass88 View Post
    Solid! How were your deadlifts?
    Haha, the loaded question. They were decent! I think I've been letting my brain get in the way. Maybe I drop my hips a little. But this time I didn't think about anything, not pushing the floor, not lifting, nothing, I just walked up and pulled the bar. In my post-lift daze I thought hmm, maybe 370 will go. Heck, maybe 405 would go. Well, lets not get greedy now:

    Anyway, 315 on my first attempt went up. Figured 340 had a safe chance of going up if my brain didn't get in the way.

    Deadlift second attempt, 340, hook grip:

    Deadlift 345 - Starting Strength Fall Classic 2015 on Vimeo

    Huh, that worked.

    Deadlift third attempt, 370

    Deadlift 370 PR - Starting Strength Fall Classic 2015 on Vimeo

    David announced over the mike "Good lift, with the hook grip" and a guy was like "Really, you hook gripped that?" Yup. It was a tough rep but who knows, maybe 405 is in me.

    I had to high-tail it out of there, I had errands to run and a birthday party to go to, and also fathering six kids ain't easy. I missed some strong guys doing crazy lifts, but that's what the internet's for.

    I got to meet forum members Aleli, who's little sister was lifting and was really impressive, and Dave, who's a scary beast.

    I also met forum member Carson before I left. He was cool to talk to. Interesting guy. I had no idea at all he was an ex-minister who converted to the Byzantine Catholics, which is also Karl's church. Small world.

    I saw a guy who looked awfully familiar and then I realized it must be manveer. I forgot to talk to him though, cuz I'm dumb. I saw he totaled like 1235, nicely done.

    That night my back and shoulders were on fiiiiiiire. Like the bicep burn you get from curling, except it was pretty much my whole stinking body. Nice.

    Thanks for all the encouragement, dudes and dudettes here, and thanks to all the folks who were yelling or clapping at the meet.

    I definitely see the value in peaking. I had no idea I was strong enough to move those numbers. This gives me good goals.

  9. #569
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    Aaaand back to the grind:

    Monday 26 October 2015
    7am...wait, no, of course I have a flat tire because the temperature changed, so
    7:25-8am

    Light squats 275 x 5 x 2 - My body's like fives? You wanna do fives? Okay but I'm not exactly conditioned for such long endurance cardio.

    Bench 185 x 5 x 3

  10. #570
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    starting strength coach development program
    That is a great meet write-up. Your deadlifts looked very smooth. Solid work.

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