First powerlifting meet recap

[Matthew Phoenix Pennisi]

I wanted to put together a little write up on the experience I had at my first powerlifting meet. In the interest of context, here is a brief background on myself: I’m a 30 year old male who has been lifting seriously for about a year. To date, my best lifts came at the end of my novice progression, where I managed to squat 312.5x4 and deadlift 400x4 at a body weight of ~218 (my bench is forever lost to poverty, so it needs not be mentioned). It was a long and troublesome road to get to the end of my LP, as I experienced a slew of injuries and setbacks along the way, including a herniated disc, bicep tendonitis in my left shoulder, followed by medial epicondylitis in both elbows, followed by lateral epicondylitis in both elbows, a hydrocele which caused my right testicle to swell up to the size of a clementine, walking pneumonia, a ton of acid reflux problems and a spontaneous meniscus tear that I somehow incurred while I was asleep.

At the end of my LP, one of my coaches asked if I wanted to enter a powerlifting meet in March, which was 3 months away at the time. I had always planned on entering a meet, and now that I was an early intermediate trainee, I figured it was as good a time as any to sign up. Excited at the prospect of competing, I started my intermediate programming and planned out the next few months to prepare for the meet. My transition to the intermediate phase, however, was anything but smooth. At the time, my acid reflux problems were so severe that I was spitting up stomach acid all day and it would wake me up constantly at night. My sleep was significantly impaired and I wasn’t able to recover from workouts. I didn’t like the prospect of taking medication every day for the rest of my life, so I decided to start cutting to bring my body fat % down, which was a large source of the reflux problems. I didn’t like the idea of cutting before my first meet, but at the rate I was going, I wasn’t able to recover adequately enough to maintain training anyways, so I picked the lesser of two evils. Training during the subsequent 3 months was absolutely miserable. I tried to be conservative with the weights I was lifting, but I missed reps on 90% of my training days leading up to my meet, including light days. Since the end of my LP, at one point my squat was down 60 pounds, my press was down 35 pounds and my deadlift was down a whopping 100 pounds. Nothing was going according to plan.

I did my best to keep my chin up, but the weeks of constant failure were really starting to wear me down. Despite never missing a session in the gym, it was extremely difficult to stay motivated. I was starting to become overwhelmed with doubt and my mood was very sour in the weeks leading up to the meet. The PRs that I had originally planned for on meet day were futile at this point and it was looking like I was not going to PR at all at the meet. The day before the meet, I knew that my attitude was going to be a major factor in determining my success. I managed to relinquish my frustrations and put all of the weeks of disappointment leading up to this point behind me. I was going to have a good time, so help me. Whenever I want to get psyched up, I pull up a video on YouTube that is a compilation of the 50 greatest plays made by Michael Jordan. I watched the video. I got amped. I wondered what Michael must have felt whenever he sunk a buzzer beater to claim victory at the highest level of competition in his sport. It probably felt incredible.

MEET DAY. I officially weighed in at 201.6, which was ~16 pounds lighter than I was at the end of my LP. My coach decided to give me pretty conservative openers just to get me on the board and keep my confidence high. My opening squat was 275 and it moved fast so we went for 293 on my second attempt. Walking 293 out of the rack felt really heavy, heavier than it did during training, but I was pretty sure I had it in the bag. The weight moved slow, but coming out of the hole, I knew I had it. I stood up, waited for the rack command, and set the weight down. 3 white lights. Score. However, when my coach and I looked at the video, I was definitely high; I just got lucky with the judges. I decided that I didn’t want to know what my third attempt was going to be so my coach picked it for me. In my head, 315 was a magic number. I had only squatted 315 for a single once in my life, and I did it when I weighed 16 pounds more than I did that day. I had also not squatted anything over 300 in months. Going for 315 was a long shot, but I didn’t know what weight my coach picked for me so there was no use overthinking it. While I was on deck, my coach was emphasizing that I was going to have to give this everything that I’ve got, so I knew that it was going to be heavy. It ended up being one of the slowest squats of my life, but I was feeling strong that day and I finished the rep. I looked up at the board: 2 red lights. Dangit. I ended up being called for depth, but after looking at the video, I think that I reached proper depth. If I didn’t, it was really, really close. Probably karma for getting the white lights when I shouldn’t have on my second attempt. I asked my coach what the weight was and he said “314”. I was elated. Even though the rep didn’t officially count, I still squatted that weight and it was a huge win in my book.

There wasn’t anything notable about the bench portion of the meet. I am not a very good bencher and ended up going 2/3. My third attempt would have been a PR if I had made it, but alas, it was not meant to be. Onto the deadlift.

At this point in the meet, I was starting to get tired. The deadlift was also the lift that had baffled me the most during training. Once far and away my strongest lift, my deadlift numbers had been all over the place in the weeks leading up to the meet. One week I would pull 365 for 5 and the next, 365 for 1 felt like a maximum effort, so I was very unsure of myself going into the deadlift. We decided to open at 360 and I was pretty sure I’d at least have that in the tank. I managed 360 with moderate difficulty. What was once a warmup weight was definitely feeling heavy today, so we only jumped up to 375 for my next attempt. Judging how 360 felt, I figured that this next attempt might be my last successful lift of the day, so it was all or nothing in my head. The rep took me 6 seconds and it was TOUGH. Grimace face, leg quakes, the whole nine yards. But I locked it out and felt proud. At this point, I decided that the meet was a success for me. But I still had one more attempt to go. Because 375 looked like a maximum effort pull, we went up the bare minimum to 380 for my third attempt. Walking up to the bar, I felt like anybody who had seen my second attempt probably wasn’t expecting much for my final attempt, myself included. But I knew that no matter what, I was not giving up on this rep. My coach asked me for 5 seconds of hard work and I said “don’t worry”. I started my pull and got the bar about 6 inches off the ground before things started to really grind to a halt. The bar didn’t feel like it was moving much at all and the leg quakes were there in full force. At this point, in my head I said to myself “these mother fuckers don’t think you have what it takes to lock this out”. But despite how slow the bar was moving, I knew that I had it. 8 seconds later, I locked it out. The crowd went nuts. I felt like I had given a big “F U” to the miserable training cycle I had leading up to this point. Even though I didn’t walk away with any PRs, I got to show everyone my grit. Real respects real and other lifters way out of my league came up to congratulate me. In that moment, I knew what Michael Jordan felt in the video I had watched the night before.

Horn Strength & Conditioning on Instagram: “Matt sticking with his 3rd attempt and wrapping up a really fun first meet. .
@uspapower”

Tl;dr - I went to a powerlifting meet, it was fun.

[jbackos]

Welcome to the sickness of powerlifting. A few comments if I may.

1. I would not have called 315 on your third squat. Since 293 was heavy and it was your first meet, I would have had you take a 5 kilo jump. Even if you hadn't made it, you would have saved some gas in the tank for the deadlift. There is no law that says you must make 9 attempts. I was taught that your max should be your second, and the third is icing on the cake, or to correct a missed second. Also that third attempt DL could have been your second if you had more gas in the tank.

2. I also have struggled with a poverty bench for ages, but what has pushed it up for me has been the press and the close grip bench.

That being said you now have real maxes to calculate off of because gym maxes mean nothing.

Good luck.

[Matthew Phoenix Pennisi]

Hey man, thanks for the suggestions!

For the squat, I'm ultimately pretty happy with my coach's decision to go up to 315. Even though 293 moved slow, it actually felt pretty easy so I let my coach know before he called my next attempt. Even if I had more gas left for the deadlifts had I gone with a lower squat, I don't think I would have got close to an actual deadlift PR and so tying my squat PR was much more meaningful to me.

For bench, I incorporated a close grip bench in my training, but unfortunately I didn't see any increase in performance and am currently going on about 6 months without a PR. My press is a similar story. I think the real culprit is the cut that I've been doing, but that is only my suspicion. My bench and press were both for about 3 months prior to me ever beginning my cut, so there's gotta be some other factor at play there.

[Brian Goldstein]

I'm proud of you Matt. That's nothing to sniff at and I hope I am able to do as well at my meet in May.

[paladin235]

Congratulations!

[Erok]

Way to get that deadlift! Great job.

[Les Hahn]

Congrats! :-)

[sjohnb]

Good read! Bet you’re looking forward to the next meet :-)

[Matthew Phoenix Pennisi]

Thanks, everyone! I appreciate it