The 2010 USAPL Florida State Championship
by Gary Gibson

The meet directors confirmed that I was not large enough to be considered an adult male. The first flight was composed of all the ladies and men in the 82.5 kg class and below, which meant that I got to lift with the women and the teenagers…the women and children. Ah well, if we were on a sinking ship, I would have made it out first!

It had been a very long drive from Geneva, Florida, to Fort Lauderdale. My sister and her boyfriend went along for the ride. Baby sis operated the camera at the meet.

Michael and Gail at 2010 USAPL FL State Meet

That’s her voice you hear the loudest because it’s closest to the camera’s mic.

I only had her record the squat and deadlift attempts because my bench is never really worth recording and I was planning on playing it very conservatively on the bench for this meet. I’d not made any clear progress on it since my last meet and just planned to match my top weight from last time. Turns out I should have gone a little heavier. The 105 kg/ 231 was really, really easy.

I played it conservatively with my squats and went 5 kilos under my gym best, mainly because I wanted my last squat to be pretty and not get me all bent over. Squatted 418 on my last attempt and made it look pretty good. I matched my gym best on my second deadlift attempt and then bested that by 2.5 kilos on the last. I’d wanted to get in at least one pull over 500 lbs, but I might have done even better if I’d made the second attempt lighter and then went a bit higher on the last. Oh well, I’m not complaining about the 506.

I didn’t quite hit my targets of a 200 kilo SQ and 240 kilo deadlift, but as usual I still enjoyed myself thoroughly. I love powerlifting meets. I love lifting in competition. I love training and competing more than anything else outside of black pornograhy on the internet.

A real highlight of this meet was getting to meet 70sBig member and ridiculously strong deadlifter AJ. AJ’s about my height and currently just a few pounds heavier, but he is much, much stronger and a lot more pleasant to be around than I usually am.

I also got to see a few records set. April Shumaker came down from Minnesota and set an American bench press record on her second attempt…then broke that on her third! “Little Supergrrrl” powerlifter Maura Shuttleworth came down with April and her family and lifted strong and looked ridiculously cute doing it.

There were quite a few men and women competitors in their seventies. My heart swelled. Barbell training is as essential to a complete life as a good dog and it’s good to see people taking it up even in their later years. One of women in the Masters 70-79 division was the mother of another competitor at the meet in the men’s Masters 50-59. Her 50s-something son deadlifted well over 600 lbs and benched something over 500. The meet results aren’t up yet, but I believe those were also records of some sort.

Aftermath
Oh, my aching quads. Immediately after the meet, my hamstrings were singing and now two days later, my quads are burning. Upper body is feeling no pain because I just didn’t push the bench hard at all since I’d fail to make any measurable bench progress in the last cycle. I just matched my best bench from the last meet and left plenty on the platform. I’ve already dived right into linear progression with a fairly heavy bench day precisely because I didn’t tax my bench at the meet. But I did tax my squat and deadlift so even a light SQ x5x3 with 335 was fairly hard today. I’m hoping lots of meat and milk will sort me out soon. I’m going to take a few days off of squats, too, then hit 355 and go from there next week.

Next time we catch up with each other, I hope to have broken the 200-lb barrier.

Till then.