I just wanted to give some shout outs to some guys that were at the meet this last weekend. For those of you who don’t know, this year’s USAPL Raw Nationals drew an impressive crowd because the top lifters from this meet would be selected for the Raw World Championships next year in Sweden.
Mike Tuchscherer
I wouldn’t think that you guys haven’t heard of Mike by now, but we’ve always watched his videos at 70’s Big. He runs Reactive Training Systems, is an officer in the Air Force, and is a really nice guy. We briefly met him, but I didn’t really want to bother him with the meet going on. He did very well in the 125kg/275lbs weight class weighing in at 120.2kg (120 is the new weight class with “super heavies” being 120+, so he wanted to get experience there). You can read his meet recap here, and this video is what he did one week out:
I’m sure there is plenty to learn from him.
Matt Nolan
Matt has been posting as “NolanPower” on the site for quite a while, and is a friggin’ awesomely strong 100kg/220lbs lifter. I’m not the most experienced powerlifting coach/handler, and it was Matt who encouraged me to use the “last warm-up on the platform” method that I implement at meets. More importantly, he was in a tight race all day in the 100kg class. After squatting 573 (his first PR since some time in 2010) and benching 380, the competition was TIGHT going into the deadlift. This of course didn’t stop him from talking to Brent and I about RTS games (not Mike T’s website, but real time strategy games) in between sessions. Anyway, it all came down to his third and final pull; it was either hit it and win, or miss it and walk away with second place. Honestly, this was the most entertaining lift I’ve ever seen — maybe it’s because Matt posts on the site, maybe because he’s just a real nice guy, and maybe it had something to do with the do or die situation. Here is some footage I took of the lift and seeing him immediately after the pull. Nice job, Matt.
It also looks like Matt will be keeping a training log on RTS here.
Ettore Ewen
There isn’t any footage of this fella on YouTube…under this name. He is also known as Big E. Langston in the WWE stable in Florida. I can’t explain to you guys how big this former Iowa football player is. He’s about as tall as me, but 135kg/297lbs of fucking yoke. He is absolutely massive. When he walked in the room, Chris just stared and said quietly, “That guy is JACKED.” He won the super heavy class and benched an easy 240kg/529lbs. I watched the second attempt at 512…he fucking killed it like it was me doing 225. I’ve never seen anyone that big in person before. He looked bigger than he does in this video:
Edit: I posted the wrong video (he got one hit in and lost the match). Here is the other one I watched that shows more of his strength):
He also had a shirt that said, “I got 99 problems, but my bench ain’t one of them.” He was pretty badass.
There were lots of other good folk, like the girls from Pretty Powerlifting and some other guys that hung out on Saturday night, so it was good fun. Nationals meets can be long, tiring, sometimes boring, but there were really good people and excellent lifters.
