My friends Ryan and Heidi at Amarillo Strength and Conditioning hosted their first powerlifting meet back on March 13th. If I recall correctly, they were looking to get the event sanctioned, but by doing so it would have delayed the date. They just wanted to have a competition, and they weren’t worried about it being officially official, at least this first time out.
They had 20 people participate and Neil Eddins, who holds some national Masters powerlifting records in NASA, stopped by to help out. The meet went well, and they had a lot of their lifters set PR’s, and they raised some money for the Rockwell Road Baptist Church Children’s Ministry.
I commend the Amarillo SC crew for having this meet for a few reasons. First, it got a lot of their lifters to lift in a meet environment. This is good for the lifter and coach, and everyone learns from doing it. The lifter learns all that stuff about themselves, the coach learns all kinds of stuff about handling lifters at the meet, and then the meet director learns about running a meet — all important things to learn if you’re going to be involved in this kind of stuff. Some of you may be thinking, “Well, it wasn’t sanctioned, so it doesn’t count, so what’s the point?” I think it’s good that they ran a meet once before they did it for real. This way they won’t screw up the official one, they’ll have the experience, and they will be ready for it. It was also a nice, harmless way to introduce their lifters into competition since they didn’t have to travel away from their own gym, and probably didn’t have to pay a bunch of money for something that they hadn’t done before.
In any case, everything went well, according to Ryan when we talked about it. I’ve never been to Amarillo SC, but Ryan frequents the comments and always has good things to say about their lifters. I will be visiting Amarillo SC on April 24th for the first 70’s Big Workshop (more on this tomorrow). Below are the top finishers in the two weight classes per gender (they had light and heavy weights) as well as a video compilation (Ryan apologizes for some sideways shots, it was his first video — oh and the high squats were red lighted, so don’t worry about bitching about them).
All results were determined with the Wilks Formula.’
Top 2 Lightweight Males (<185 lbs)
1. Brent Gunnels
BS of 375
BP of 330
DL of 450
2. Jason Rel
BS of 375
BP of 250
DL of 405.
Top 2 Lightweight Female (<145 lbs)
1. Heidi Coffman
BS of 200
BP of 130
DL of 260
2. Whitney Rel
BS of 175
BP of 95
DL of 200
Heavyweight Male Winners (>186 lbs)
1. Brent Story
BS of 500
BP of 340
DL of 500
2. Grayson Benson
BS of 385
BP 0f 275
DL of 470
Top 2 Female Heavy Weights (>146 lbs)
1. Tina Lucero
BS of 220
BP of 135
DL 0f 340
2. Lindsey Criswell
BS of 230
BP of 125
DL of 250
The Overall Winners were Brent Story and Tina Lucero
1st.
Some of those squats looked painful to watch. Especially the girl in the black. But there were some really strong ones as well.
Don’t ever post a link like that again, Mr. Blink.
–A.C.
Dammit blink…
damn, blink is pretty right.
Blink, you suck. Really.
Also, nice work Ryan and Heidi.
Yea some of it was rough looking for sure. But it was most of their first times doing a 1RM, so some 2nd and 3rd attempts got ugly. No one was entirely sure what they could do so there were some ambitious attempts. But we’re all just learning as we go. It was still a lot of fun.
Very cool Ryan. Did the judges use commands?
–A.C.
Also another thing that may be of interest, we’re havin an Oly lifting clinic this weekend at Amarillo S&C, taught by Doug Fairchild, a USAW Level III Coach.
Hey Justin, was just wondering if you’d be able to post a photo comparison of the low-bar vs. high-bar back squat? Was just reading Gary gibson’s article on the SS site and I think a side by side photo would make it a lot easier t see the difference.
Cheers,
Adam
I’d be glad to help, but Rip has done this ad nauseam. Look for his article in the CrossFit Journal or search for it here: http://startingstrength.com/index.php/site/resources.
He is quite thorough.
–Justin
AC,
Yea the judges used commands. We tried to run it as close to the real deal as we knew how.
Not all of it was perfect. We let them drop the deadlift from the top instead of guiding it down. (Ill take the blame for that one.) We also allowed them to hitch. It was just for fun after all.
Hey man, it’s cool. It’s not going to be perfect the first time. You guys are off to a good start.
–A.C.
Ryan, really not trying to be THAT guy right now but is it dangerous to drop a deadlift or is it just in the rules you have to guide it down? I read somewhere, not sure where, that going from fully loaded at lock to completely unloaded quickly is unsafe…
Again, no hate I’m just curious.
Awesome! Looks like there’s finally a reason to go to Amarillo. I’d love to work out with that group. However, I couldn’t keep watching the vid after the DL’s started…
Also, heavyweight > 185? Ouch!
Good work at that meet. I wish that my school gym would do something along those lines. After I was regaling my roommates with tales of the massive pork based easter food feast I consumed all weekend, my one roommate who routinely wears affliction and crossfit t-shirts snidely remarked “hope you live till 70 bro.” Douchebag Anyways here is a video of a dude who is most definitely 70s big and his music is almost always on point.
did Justin get to see Mr.Astley’s latest performance?
I would have been pissed had I done so. I’d prefer the moderators to not be pissed off at you, so can you behave now?
–Justin
Awesome, looks like a really good time! Congrats!
@Jacob,
Yea like I said, it got ugly. Most people had never maxed out, so there were some ugly looking stuff. I can assure their work sets do not look like that.
Also, the weight classes were really there just to be able to give more awards out. The Wilks Formula pretty much levelled everything out.
I thought a gave a pretty decent disclaimer, but I will reiterate. This was the first meet for most of the people at Amarillo SC, including the meet directors. Yes, there are going to be lots of things that are not ideal, but I don’t think it’s a big deal for the reasons I mentioned in the post.
Instead, you should be commending them for taking a CF environment into a lifting competition as well as sticking their necks out on the line knowing that they weren’t perfect. If they waited for all this shit to be perfect, than everyone wouldn’t be as well off. And that’s the point.
Justin,
Ill behave now. I had my laughs.
Ryan, hopefully you caught the “Awesome!” that led off my post, as that was the part I meant to emphasize. Totally understand that it was your first meet there, and I’m sure you guys will clean it up for the next one.
Yea I did Jacob. Thanks. There were plenty of other deadlifts, unfortunately not all of them were filmed cuz my battery died.
Sweet job Ryan and Heidi, I bet you can’t wait to run your next meet.
Ugly or not, I think the meet looked awesome. Props to everyone over there, keep doing your thing.
agree with wcm025, very cool that they set it up and let it rip. gotta start somewhere!
The mere fact that you ran a meet of any kind makes you guys fully awesome. Good luck with the next one!
A little off subject but the women off Uganda go into “Fattening Huts” for 2 months prior to getting married. They drink 5000 calories of milk a day. One lady gained 80lbs in 2 months. The men there like their women to be big. The bigger the better. Now thats 70s Big.
You guys wanna hang out?
I’d hang out with you A.C., I don’t care what they say about you.
Bromance.
–Justin
Don’t be jellyous.