The Amateur

“Mmmm…you smell like outside!”

Dang, some of you are too gullible. In fact, did you know gullible is not even in the dictionary? Look it up if you don’t believe me.

In any case, it’s PR Friday. Post your weight lifted, consumed, or gained, and also post all of the temperamental moments you had when someone pulled an April Fool’s joke on you.

———-

My friend Spencer Hall from SB Nation is known as “The Amateur”, the guy who can’t do anything as good as those who can. Well, recently he shot up to Charlotte to witness his first powerlifting meet. This was the “Battle of the Border” meet that AC competed in a few weekends ago. Spencer wrote an article for the SB Nation readers who are more than likely not familiar with powerlifting. He highlights AC quite a bit, and there’s a pretty funny video at the end. Even if he didn’t talk about my pal Ace, I still would enjoy this article — Spencer had me laughing my ass off. For example:

Unfortunately…a mustache [that Spencer is wearing] brands you as:

a.) A gregarious pedophile

b.) A new expat from the Middle East

c.) A misplaced fisherman

d.) Nick Offerman, also known as Ron Swanson on NBC’s hit sitcom Parks and Recreation

And here is an exchange between Spencer and AC:

I ask him how much his hair is worth on a lift.

“The hair? Oh, that’s ten pounds, easy.”

“The beard is five, right?”

“Definitely. And you have to wear the singlet. This one is my dad’s. His balls were in this singlet.”

He wears a look of pride on his face as he says this.

“Singlets are cool. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”



The article is very fucking funny, and Spencer has a nice little description of an outsider’s view of a powerlifting meet. We’ll probably hear from him again in the future.

68 thoughts on “The Amateur

  1. What I did today:
    Squats:
    400X4 (was going for 3X5 but failed on first set so switched it up, especially since meet coming up in 6 weeks..and tried for a little more weight and fewer reps)
    405X2
    415X1X2

    Today was the first day in my life I squatted in the 400’s. So this was PR day overall. Didn’t have time to get my pressing and deadlifting in but I’ll do that tomorrow morning.
    Going to change up programming pretty soon to get ready for the meet.

  2. 255×2 deadlift.
    Makes me particularly happy since I haven’t been lifting heavy for the past five weeks — I was doing a bunch of crossfit-style stuff for (sorry guys) fat loss. But damn I like going back to basics.

  3. The advantage of TM is more weekly variation and true weekly progress vs 1 month between setting new 5RMs, 3RMs or 1RMs in 5-3-1. It seems to be laid out more like an advanced type program. It’d work just not as fast.

  4. Track meets all week.

    100m – 12.0 maybe a faster one this week (because I only got times for 2/3 meets)
    200m – 24.9
    400m – 56

  5. DL: 325

    Even better than the PR was the old woman (probably 70-75–yes there was a 70-75 year old woman at the gym I go to, long story) who walked by after the set and said “nice deadlift.” Yes I am completely serious.

  6. hi how much is a monthly membership to WFAC and is there a portion of cleared dirt in the lot to sleep on

    i would phone but it would cost a couple dollars and my ricepaper internet connection does the trick

  7. Squat PR today

    450x 5 x 3

    Also had to change my shirt right before my working sets because one of the gym attendents saw me put chalk on my back…it really pissed me off

  8. @dswellsjr:

    Not sure I follow. They don’t allow you to squat with chalk on your shirt? I know gyms get pissy about chalk sometimes… but, it’s already on your back? Why the fuck did you have to change?

  9. Competed in a WL competition this weekend and I PRed in both lifts in spite of the shame of cutting weight (my school won because I took the 105’s by default though)

    Snatch 72
    C&J 86

    I know those are low weights but I’m slow as molasses and I’ve only done 6-8 weeks of serious jerk/snatch training in the past 6 months(still did my cleans though). I would be competing in PL if there were any local competitions at all. I expect to do way better this july in my next meet. It’s just a very informal competition called the BBQ meet and I’ll be much stronger and faster by then w/ no more weight cutting.

  10. I work out at both a world gym and a ymca. I prefer the ymca because i can use chalk as long as i clean up, but they close early on weekends so i lifted at world. Yes I was getting ready to unrack the weight and he came rushing over to bitch about the chalk.

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