USAW School Age Nationals

Posted on by

PR Friday — post all your personal records to the comments.
———-

USA Weightlifting’s School Age Nationals begins today (at 7:00 AM actually) in the bay area of California. There will be 287 kids from around the country competing on two platforms. I’ve never seen an Olympic weightlifting meet run on two platforms (seen it in powerlifting), so it should be non-stop lifting. The best part is that they are running a live webcast for both platforms. You can watch it here.

Remember when I talked about Paul Doherty and Hassle Free? Well, they have lots of lifters competing as well as other bay area clubs like, FitBBC, TJ’s Gym, Catalyst Athletics, California Strength, The Sports Palace and Myles Ahead — somewhere around 50 lifters from this area alone.

I wish I would have been recruited for weightlifting when I was younger (I was pretty good at power cleaning), but we can watch all of these kids that range from 13 to 17. You can see the schedule and qualifying totals for each weight class starting on page five of this .PDF file. Oh, and here’s a quick shout out to my pal Kyle — he’s 15 years old and qualified for nationals, but won’t be making the trip to compete. Good stuff nonetheless.
———-

Here’s a pretty cool video of David Rigert, a 90kg lifter, pressing 203kg in a 1971 competition. That’s about 446 lbs. boys and girls. You’ll notice the obvious knee kick, but that’s how guys pressed because the judges allowed it. The press was eliminated from competition one year later. I always wonder how different weightlifting meets would be if we had to do the clean and press first.


72 thoughts on “USAW School Age Nationals”

  1. I can’t stop watching :18-:24. Amazing quickness.

    PR’s: Helped get Kittensmash and his buddy Jordan (sorry, I don’t remember his moniker here) drunk up in WA at a BBQ. These guys make everyone else I know look 90s-small. I’d post a picture but they make me look like a lanky guy (at 245lbs!). Ridiculous. Both dudes are pressing more than I can jerk. I can’t wait to train with them again soon. As for real PRs, I managed to PC a measly 257lbs there and split jerked 110kg today in my first attempt at it. Meh, it’s a start at least.

  3. I made it into the 1000 lbs. Club for the CF Total.

    Back Squat – 404
    Overhead Press – 180
    Deadlift – 462
    Total = 1046

    All PRs and it felt great. I’ve been waiting awhile for this one! Tweaked by back a little doing BS for triples on Monday though.

  4. PRs this week:

    Squat: 320# for a triple
    Bench: 208# for three singles (paused)
    Press: 115# x 5×3

    1st PL meet is two weeks from tomorrow.

    M / 49 / 6’1″ / 208# / BF=sufficient

  5. Bodyweight: 210- up from 192.5, and 5 lbs from last week. Today’s the last day of GOMAD.

    Squat: 310x3x5
    Deadlift: 295x1x5

    All I got for this week. Arms have been shot from work, but squats are coming along steadily.

  8. BRENT!

    When are you coming to H-Town to compete. I need to make sure I have a shirt by then so that I can cheer for you!

    You’ll have to convince him to do that meet at the end of July. He’ll be doing it with essentially no Oly training since he’s been getting ready for the USAPL Raw Nationals on July 17th. Don’t know if there are any other meets down there, but I’m pretty sure he’ll be going back to his old mistress; Olympic weightlifting.

    –Justin

  10. DAVEN- Hey man, in response to your question yesterday… Im basically in the Med Center… not too far from the Heights. Where do you work out at? I could use some coaching on my form for sure…

  11. Oh i forgot about my PR this week…

    488 Rack Pull… not super impressive, but it was my first time doing Rack Pulls and my first time pulling anything heavy in about a month.

  12. Longtime lurker, first time poster.

    I find this site as inspiring as it is hilarious on a daily basis. And for that, I thank you.

    The following are my PRs. These are all lifts that I executed for 5×5, except for deadlifts which is 1×5. I’ve never tried to find my 1RMs, however I plan to do so soon.

    (lbs):
    Squat 225
    Bench 220
    Press 110
    Deadlift 250

    Current bodyweight: 171 at 5’9”. I’m up about 15 lbs from where I started last year. Need more!

    My favorite 70s Big food: full rack beef tenderloins that I can slice up to my liking, buttery mashed sweet potatoes, full fat goat’s milk, and collard greens to keep things moving.

  15. The speed on the press is awesome, I had to watch it a few times to see it.

    Almost a recent PR on food at a BBQ joint. Got a sampler platter, with 1/2# brisket, 1/2# pulled pork, 2 full smoked sausages, 3 ribs, 2 sides; coleslaw and beans. I had to put the fork down with half of one link and a few bites of pork left.

  16. Hmmmm what can we do to get Brent to compete in this oly meet….

    Brent, You know its cooler to enter a competitiion without any preparation, right? Its like taking a test without studying for it, stone cold baby(and we all know asians don’t need to study anyway bc they are already really smart.) Like my old pal Olmec used to say: The chioces are yours, and yours alone! Will you make it to The Shrine of the Silver Monkey!?!

    One time I took a test without studying when I was still drunk from the night before. I scored higher than my friend who stayed up all night studying.

    –Justin

    Keep in mind Justin is extremely intelligent.

    –A.C.

  17. I ate 1.5 KG of Lamb, 2 cloves of garlic, drank 3 beers, and 20 Chinese lamb kabob sticks. Admittedly, it was a lot, but I hulked up at the end and finished.

    IN: Hulking up to do anything awesome.
    OUT: Bosu Balls.

  18. Off topic question…I competed in my first PL meet two weeks ago. I was really drained for several days following the meet so I went light the following week. My plan was to hit the work sets I had done prior to the meet this week and then progress from there.

    I was able to complete my BP and SP sets but the first set of squats felt like a 5RM so I dropped the weight 20 pounds for the remaining sets and completed them but this was not easy either. Is this normal/common? Thanks in advance.

    You probably should have taken a week completely off to just relax and have fun. The feeling you are having is completely normal. Just do a small reset and you will be back to your previous work sets in no time.

    –A.C.

    I’m gonna do a post on this soon.

    –Justin

  20. I wish there were meets now called the Friendship cup.

    It sounds like everyone who competes in that is a winner.

    sounds like a meet perfect for BEEEST FRIEEEEEENDS

    – brent

  21. PB’s for the week:

    High bar back squat: 155kgx3
    Bench Press: 80kgx5 (bench sucks)
    Clean 130kg

    Eating Pb: 5 returns to the grill at my local mongolian bbq

    Comment pb: The mrs says we need a new bed as there’s no room for her since I got so damn big

  22. Competition week, no pr’s till PR Saturday!

    Back tweaked on Monday doing a belted light 225lb front squat with no obvious form problem. Was somewhat sore/tight after that earlier this week, but shouldn’t matter tomorrow.

    I’ll be in the 94kg class, competing for second as dave motoyoshi is now a 94. (He lifted 275 in peoria)

    I could total anywhere between 240 to 250 depending on what I need to jerk to get 2nd.

    Training bests are 110/136 vs my likely opponent’s 108/145. He rarely tops his training lifts in meets where I have beat my best training lifts in 4 of my 5 meets.

    In short it will be a good match.

  23. Good week so far. I have been training at a gold’s near my house since I got home from college and the atmosphere sucks but there are plenty of racks in the basement. They have kb’s an o-lifting set (which they try to keep you from dropping), glute ham, rings, etc.. A couple of crazy meathead bodybuilder types lift there and although they frequently do silly bullshit, one of them did deadlift 465 18 times in a row last week. There is in fact some inspiration abound in a somewhat crappy gym.

    5-8 205 or so
    5 by 5 Squat- 320 PR
    5 by 1 Bench- 225 PR (Weak bench)
    5 by 5 press-135 (failed on the 5th rep of the fifth set for the second time in a row)
    8 by 2 snatch – 135
    I was really hitting a good strength level and consistency when school ended but things got screwy with vacation and I am finally getting back to my old self. 70s big.

    465×18 ain’t no joke.

    –Justin

  24. 5’6″, 192lbs

    Monday: Squat 337.5×3 (took it easy, didn’t sleep Sunday night and things weren’t working properly.) Hit a PR of 9 chest-to-bar pullups with a 20lb vest on.

    Tuesday: Press 151×9, power snatch PR of 175, haven’t O lifted in months.

    Thursday: Deadlift 369×13. PR on CTB chins with vest (10.)

    Friday: Bench press 202.5×11 (last “3” day on bench I got 198×10, so quite happy with this, even if my bench still is pussy.)

  26. LAST EXAM PR!!

    Last exam of the season for 2nd year at university today!

    But I can’t too excited, I know I failed something and will have to re-sit in August. Bad times that will mess up my training this summer. Oh well, I’m going to enjoy the two weeks I’ve got until results come out.

    Justin, are there any other blog sites that put out articles every damn day? I haven’t seen many. Great work guys.

  27. Justin, you know full well that all proper olympic lifting is to be done in kilos.

    —
    Of course he does, and he knows that you know that and would report it that way. But some of the readers don’t (even though they should). So we want to avoid having a functional fitness competitor (TM) read this and say, “meh, I snatched 150 last week!”

    BTW, nice job on the lifts.

    Gant

  28. Stonewall and Justin:

    first of all Justin, i already told you that after the USAPL meet i am just going to focus on swolling up my traps with a 5×10 barbell shrug routine 3x a week. (hold for a two count at the top of the shrug)

    and Stonewall, sorry man, in addition to it being like a week after USAPL raw nationals, i’ll also be in the middle of being trained as a medical assistant for work (i’m an RT but i will be learning to administer medication and other nurse-type shit), probably won’t be able to get off work due to my altered schedule … i’ll be doing class Mon-Thurs and working each weekend

  29. Well Brent I hope you learn well, I guess drugs aren’t so bad after all! Oh also, send us some before and after picks of your traps!

  31. Rest PR. In the midst of my semi-annual breakdown. Resting a pulled ab muscle and a hip flexor injury. Did some light recovery Monday and some light work on the mat last night. Otherwise, nothing in two weeks outside of smoking meat, drinking beer, and playing in the pool.

  33. homer,

    i’ll post it here, the formatting might be messed up but you should still get the general idea:

    Monday/Wed/Fri: SHRUG LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER

    you can email me if you have any questions

    Can you telegraph me your email address?

    –A.C.

  35. PR First week of Pathfinder school down. Went looking for a gym on Fort Benning, walked in expecting the usual Cybex Circus commonly found on Army posts, but instead found a converted basketball court, with rubber flooring, and where the bleachers would be there are 6 power racks, 6 lifting platforms, benches, bumper plates, more kettlebells than I’ve ever seen in one place, rowers, dumbbells, plyo boxes and the entire court part is left often to use the drag sleds and whatever else you would use the open space for. I dont know who got all this together for Fort Benning, but I was pretty impressed. Apparently it’s where the “functional fitness competitors” (Gant, haha) get together to “wad”. I have yet to see anyone using any of the equipment properly, but it’s a big step. There are two whiteboards on either end of the gym where they write up their workout times and what have you. Thought I might write 70sbig.com real big on both to maybe steer some folks over here.

  40. Well, this might seem like a noob PR, but this week I’ve just finally gotten serious about eating enough to get big. Started GOMAD on monday. I ate 4,900 calories today, and that is a PR for me. Hah!

    It’ll definitely help me reach my goals for PR’s in actual lifts :)

  41. Comment PR: My girlfriend said that my legs were like two Thanksgiving turkeys and could feed her family five times over. (My girlfriend has 7 other siblings)

  42. Back squat 5 x 5 x 145 lbs
    Front squat 5 x 5 x 125 lbs

    That front squat set was the hardest set I’ve done for any lift ever. I guess this is where the real work begins.

    F/5’8/135 lbs

  43. Justin and all,

    What is your opinion on the layback that occurs during the middle (not at the start) of the press?

    I notice Rigert has a lot in his lift.

    For us guys who follow SS, is it ok for us to layback this much during the last few grinding reps? Or is it too much, and should we quit the set?

    many thanks,
    R P McMurphy

    As soon as the bar starts clearing your forehead you need to get under the bar quickly. If you are laying back like Rigert here you need to do a small reset and work and moving your body under the bar.

    –A.C.

    Don’t worry about what Rigert is or isn’t doing — he’s pressing over 400 pounds and none of us are close.

    –Justin

  45. PRs

    BW 82.7kg
    SQ 3x5x87.5kg (I’ll be into the 200s in lbs soon, yay)

    Clothing PR – finally got a new pair of work pants – sweet relief!
    The old ones had become increasingly tight and uncomfortable over past few weeks with my growing, er, posterior chain? New ones are first pair of pants over 32″ I’ve ever owned (34″)

    Birthday coming up on 30th, hope to get some decent $$ towards bumpers. Also, the missus has given in principle approval to using tax return $$ for equipment – sweet.

  46. BTW, nice lifting everybody.

    A.C., those numbers are legit! TBone, good to see some females getting involved : )

    Thanks, but how legit would you say they are?

    –A.C.

  50. Thanks AC

    What is underlying ‘weakness’ that is causing rigert (and myself) to layback like this in the middle of the lift??

    As Sapper stated it is very different from the way we press using SS and it is not ‘weakness’ that causes him to use layback. It is on purpose. You on the other hand, if you are following SS, do not need to be pressing like that.

    –A.C.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.