Reader Submission: USAPL Raw Nationals Report

My name is Andrew Watson, I’ve been a long time reader of the site ever since the short short article caught my interest, in the past 5 years there’s close to a 2:1 ratio of days I’ve squatted vs days I have not, so I feel that any shorts that fall past my mid-thigh is a crime to society since these thighs should be shown to the world as we are all better for seeing them.

But Back to Raw Nats, I currently hold the Open Squat/Dead/Total American Records for 67.5kg in the USAPL and go in very confident, although recently I have been training more for weightlifting, my meet pr total is about 10kgs above my biggest competitor Shawn Fasquillo(National Champ and World team member last year), and I’ve been doing nothing but squatting as and despite knowing my bench is down I still believe I can walk out with a win. I weigh in at 65.2 the next day and lifting begins shortly after.

Squats – I fucking love to squat, I squat every possible moment, so much so I’ve earned the nickname Squatson at my gym at home. I open with a moderate 200kilo, get it up easy(that’s what she said) , but I beat the rack command and get redlighted, rookie mistake, I have some jitters. Same Attempt for attempt two and smoked it, but did not feel as easy as I would of liked, me being light, still in the process of rehydrating and deciding to stay conservative I just do a 5kilo jump on my last lift, hit it easy, and come out of the squats in 1^st overall with 205kilos.

Bench – Bench is stupid and I don’t like it, I hit 127.5/281lbs. Fasquilo hits 150/330, and I go into a 12.5kilo hole.

Deadlifts – This is where it becomes interesting, I am down by 12.5kilos, needing to tie since I weighed in lighter, and will have the last dead of the meet. I know his results from worlds about 2 months earlier and he pulled 232.5kgs on his third attempt there he went 3/3 so I believe he is capable of more, he knows what I am capable of, we all have a general idea of what each other will put up so competition can get pretty intense. I open with 230kilos, Shawn 215, putting me in the lead by 2.5kilos, next attempt, Shawn hits 227.5 I hit 242.5, this lift breaks my own dead American Record and keeps me up by 2.5kilos. Now onto thirds originally Shawn has his attempt listed at 240, so I put down 252.5. My handlers(Mike Talyor and Arain Khamesi from FSU, also Kristi Polizanno another worldteam member comes back to help with changes on dead as I have barely done this before.) drop my attempt to 250kilos after he drops his to 237.5, per usapl rules you are allowed 2 changes to your last dead attempt, with this pull I will win nationals and I will be heading to worlds. I walk out to the platform to the biggest ovation I have ever had for a lift in my life, screams, and my teammates behind me cheering me on. Holly fuck I am pumped, I begin my pull and immediately knew something was up, my ass shot up and the bar got slightly infront of me, for what feels like 3 mins but in reality less than a second I struggle with the weight right by my knees and it comes crashing back down, it happened, I missed the last dead, on a weight I have hit before and that’s it for me, tough fight but I come up short.  For this meet I was a member of Team Unconquered, noteables on this team were Rob Trettin and Mike Hedlesky both members of Team USA for this past worlds. We placed third in team scoring.

242.5kg dead

250kg attempt

After crying hysterically all night I come back the next day and watch some lifting, I see Jen Thompson and Kim Walford lift, who are two of the strongest women in the world. Kim deads 507 at 140lbs which is insanely impressive for anyone at that weight male or female, which was the loudest I’ve ever seen a pl crowd. LS McLain and Dave Ricks have another awesome battle at 93kgs, and I watch via live stream Blaine Sumner vs. Williams. This was an insanely well run meet, Robert Keller the meet director deserves some props for this as this had to be very strenuous to put together.

For me I’m going to continue being an asshole and training both for wling and pling going up to 74/75kgs for pl and will make the cut to 69 for wl, hope that somehow I get a call from the usapl about being an alternate to worlds, and now I’m planning a local wl meet, the American open (Weightlifting), and the arnold for powerlifting in the future.