Squat
242.5/533.62
257.5/567.68
267.5/589.73

Bench
167.5/369.3
175/385.8
182.5/402.3

Deadlift
207.5/457.5
210/463
260/573.20

8/9 and 267.5/182.5/260 = 710kg Total
1565.27 lbs Total

This NAPF meet was Alex’s third meet, and he’s really starting to flourish as a lifter. He has a good base from playing DIII collegiate football for four years. He’s a great squatter, a fantastic bencher, and was relatively new to deadlift when he started powerlifting. At the end of last year Alex moved back up to the north east, so he’s been training on his own with a template we talked about last summer. Since nationals in August, he’s put a focus on only pausing on the bench (every single rep). He could double or triple 405, but was only able to hit around 381 at Nationals — it was a skill he needed to learn. As you can see, it paid off with a successful 402 on his third attempt.

Alex typically deadlifts better when he’s with me, and I think the primary reason is because I settle him down a bit and give him one thing to think about. I don’t recall having to really fix anything in the warm-up room, maybe the angle of his torso in the set up, but I cued “smooth” on his lockout because he had never locked out anything about 550, so I was concerned that he’d have the “tut-tut-tut” hitching lockout. He didn’t, and 573 turned out to be a pretty simple rep.

I did, however, kind of fuck up his second deadlift. I was taking a short break and was talking to someone in the crowd during the break between when the guys were done warming up and the start of deadlifts. Since Alex’s opener was so light (his last warm-up), he opened first, and when I was walking in the hallway I heard them call his name. I got to the curtain as he was finishing the rep, and in the midst of my apologizing forgot to put in his second attempt. That means that they gave an automatic increase of 2.5 kilos (so from about 455 to 460 lbs). After some confusion, Mike finally said, “Just wave the attempt.” Duh. So we waived the attempt, took the “real” second attempt in the warm-up room (thanks to Shawn, Mel, Jeremy, and Bijan for loading the bar pretty quickly) with 515. It was easy, so I ran out and put in 573 for his third. 573 was higher than we originally planned, but I felt he had a lot in the tank (his previous best was 551). Before he actually did the attempt, I was thinking he could do 581 or 586, but I didn’t want to push it given that I was still worried about the possible hitching lockout. It’s always better to be slightly conservative and get the rep compared to pulling the trigger and missing the rep (assuming the lift isn’t necessary for the win and it isn’t the lifter’s long-standing goal).

As for squat, Alex’s squats were a joke. He smoked his third at 589. I had been cuing him to “control” the descent through the warm-ups, and he actually did that pretty well on the first and second attempts. I didn’t cue it on the third attempt, because I wanted him to be crazy. In my “attempt prep” I mainly challenged him to go out and hit it. With Alex, I just cue “wait” so that he remembers to wait for the judge, other than that, I let him go weapons free on his squat and bench and instead just help to amp him up.

Alex is a lot of fun to coach, and he’s really friggin’ strong. The things he needs to work on are being more systematic with his training (which is partly my fault for not checking in on it regularly) and to develop his deadlift. By having a more direct focus on what he hits on his heavy squat and bench days, those lifts will continue to develop nicely. As for the deadlift, I think he should rack pull heavy twice a month to train the posterior chain lockout; he doesn’t have any issues off the floor due to his good base of squatting musculature. We’ll add them in within the context of our “advanced TM” method of programming. Lastly, he’ll include some fun junk-yard-style conditioning because he’s a certified fire fighter and is still applying for full time positions.

Overall, Alex had a solid meet and I think he’ll easily hit his goal of totaling over 1600 at the next meet. I see at least a 600 squat, some improvement on his 402 bench, and at least a 600 deadlift in the 120 class. Tuttles.

I’ve seen Cathy Marksteiner at some meets in the past, and she’s always been really amusing to interact with. This past weekend she was working the table and ultimately coddled me when I kept screwing things up. I’m only half joking, but she and some other IPF officials made the meet fun for a coach.

I was unaware that she was inducted into the USAPL Hall of Fame. She’s been in the sport of powerlifting for over 30 years. That article quoted her as saying, “It’s all about friendships and relationships across the US and World!” That’s obviously true given that she hit a front double biceps pose with me on the stage (pictured above). Below is a video of her competing at the 2009 IPF Master’s World Championships. If you ever see Cathy at a meet, strike up a conversation because she’s easy to get along with. There are good people in powerlifting.

Mike’s goals for this meet were to go 9/9 and total at least 1550 (if all the lifts were good, he would have had 1552). But the theme of the day was “trouble” for Mike.

During the squat warm-ups, I noticed that Mike’s knees were sorta forward at the bottom of the squat. Lately he’s been using high bar and front squats on his volume day, and it seemed that he developed a bit of “forwardness” in his squat. I brought this up to him, but we decided not to try and cue it all that much. Instead, I was more concerned with cuing “speed” on the descent. At 2011 USAPL Raw Nationals, I thought Mike’s lack of speed on the descent limited him in his bounce, and it also facilitated the judges in red-lighting his third attempt in that meet. My emphasis on a fast descent would ensure he gets the full stretch-reflex out of his hamstrings and probably help him achieve some depth. He looked better during the final few warm-ups. Note that it’s possible he sits back better with heavier weight (anything over, say, 475); some lifters will look different with light stuff than heavy stuff.

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The 2012 NAPF Raw Challenge is sanctioned under the North American Powerlifting Federation, which is under IPF ruling. It’s a step up from USAPL and a step down from IPF Worlds and was our first international competition (you could compare it to the Pan American Championships with Olympic weightlifting). You can view all of the results HERE.

The primary method of admission to this meet for USAPL members was to lift at the 2011 Raw Nationals and have at least a 375 Wilks total. Only 75 lifters were accepted including Chris, Mike, and Alex. Alex originally planned to lift in the 105kg class, but decided he didn’t want to lose at least 20 pounds, so moved to the 120kg class. Mike originally was going to lift in the 120 class, but figured he would only be able to make 5th place in either class (based on his top numbers), and decided not to worry about losing the weight (he weighed in at 280, so about 16 pounds over the 120/264 limit), especially since he has to do so for an Air Force PFT every six months. Chris lifted in the 120+ class.

All three of my guys were lifting in the same flight. I’ve handled five lifters in the same meet before, yet they were in different flights or sessions. Having three guys in a flight of 15 was a different experience. There were times when Alex and Mike were following each other and Chris was up only five attempts later. I actually missed coaching Alex’s first squat because I was putting Mike’s second attempt in at the table.

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While the fellas were weighing in on Friday, Jennifer Thompson was busy with a World Record performance in the NAPF Raw Challenge. This is a video of her final deadlift, but she had alreadysquatted 142.5/313.5 and benched 136.5/300.3. That’s right, a woman weighing right under 132 lbs benched 300 lbs. Sounds like some of you need to step up your bench game, huh? This video is of her final deadlift at 195kg/429lbs. Amazing.