On my way back to Denver last week I sat next to a thin young woman who told me that she aimed to gain some weight. We talked throughout the plane ride and she said something to the affect of, “Wow, I didn’t realize everything I knew was wrong. I have so many friends that are skinny just like me.” Really? I forgot about this demographic. You can’t blame me since around 60% of Americans are overweight or obese. Girls typically are wanting to “lose weight” and “get toned” when they get involved in fitness stuff, so you don’t run across too many that are trying to grow.
Women like this need a sandwich
It’s hard for these women like this to actually grow, even if they are “doing weights”. Assuming they get the advice to lift some kind of weight, that advice is followed by recommendations to move 15 lb. dumbbells around a few times a week. I suppose that’s better than sitting on one’s ass all the time, but it isn’t going to help a skinny girl grow.
The principles are the same: get stronger with compound, full body movements and eat to have an abundance of protein and caloric surplus. Squatting, pressing, benching, and deadlifting are the foundation. Skinny girls owe it to themselves to gain weight for the sake of practicality as well as aesthetics. I’m not a woman, but I would think that a woman would want a curvy figure. Squatting and the related exercises help develop this wonderfully.
There are some problems that a skinny girl will run into. She’ll need help understanding why getting stronger will help, and why eating much much MUCH more protein is necessary. Compound movements that help make you strong cause some natural damage to muscle. This causes a lot of disruption in the body as well as in the relevant muscles used. In order to repair and help that muscle grow, an appropriate amount of protein is necessary along with adequate calories. “Appropriate” and “adequate” are much much MUCH higher than what Skinny Girl has been taught, and these fallacies need to be rectified. The gal I spoke with on the plane probably weighed 95 pounds. If she wants to be 110 pounds, she needs to eat like a 110 pound girl. That means she needs 110 grams of protein. I bet she was getting less than 30 grams before talking to me.
Females in general don’t eat enough protein, so having them plan their meals around their protein is the first step. Getting them past that “conventional wisdom” and “social barrier” of not eating a lot of food is necessary so that they will actually get enough calories to grow and…well…survive better. I wouldn’t place any dietary restrictions on a skinny girl if she was trying to gain weight. If after 5 or 6 weeks there is noticable bodyfat, then we can adjust things. But, I’m telling you, if she eats the minimum protein amount and is squatting three times a week, she won’t have any problem with bodyfat.
It’s actually quite simple, but the fitness and nutrition industries have fucked things up so bad, most women are handicapped before they even start their quest of gaining weight, looking better, and feeling better. I hope that we can help change this silly mindset one Skinny Girl at a time…
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I know that was boring for a lot of you dudes, but it’s for the best. Hopefully the following video will entertain you. This was on the Friday before the Raw Nationals meet we went to in Denver a couple weeks ago. We had just gotten our rental car and I only recorded two clips, but they are worth watching. Brent is being his usual pain-in-the-ass self, Chris is exasperated by his behavior, Mike is saying random things that don’t make sense, and I generally don’t acknowledge any of it. Oh, and Chris apparently called shotgun right before I turned the camera on. I like how Chris and Brent are bickering from the get-go.
Last week’s posts were dominated by our experience from Raw Nationals. A lot of you have written in saying how much 70’s Big has inspired you to compete, and I enjoy every one of those e-mails. 70’s Big is an attitude, and part of that attitude is putting yourself to the test and risking failure along the way.
I’m going to periodically share some stories from people who have written to me about their competitions. Today I want to highlight Antoinette’s journey into her first powerlifting meet earlier this month. You may remember her from this post when she deadlifted 250lbs. Antoinette is coached by her boyfriend Eric, and he did a solid job on teaching her the barbell lifts and helping her develop a great strength base. On a side note, Antoinette told me that when she got into lifting, she dropped bodyfat and even though she was eating a lot more. I’ll let her comment on that, but typically when girls start getting stronger they have an improvement in body composition.
Eric and Antoinette having a rough time with the 70's Big Face
The first time Antoinette e-mailed me, she was asking about the best way to taper her “Texas Method” program into the meet. TM programming works really well with people shifting from novice programming to intermediate, and once the lifter has been on it for a few months, it can be transitioned pretty well into a short taper for a meet. I recommended she start doing 3 rep maxes (3RM) so it would paint a more accurate picture of what she could open with.
Antoinette kept in touch with me as she got ready for the meet, and unfortunately she was hit with various types of the black plague for the three weeks leading into the meet. In any case, she didn’t let it deter her from having a solid day. Eric wrote me a recap, and I’ll give it to you from the horse’s mouth:
So our plan was to open conservatively and make reasonable jumps for the second attempts on each lift so, worst case, she could go 6/9 and put up lifts in the neighborhood of her training PRs. Seeing how she was coming off being sick for most of the three weeks prior to the meet, and the fact that her Tuesday recovery day hadn’t gone very well, we definitely wanted to keep things on the low side. Add in the fact that she was on the verge of having an anxiety attack prior to her first lift (she can tell you more about that) and I was still a little worried going into the squats.
We decided to open at 105kg on squats, which was a weight she had tripled without too much struggle two weeks ago. You can see that it looked a little more difficult than it should have, which was mainly due to her nervousness preventing her from getting a good deep breath before starting the lift. So we only went with a 2.5kg jump for her second attempt, which put her about 9lbs short of her gym PR of 245lbs. 107.5kg went up without too much problem since she had calmed down a lot once she got the first lift out of the way. She had a slight knee turn-in and loss of back angle, so we knew she could handle quite a bit more weight if she fixed that. For her third attempt we jumped to 112.5kg, and even with a slight knee turn-in (looks like it was due to toes not being angled out enough in the stance) it went up without any problem.
Bench was definitely her weakest event–on her last intensity day she had put up 125lbs (which was a PR for her) but it didn’t go easy. We opened at 52.5kg which went up easy enough, but I was still hesitant about making a big jump on bench so we only went to 55kg for attempt #2. That went up easy enough that I felt comfortable calling for 60kg on the third attempt. By this time she had gotten over the nervousness and was able to channel the pressure in a productive way and get amped up for each lift. 60kg went up far easier than I had expected, giving her a 7lb PR on bench.
With deadlift we wanted to use the first attempt essentially as a final warmup lift so she would have something left for her second and third attempts. So we opened at 102.5kg, which she has done for a set of 5 before. That went up easy enough for us to feel comfortable jumping to 110kg on her second attempt…again short of her gym 1RM but something that would let her get a solid number on the board without too much trouble. After hitting that attempt easily we jumped to 115kg, 3lbs over her gym PR. She pulled 115kg like it was a warmup lift, and it looked far stronger than when she set her previous deadlift PR a few weeks ago.
So in the end, she went 9/9 and totaled 287.5kg, good for 2nd place in her weight class in the raw open. Tracee Patterson, the winner in her weight class, hold several national records in that class, so it was no shame to take second place to her. All three lifts were PRs and it looked like she could have handled about 5kg more on the bench and 7.5-10kg more on the squat and deadlift, but being her first meet we thought it was a better idea to leave something on the table rather than taking a chance bombing out or getting hurt.
That, my friends, is how you handle someone at their first meet. Antoinette had e-mailed me, and we went back and forth with strategy. I mentioned that they could take the last warm-up for deadlift on the platform, and that’s what they decided to do in order to help her go 9/9 in the meet. And really, PR’s on all the lifts and going 9/9? I can’t think of a better way to motivate anybody, especially a girl in her first competition. Nice job Antoinette, and nice job Eric.
Here is Antoinette’s last deadlift (you can see her other lifts here):
Last year I talked about how I got sick of eggs. I’ve been eating at least three eggs a day for about five years, so once I ate six a day in early 2009, it became monotonous. Eggs are a fantastic food complete with necessary protein, fat, and vitamins. They’re pretty cheap and can be prepared in different ways, so you can’t really afford to not eat them.
About a month ago, I watched Chris eat a plateful of plain, scrambled eggs. It was quite a chore. The next week he called me and said, “Dude, I almost threw up eating my eggs.” It kinda sucks eating the same thing every day, but he was plodding on because he knew how beneficial they were.
Well, suffer no more.
You may have tried Tabasco sauce on your eggs, but now you need to try Tabasco Chipotle. The first time I had this stuff, I had it on a 14 inch double meat and double cheese philly cheesesteak. I experimented with it on my eggs, and I was pleasantly surprised. Bland scrambled eggs become wildly delicious and I crave it every morning. I’m surprised at how fast I wolf my eggs down now, especially because I had to force them down until I discovered this gem. If you’re getting sick of eggs, give them a nice dousing with Tabasco Chipotle.
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Here’s a shout out to my buddy Ben in Sacramento, CA. We competed at nationals together and he placed sixth overall. He recently competed earlier this month and finished with 138/162. Ben competes with Paul Doherty’s Hassle Free weightlifting team. In this video, he snatches 145kg and clean and jerks 165kg. Nice. I’m hoping to train with Ben when AC and I are out in California in a couple weeks.
PR Friday — Post all your personal records to today’s comments.
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The 100kg session lasted almost four hours, so I was sort of burned out already. The 110kg, 125kg, and 125kg and up weight classes were all in the same session, so they were all weighing in at the same time. USAPL conveniently didn’t post a schedule for the roster like they did that morning for the 100kg class, and they are a bit gruff in the weigh-in room. When Mike and Chris were finally weighed, I drove Brent, Mike, and Chris to go eat at the same breakfast place from the day before. Thankfully I went, because the coffee, waffle, eggs, bacon, and sausage helped refuel me for the next six hours.
When we got back to the hotel, we had about 15 minutes until the session started. There were two flights and Mike was in the first and Chris was in the second. Again, they wouldn’t let me see the second flight’s order so I had no clue when Chris was going to open. I don’t fucking understand why they can’t just post it on the wall and clarify it’s “subject to change”. Having to aim a shot in the dark is irritating since I like to have the lifter take their last warm-up about 5 to 8 attempts out.
Irre-fucking-gardlessly, we warmed Mike up pretty quickly. He wanted to open lower than the 222.5kg (491lbs) that we went with, but I talked him into bumping it up since 240kg (529lbs) was his goal. Mike was pretty wound up, especially in his “getting pumped” period before that first squat. Most athletes are similar – I know that in football I was always a little razzed up until I got my first hit in at linebacker. It’s the same with my friends and their first squat; they settle down a bit afterwords. Thank god, because Mike was starting to piss me off the way he was grabbing me and hitting me before and after the easy opener.
We took 232.5kg (512lbs) on his second attempt which matched the PR from the last meet. Mike was a bit slow out of the bottom, but once he got the bar moving again it never slowed down. I cued him quite a bit on getting a sharp bounce on his third attempt of 240kg (529lbs). Choosing third attempts is a bit tricky; I look at the lift and judge how difficult it was, I ask them what they thought of it, and then I take into account what their goal is. As I mentioned a couple days ago, I took more of a risk at this meet because I figured, “Fuck, it’s a national meet, let’s force them to step up.” I called for the 240kg (529lbs). I wanted Mike to know he got the most out of his squat.
The last month leading up to this meet was a bit tough for Mike. He is an instructor in the Air Force and he has to stay under a 39 inch waist. This means that he can stay around 250 and cut some weight to lower down to a bit under 240 for his PT test (which he has never failed), so it fits nicely into competing in the 242lb class. The only problem was that he almost weighed 260 after he went on leave for a couple weeks, so he had a hellacious weight loss period. His training suffered, he felt like shit, and he was irritable as hell. He passed the PT test (which has new standards nowadays – if you fail one section, you fail the whole thing!), and got ready for the meet with sub-par training. It was all an after thought as we sat in the warm-up room getting ready for his last squat.
Unfortunately you can’t see that last attempt, because Brent Fucking Kim mis-pressed the record button on my camera and turned it off when he thought he was turning it on. AC has some footage, but what I remember in person is that the third attempt looked better than his second attempt. He bounced well, fought a bit, but drove it up evenly. Nice work.
Meanwhile Chris was warming up behind the stage. Ace came back and was helping me load, did a bit of filming, and generally giggled with Chris about the scenario based jokes that Chris likes to perform. Chris opened a little more than halfway into his flight, and we set him up with a 257.5kg (568lbs) squat as an opener. The goal was to PR, and that means anything higher than 600lbs. Chris is a pretty strong squatter – recently he did three sets of five at 500lbs, but he has a tendency to let his knees come in at the bottom, and this brings his hips and ass, thus the bar, a bit forward. He did a decent job on the opener, and had a pretty sick bounce out of the bottom. I still thought he could be tighter, and this was my emphasis when talking to him in the back.
We moved ahead towards 267.5kg (590lbs) on his second attempt. After Chris got that first attempt out of the way, he had better focus as we prepared for the 590. After he walked the weight out and received the squat command, he hit the bottom loosely. It’s a combination of going a bit too low and letting his knees fall in, and as a result his pelvis and butt actually move forward. As you can expect, it completely relaxes his hamstrings, and he no longer has that important muscle group to help him with the ever important bounce. This is all hard to see from the angle I was at behind him – all I know is that his knees came in. It wasn’t until I reviewed the tape that I saw him move forward. The fact that he quad pressed 590 back to the top is impressive. He got it, but it was a struggle.
I had a choice at the moment. I could try and match his 600 squat that he did in April or I could go for the next bump up and PR at 606. I was banking on getting him extremely amped for the last squat as well as cuing him to be tight. When he came back from the first attempt, I told him his knees yanked in at the bottom and to shove them out. My mistake is that I didn’t emphasize this and didn’t use it as my main cue. I didn’t bring it up because Chris is an anxious guy, and I didn’t want him thinking about more than a few things at once. I just used the vague phrase of “staying tight”. “Staying tight” as a cue doesn’t mean shit, and I never use it because it isn’t descriptive and doesn’t command the lifter HOW to stay tight, so I wish I would have cued his knees instead.
I got Chris as amped as he could be, told him to have a ‘sharp bounce’ out of the bottom (a familiar cue between us), and had to stand and watch. When you watch him on film, he falls pretty fast into the bototm, loosens up the same way he did on the second attempt, drifts his ass forward, and doesn’t have any hamstring bounce. I don’t see this as a “the weight was too heavy” situation, because I think he could have gotten it had I been cuing him properly from the start of his warm-ups. The good news is we know exactly what to cue him on heavy squats, and I think he’ll progress very well into the next meet.
Mike’s flight began benching next, and the bench press is Mike’s weakest event. His long gangly arms make it hard on him. In his defense, his reach is about six inches longer than AC’s, and longer than that when compared to mine. We opened at 127.5kg (281lbs), which was actually pretty easy. The problem is that the loaders loaded the bar incorrectly, so they made him get off the bench, walk back to me, then walk back to the bench, and in this process he absentmindedly forgot about the commands. I consider this my fault also, because I should have reminded him of the commands, but the mis-load got me mentally off track as well and I was talking to the judge next to me. I’ll be focused constantly in the next meet that I coach.
The opener was still easy, even though it was red-lighted, and we went up to 132.5kg (292lbs). Mike hit this with a little bit of trouble, but locked it out for a 5kg PR. The next choice I had was to either go to 297 or 303lbs. Well, 297 ain’t 300 and 300 is what Mike had a goal of, so I went ahead and gave him 137.5 (303lbs) on the third attempt. This is where the whole “cutting a lot of weight” thing hurt Mike, because it weakened his bench. He didn’t get the bar very far off his chest and missed the last attempt. But hey, we got a ten pound PR on the second attempt.
I was thinking that on the high end, Chris could bench 369 on his last attempt. After he missed the last squat, I said to myself, “I need him to PR on bench to keep his confidence up. The smallest PR will count.” We opened at 155kg (342lbs). Chris has tripled 345 in the gym, but he had a horrible (i.e. shitty, shitty, shitty) lift off, and it definitely perturbed him. In person I guess it looked easier than it does on the film, because after talking with him I gave him 162.5kg (358lbs). This was a blatant mistake on my part. 162.5 was his PR from the last meet. I should have stuck with the low end strategy I had written down on my notes, but for some reason I was confident in the high end strategy.
Chris lowered the weight, paused, and then had good drive on the bar and then randomly paused. He missed the rep. He took a moment to get off the bench and immediately told me his back cramped up pretty bad. His spirits were shot, and I still believe that this was my fault. Yes, I think that he could have gotten that second attempt sans back cramp, but I should have called for 160kg with the intention of going for a PR of 165 on the third. Judging Chris’ demeanor, he didn’t think he had a chance at making the weight. His back was sore, and I didn’t want him to make it worse for the deadlift. After a few minutes of loosening it up, I waved his third attempt. I’m still disappointed with myself about messing this up. I sort of made up for it when I asked Chris if he wanted some caffeine. I had his dad get him some coffee, and this gave a last surge for the deadlift.
We had a pretty abnormal warm-up for mike on the deadlifts. The five minute break became almost ten minutes, so I kept him fresh with periodic singles at 225lbs as we waited to take his last warm-up. Mike crazily did math in his head and found out he needed to pull 262.5kg (579lbs) in order to total 1400. We had him opening at 247.5kg (546lbs). He gauges how he feels by how easy 500 feels, and everything was going well.
Mike has this tendency to let the bar drift forward, so I cued him to keep it back pretty stoutly in his reps. He actually does a very good job of this – much better than the last meet and what he had been doing in training. He pulled 546 very easily off the floor, and then because of his goofy anthropometry (long-ass femurs), the lift slowed at the lockout. He was VERY excited about not having trouble with 546 because in his mind, the 579 was going to go. He pushed the bar down quickly and yelled “BOOM” (this is all on the video) to Brent’s amusement. The head judge didn’t like this, but technically he didn’t do anything wrong (he didn’t drop the bar). Anyway, don’t act like a spaz as you put the weight down at a meet. Three white lights, and Mike walked up to me and said, “Give me 579, I’ll get it.” I turned in the attempt to the table without hesitation.
Mike didn’t really get pumped for his last attempt of 262.5kg (579lbs). He got a little gargoyle-ish, as is his custom, but it wasn’t over the top like it was on the squats. He calmly took his headphones out, was already shaking his head yes to whatever I was saying, and said, “I got it.” He literally had no doubt in his mind whatsoever.
He approached the bar, made a face as if he were saying, “Yikes, I’m sorry about that last time Mr. Head Judge”, stretched his arms out a bit, and then pulled the bar pretty swiftly off the ground. Once he got it past his knees, it was a slow lockout. I shouted “smooth” over and over to make sure he didn’t hitch it, and he stuck with the hard, but steady grind all the way to the top. He set it down under control for three white lights, and had a nice cap onto his excellent meet. Every one of Mike’s lifts were PR’s (240/132.5/262.5) for a 635kg total (1400lbs). We found out later that his total was good enough for fifth place in the men’s 110kg weight class. Great meet for Mike.
Backstage Chris was feeling good. He’s very sensitive to caffeine because of his medication, so he was AMPED. He was doing funny stuff, singing at times, and smiling constantly. His warm-ups were going well, and one of the 242 lifters that we befriended said he was “just throwing weight around”. Things were looking up. We stuck with the opener of 277.5kg (612lbs) with the intention of choosing an appropriate PR for his second (and final) attempt. He pulled that 612 very easily, and was pretty excited about it (see video). Now, the great debate. Before Chris warmed up, all I cared about was getting him a PR, no matter how small it was. His previous best deadlift was 287.5 (633lbs) at the meet in April. Chris came off the platform and said, “I want 650.” The 612 looked easy, but I knew 650 would be a bitch if that’s what we went with. I don’t remember what I said, but he walked away saying, “Whatever you think is best.” I went to the warm-up room and sat their for at least 30 seconds debating. If he hit 650, then all of his other lifts wouldn’t matter, and this would be one of the greatest days of his lifting life. I could go lower and still get him a PR, but he wanted the 650. I really did think he could get it, but it made me nervous as hell. Finally I said, “Fuck it, it’s competition.”
I gave Chris a bit of a speech eight minutes or so before he lifted. I consider it private, but basically I told him that I fully believed that he could pull 650. I just needed him to believe it too.
Now, I want everyone to understand something. There are emotional times in sport. Usually we experience these emotions in high school because we grow up playing a sport with our best friends for years. When we succeed or fail with those friends, it bonds us closer together. I have vivid memories of the triumphant successes and devastating failures from my time playing football. When I left that sport, it disappointed me knowing that I would never feel that again, having that kind of bond with a group of friends. I can tell you that nowadays I have that bond with all of my best friends (the ones that were at this meet), and it’s much stronger than I ever had before. Our passion is competing with ourselves, competing with gravity. There’s so much more emotion when you’re in an individual sport, especially when you’ve been on a daily journey with your friends for over a year.
Compound that bond with the fact that I’ve experienced about 35 adrenaline spikes over the previous 30 hours. Every time one of my friends go to lift, I get an intense surge of adrenaline and feel as if I could walk over to the bar and move it with them. Now add in the fact that ever since I arrived into Denver I literally spent every moment manipulating every conversation, every little thing that happened in our group to purposely maintain a healthy, successful mindset towards competing well. I constantly evaluated everyone, consistently altered the dynamics of the group to keep everyone in an optimal state of mind. If you’ve ever been around my friends, you know that just observing them is exhausting, now imagine how much mental effort it requires to keep everyone in their own optimal mindset. The point I’m trying to make is that I was beaten down, and this was the lift of the meet in my eye.
Chris swelled with intensity. He unleashed it on the bar. The plates broke the ground. The bar dragged against his shins. It passed his knees. Slowly. His body bulged. His necklace almost snapped off. God damn it he was fighting. But it was too much for him that day. The bar couldn’t rise anymore, and it fell to the floor. He went out fighting.
Chris stepped back, almost passed out, but caught himself. I slung one of his arms around my neck and carried him to a chair. I think the realization that he missed the lift was setting in, and his bloodshot eyes welled with tears. He left his guts on the platform.
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I fucked up. Obviously I should have picked something lower, a lower PR. I made five mistakes that I can’t forgive myself for. That’s just how I am. I make mistakes all the time, and no matter how good I am at something, the mistakes are always glaring. I’ve never been impressed with anything I’ve ever done. I wasn’t impressed with my football ability, never impressed with graduating high school, never impressed with graduating college, and not impressed with getting into grad school. None of these things mattered to me because I expect it all to happen. When I mess up in something I care about, it garners my attention. And I mess up a lot. The only good news is that this was only Chris’ second meet, and I learn from messing up.
Chris ended up getting second in the Junior 125kg category. Out of the four lifters, we finished second and fifth overall in open categories and second overall in a junior category. Not too bad for a few friends having a the best weekend ever.
After Brent lifted, we went to eat and then perused the biggest Bass Pro Shop this/that side of the Mississippi. Our group was split up and lost on several occasions, so AC and I stopped to take a nap.
Once we found everyone and headed to the parking lot, Mike really wanted to show AC a particular joke that I started the day before when AC wasn’t with us. It starts with me in the rig (old person boat-car) and radioing the team (everyone but me) that their evac is on the way to the LZ. It goes something like this:
Overlord (me): Hunter-two-one, this is Overlord, come in, over.
Hunter-two-one (Mike/Brent/AC): Overlord, this is Hunter-two-one, we’re taking heavy fire, over.
Overlord: Roger that, we are two clicks north of your position, prepare for pick up. Let’s get a move on because that LZ is HOT! Over.
It proceeds with my yelling into the phone how hot the LZ is and how the team needs to hurry up. I like the joke because it is literally hot outside since Denver is over a mile high, thus the sun is more intense, and the LZ is hot because it’s taking heavy fire. That and because I’m screaming at the top of my lungs while driving towards my friends causing a scene.
Well, on this occasion, I wanted the team to feel like they were actually stranded. I drove around with Chris in the rig for about ten minutes to make sure they were good and hot, and then gave them a call. Let me tell you, AC was not amused by any of this. He said something to the effect of, “Where the fuck are you? It’s hot out here and I have to lift tomorrow.” I understood, so I reported back with, “I KNOW Hunter-two-one, that LZ is HOT. What is your current location? Over.” And then he hung up on me.
I found them as they were about to walk into a movie theater a few clicks east of the original LZ, and I was screaming hysterically for them to have a rapid evac because that “LZ is smokin’ hot”. AC was only mildly amused. Luckily his four minute walk in the sun didn’t create too much of a disturbance in his diaper or with his pacifier, because he was prepped and ready to rock the next morning when his session started at 9:00 AM.
This was the first time that I coached AC in a meet, and it was a lot of fun. He trains his ass off, is a genetic freak, and lifts with maximal intensity. Our goal for a few months was to squat 550 at this meet, and he was looking good in warm-ups. We opened with 232.5 (513lbs), and Ace McGonague rocked the FUCK out of it. Watch the video below – you’ll see the bar flap UP when he completes the squat.
AC barks at his opener
I decided that going to 242.5 (534lbs) was a good second attempt. It was an increase of 10kg after he wrecked 232.5. Ace knew he had this one, and had a solid lift for a 2.5kg PR. Now it was time to go to work, because we both knew he could get 550, but it would be a bitch of a squat.
AC’s adrenaline was pouring out of him – his eyes were welled with tears as I talked him up. There’s nothing he wanted more than to have five and half hundred pounds on his back. He un-racked 250kg (551lbs), looked at the judge, and was finally released to attack his last squat. He hit it rock bottom and bounced it out of the hole. The bounce was fast, even on this last attempt, and he made it a third out of the bottom before the straining started. He knew it was going to be a battle, and he let out a battle cry to help himself. The vein in his neck was bulging and he shut his eyes because of the exertion. This would ultimately be his downfall, because he lost his reference point and dipped forward slightly. Once you let a quarter of a ton drift forward an inch or more, it isn’t coming back. He barely missed that squat, and I think he could have finished it if the bar stayed in the groove over the middle of his foot. God damn, he went out fighting though.
If you go back and watch the first squat attempt, the judge tells AC that he has to wrap his thumbs around the bar (AC had them on top like we teach so that the wrists aren’t bent). There is no such rule in the rule book related to what the thumbs should be doing, and in the three different meets AC has been in he has been told three different things. I’ve heard people gripe online about USAPL seemingly “creating rules out of thin air” and this was disappointing to deal with. Not only was Brent allowed to squat with his thumbs on top of the bar the day before, but there were at least two other lifters in AC’s session that also had their thumbs on top of the bar, yet weren’t told to do anything differently. Inconsistency in the implementation of rules is bullshit.
Anyway, we opened with an easy 160kg (350lbs) on the bench press. How awesome is it that 350lbs is not big deal to a guy weighing 213? Apparently too awesome because AC fucked it up by not waiting for the down command. He bent his elbows, straightened them again, and then received the command. The lift was red lighted as it should have been – if you listen in the video, I literally fucking say, “Wait for the commands” two seconds before he does it. Whatever. It was easy, and we went ahead with the scheduled 167.5kg (369lbs) for a 7.5kg jump. This time AC obeyed orders for a solid lift to match a PR. Our goal for a few months had been 380lbs, and 380 is what Ace McGonague got. A solid 172.5kg was lowered to his chest, he was given permission to press it, and he added one of his trademarked battle cries to force the weight up. Go watch the video – this lift is sick.
Opening deadlift at 546lbs
AC rode his high into the warm-up room and was feeling good. In retrospect I think we took one too many warm-ups, but he opened with a pretty standard 247.5kg (546lbs). I wanted to lower the opener so it wouldn’t be so stressful, and the ruling says you’re allowed to if it’s at least five minutes or five attempts out. Well, I was seven or eight attempts out and I was denied permission to lower the attempt (I’ll have to check the rule book on this one). Ace hit his opener a little slower than I would have liked, and I brought down the next attempt a little. It turns out I didn’t bring it down enough, and the combination of the extra warm-up, the slightly high opener, and the jump to 262.5kg (578lbs) was a bit much. His previous max was 567, so we were wanting the ten pound PR. It proved to be too much for AC because he let the bar drift forward about two inches. Nobody is going to be hitting any PR’s with the bar out in front of the middle of their foot. As he approached the bar, I told him “mid-foot”, and I debated cuing him to keep the bar back. I should have told him to pull it back off the floor and I believe that he would have had a shot had I done so. I take the blame for this miss because of the warm-ups, the opener, the jump, and then the lack of a timely cue that I think would have gotten him the lift.
At the end of the day, AC went 5 for 8 with lifts of 242.5/172.5/247.5, a total of 662.5kg/1458lbs total, and 2nd overall in the 100kg/220lbs Open category. In his last two meets he hasn’t lifted to his potential, but it was good enough to win first place in a big meet and second place at nationals. We’ll learn from this and continue improving. Nice job, best friend.
