Read Part 1

Arin Canecchio returned to the “national scene” (his last national meet was in 2010) in the 220 class. He’s had a few things get in the way of training including surgery to remove a cyst on his ass earlier this year and recently a shoulder issue (his acromioclavicular and sternoclavicular joint — I think it’s due to elbow flare on the bench). The shoulder would give him some issues on the platform during bench. He’s looking forward to the opportunity to consistently train without set backs.

AC, Justin, Norman, and Chris

We opened with an easy 518 on the squat (AC has routinely hit 10 or 15 pounds more than this for doubles). AC is a pretty emotional lifter and induces huge spikes of adrenaline. Sometimes I wonder if he’s getting too amped for his early attempts and I wonder if it would be better to save them for later attempts (especially over a long meet). In any case, he destroyed the opener and we moved up to an equally successful lift of 540. I called for our plan of 562 for the third; I had been telling AC for a couple of months that I wanted him to hit this weight. He got amped, un-racked it, took it for a ride, and had consistent speed on the ascent for three white lights followed by a victory scream. He’s fun to coach.

AC took an easy bench opener of 364, but the aforementioned shoulder issue (left side) made 386 difficult. He got it, but the bar wasn’t even on the way up and it was a grinding rep. I gave him a 2.5kg jump to 392, which would have been a meet PR, but it was too heavy with the shoulder tweak. We’ll get this issue taken care of.

We opened deadlift with an easy 502 as the last warm-up. Then, as he was about to do 546 for his second, the judge at the chalk stand told him that his socks weren’t high enough. Mind you, this was after they were not only verified at the equipment check-in, but she allowed him to do his first attempt with them on. AC was livid when the clock ran down as he was trying to change socks. I did some quick thinking and put in a lighter third attempt than we planned (you can change 3rd deadlifts twice) and then took him in the back, had help quickly loading 545 in the warm-up room, and had him hit it. It wasn’t as fast as I would have liked because he wasn’t able to get psyched like he would have on the competition platform, so I stayed with the 573 I called for.

AC gripped it, ripped it, and had a pretty simple white lighted third attempt at 573. There was some weight left on the bar; he had at least 584 and probably 590, but I don’t regret the decision given the circumstances. It was a pretty good meet for AC, and consistent training will let his numbers push on up. I’d like to see him squat 600, bench over 400, and deadlift over 600. I think he could hit those numbers by next spring. The bench is there, we just have to address the shoulder issue.

Norman Palencia was in the same 220 session as AC. I think this was his second meet and first national meet. I’ve known him for a few years and he has really improved as a lifter since he’s gotten out of the military (i.e. he’s been able to gain some weight). Norman’s squat technique is pretty good, and he hit simple attempts at 419 and and 441. He missed the third at 463; if I remember correctly he had a shift forward and lost his hip engagement (when force production shifts to the quads and leaves the posterior chain, there is less musculature helping to move the weight).

Norman took an easy opener at 298 and followed it with a successful second at 314. The 5kg jump to 325 proved to be too heavy that day and he finished 2/3. We opened with a low 474 as a last warm-up on the deadlift. Throughout the day, Norman wasn’t really emotionally aggressive like AC, which is fine, but his energy levels seemed to be dwindling. He had a crack at 513, but the miss was over pretty quickly. It’s a weight that he’s pulled for multiple reps in the past, and just the intermediate jump to around 540 or so, but he was, in his words, exhausted. Meets, especially national meets, are a bit different than training. Factor in that he dropped a little bit of weight and traveled by airplane, and it wreaks havoc on a newer lifter. I wish we could have hit some better numbers with Norman because powerlifting won’t be his primary focus due to a future job, but he will still improve if he chooses to dabble in the future. As a side note, Norman is one of Brent’s favorite people now.

Mike Battaglino competed in the 275 class and was coming into this meet off a recent PT test (which always require dropping weight and not lifting as much, though I wonder if he can do it without disrupting the training schedule next time). We opened the squat with an easy 529. Mike was red lighted on his last two attempts at the Arnold so he’s modified his squat so that it’s without question. He made good on a jump to 557, and then he requested 573 on the third, which was a bit lower than the high-end plan of 579. He came out, got rowdy, took it for a ride, and ground through a pretty simple squat. There was weight left on the bar, but it probably felt good to hit a third attempt knowing he had more in him (it tied a meet PR).

Photo by Ryan Carrillo

Mike’s bench has really improved lately, but a few weeks ago he tweaked his distal biceps un-racking a bench without a hand-off (do not do this). His warm-ups were fast and felt good, yet his bottom position was very unstable on his opener of 325. What happened is the bar went down, then settled quickly on his chest which made it bob up and down, then finally stopped while he was relaxed. Since he wasn’t tight, and the pause was so long due to the movement, he had a harder time with the attempt. This same position occurred on the second attempt and his injured side trailed during the miss. We attempted the same weight of 342 on the third attempt, and I gave him the cue to “drive right” to over-emphasize the right arm’s drive. It turned out that the soft bottom position was too much to overcome, though it was slightly better, on this third rep. Mike was bummed but there wasn’t anything we could have done about the injury.

Mike opened on deadlift with an easy 562 as a last warm-up, then his a slightly slower 611 on the second. We decide to go for 639, which is well within his grasp. On another note, Mike is battling with Randy Cairns for a fifth place (i.e. medal spot). As long as he hits this third attempt, he’ll beat him. It’s not that we don’t like Randy — he’s a good guy — but he has beaten Mike twice and it’s a friendly rivalry. Randy missed his third deadlift, so we could have changed Mike’s third attempt lower to make an easier pull for 5th, but we weren’t gunning for 5th. We were more trying to get a solid pull on the third since he missed his third deadlift at the Arnold.

Mike approached 639, gripped it, and then started the pull. He’s fast off the floor, but due to his short torso, it always slows right around the knees. We knew it’d be a battle, but the bar was moving well up his baby powdered thighs…until the left side of the bar — the side I’m standing on — gets caught on the band of his singlet. He’s wearing a weightlifting singlet, and it pulls the band inside out so that the rubber coating is now in contact with the bar. This causes the left side to fully stop, and if you watch the video, the right side actually continues moving up while the left side is stationary. I’m fully convinced that if his singlet was pulled up into his testicles, the bar would have slid up his thighs no big deal. Mike missed this third deadlift, and it left a sour taste in our mouths. You hate to see a lifter go through something like this, especially when it’s one of your best friends.

It turned out that Randy and Mike totaled exactly the same. And they weighed exactly the same (the lighter body weight will win when totals are equal) at 124kg. Since Mike had the chance to change his attempt after Randy’s third (and make a change to beat him whereas Randy couldn’t make a change), the decision was awarded to Randy. Mike was given a “participation” medal, which only pissed him off.

Mike is good powerlifter. He has made consistent progress in everything since I met him. He is meticulous with his training, makes good programmatic changes, is good at planning attempts for himself and others, and will be a very good coach some day (he is one now). Whenever his next meet is, he’ll squat at least 579, bench at least 353, and deadlift at least 644. It’s just a bummer to have this one meet swing on the completion of one lift, especially when it was due to an equipment issue. He’ll be back.

Chris Riley was looking to improve on all of his solid numbers at the Arnold in a heavily stacked super heavyweight class. Raw nationals gets more competitive every year because the first place winner makes the world. Brad Gillingham, one of the most legendary super heavyweight powerlifters of all time (he has pulled over 800 in over 80 competitions) didn’t even place first!

Photo by Ryan Carrillo

We opened with a no big deal 617 squat, then moved to the planned 644 on the second. He got it, but not without struggle. I saw him shift slightly forward and lose the hamstring/hip engagement that I’ve talked about prior in this meet write up series. Had he thought “push butt” up, then I think he could have kept the mechanics and had more musculature involved to have an easier rep. I asked Chris if he wanted me to cue that, and he said that he could correct it. We originally wanted to call for 666, a 2.5kg PR over his 661 at the Arnold, but since it looked slow, I called for 661 to tie it. After talking with him, I might have changed the third to 666, but you can’t change 3rd attempt squats.

Well, the same thing occurred on the ascent of the third squat, and Chris got hung up in the middle of the rep and missed it because of a lack of hip involvement. I think that this is due to Chris getting in the habit of getting “into his knees” on his heavy squats, so we’re going to make a point of making sure he gets and keeps tension on his posterior chain. I might modify the actual programming to, so we’ll see what happens.

Chris bench opener was 364. The particular guy giving the hand off was different than the first flight (Mike’s flight, he had done it all weekend), and he unfortunately wasn’t very good at it. When he gave Chris the bar on the opener, he brought it way out over his chest. Chris got the rep, but he had to pull the bar back into the right position, wasting time, and throwing him a bit off mentally. I called for the planned 386 and Chris and I both asked the guy to not bring the bar so far out. On the second attempt, the back spotter just lifted the bar straight up, and Chris had to pull the bar down into position while under a load, which is the same position that Mike injured his biceps in a few weeks ago. This pissed Chris off again, made him use a bunch of energy stabilizing the bar, and wasted time. He ended up missing the rep. I called for the same weight (we had planned to go up to 402 with Chris’ close grip style) and asked the judges if we could get a different person to hand-off. The loaders all did a great job, but this one particular guy probably wasn’t experienced in hand-offs and it had an effect on Chris’ performance. They brought the original back spotter out, and he gave Chris a good lift-off and he made the 385.

We opened with a frighteningly fast 611 on the deadlift opener (last warm-up); the plates bobbed up and down at the lockout. Then we took 666 as the intermediate jump for the second attempt. Chris had been wanting to try and hit as high as 727 coming into this meet, but in truth I had always planned on calling 711 or 717 (him reading this will probably be the firs time he hears this). The 666 was slightly slower than I would have liked, and Mike and I agreed on 711 (though I almost pushed for 717). I settled on the former because I would rather him meet PR on the deadlift since he missed his third squat and only matched his meet PR bench.

Chris stepped into the room as they loaded his bar, adrenaline surging. The meet was located within a church, and I hope that they didn’t mind that we were summoning the demons. I pulled his headphones out and said some choice words and pushed him to the bar as he grunted loudly, nips sticking out of his singlet. He gripped the bar with his double overhand hook grip, took a breath, set his back, and started the pull. Chris has beautiful technique, even with heavier weights. His long torso, giant back, long arms, and short femurs make it possible. The bar never strays away from his legs, and he has long ago learned to make the lockout smooth. He knows how to battle. If I call the right weight, he’s gonna lock it out. And he ground through that rep with the crowd yelling, my throat straining for the last time that weekend. And then he finally locked 711, a full convenience store, out for three white lights. This was particularly satisfying for me as a coach and a really good cap to the long weekend. Chris screamed to the crowd, I screamed and jumped behind him, and we tackled each other in celebration. I was still slapping the wall when we walked down the hall and the old men who were running the church’s food services said, “Well, I suppose you got it. Congratulations.”

I joke around that I hate powerlifting when the meets are over, but I don’t really hate it. In the next post I’ll talk briefly on coaching and the lessons learned over the course of this meet. I felt that I owed it to the lifters to recap their experiences. They all chose to buck up and compete at a national event when so many people shy away from competition. They all did the best they could with the circumstances presented to them, and that counts for something. Through victory or defeat, and their were both this past weekend, competition is something that defines the soul.

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…who strives…who spends himself…and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

–Teddy Roosevelt

I’ve been trying to figure out how I’m going to write about this meet for a while, and I think I’ll talk about some general stuff, quickly recap the lifters, and then tomorrow expand on the lessons learned (mostly the hard way). I handled 11 lifters over this three day meet, but had some help here and there. I’d like to thank the following people for helping:

Mike Battaglino, one of my closest friends, has a good coaching and programming eye; he’s going to be a very good powerlifting coach. He helped choose some attempts and managed some warm-ups in the instances where I had multiple lifters in the same session. Elliot Rowe handled all of the filming duties on Saturday, and for that we are grateful  Jacob Tsypkin, Elliot’s coach, would drop whatever he was doing and help load warm-up bars for the lifters. Chris partially took the handling duties of one of the younger lifters from Wichita Falls while I handled AC and Norman on another platform. Brent, AC, Norman, AJ, and Big Cat also helped at various points that made it possible for me to focus on preparing the athlete and counting attempts. Thanks everyone.

L to R back row: Jacob Tsypkin, Norman, Chris, Mike, Brent, AC, Sean Culnan, E.C. Stumpf.
Front row: Elliot Rowe and Justin

Of the 11 lifters, I’d say that 6 of them had pretty good meets. I personally played a role in the preparation of AC, Chris, and Mike (Brent does his thing, but he gave me more control of his attempts). Courtney, Wendy, Sean, Jordan, Andrew, Drew, and Norman had prepared on their own. I helped Jordan taper, have coached Courtney before, and have been friends with Norman for a while yet never coached him. Handling lifters is all about getting the most out of what they can do on that day, and I think I did that for pretty much everyone, especially Courtney, Wendy, Sean, Jordan, AC, and Chris (the others typically had circumstances they couldn’t control). In chronological order:

Friday

Courtney Modecki is a strong little girl who has been involved with CrossFit for a while and lifted in the 132 class. She trains at Outlaw CrossFit, was on their affiliate team, and rotates through strength training, CrossFit regionals, weightlifting, and now powerlifting throughout the year. She has a lot of potential in both powerlifting and weightlifting. Since Jennifer Thompson dropped back down to the 132 class, our goal was to get second place and hit meet PRs. Note that gym PRs are not the same as meet PRs; they’re largely irrelevant for competitors. I planned all of her attempts based on her high-end goals and what she hit recently in training.

Courtney opened the squat with a no-big-deal 253. She was then red lighted for depth on her second squat of 275. The squat wasn’t hard, and I was confident I could cue her to fix it, so I made a 5kg jump to 287 lbs. We originally wanted closer to 297 on the high end, but missing 275 changed things. I gave her the cues, sent her out, and she made good on the 3rd attempt of 287, setting a meet PR (she may have had enough for 292, but I’m happy with the 287 call). Courtney then went 3 for 3 on bench, hitting 127, 138, and 148 in succession. I don’t remember any issues on bench; as she focuses on this sport, her bench will improve. We opened lighter on the deadlift at 292 and then  hit a medium to moderately difficult 325 on the second. It wasn’t hard enough where I didn’t think I couldn’t make a 12.5kg jump to 353, but Courtney was out of gas on the third attempt and missed it. I attribute this to her training — a Sheiko volume program doesn’t allow any higher intensity lifts, so she wasn’t adapted to hitting several maximal lifts on squat and deadlift. Not to mention she traveled, was at her first national meet, and was tired. In any case, finishing with 287/148/325 gave her second place at her first raw nationals. Courtney has the most room to improve on the deadlift (she’s pulled 365 in the gym), but her squat and bench will steadily improve with consistent attention.

Brent Kim is Brent Kim. For the most part he has a template he sticks to, but it’s broken up by his work schedule and biceps curls (I think). I guess his training was regular leading into this meet, but he had commented that he hadn’t deadlifted a whole lot. A difference between last year and this year is that Brent high bar squats. He had decided on some openers, but I talked him into changing some of them (he beheld the instrument of his liberation). We took 418 on his opener, then a 7.5kg jump to 435. We then made another 7.5kg jump to 451 and he missed it. My guess is his training hasn’t been conducive to multiple high intensity squat sets. This can be easily rectified, even if Brent keeps splitting time between weightlifting, powerlifting, and swollertrophy. He’s looking good, by the way (the fire rises).

Brent went 3/3 on bench, which I think might be a PR, but he meet PR’d with 275 on the third. I think it was satisfying to him to hit that milestone, because he was abnormally happy after the lift. Brent wanted to open kind of heavy on his deadlift, and I talked him into opening lower so that we could get his third. He hit 386 as a “last warm-up on the platform”, then 430. It didn’t look fast, but I still called for 463 on the third. He missed it after getting it off the floor (he didn’t feel in charge). At the time I felt that it may have been something he could have ground through (he seemed to just turn off when it it slowed), yet it’s a function of apparently not deadlifting a lot, and therefore not being used to the tension at that intensity. Squatting and deadlifting around 430 at 154 pounds is still good, but I felt that I could have gotten a bit more out of Brent and it’s bothered me since. Maybe it’s because Rachel wrote a leh-uh, and in that leh-uh, she chose Hah-veeh. Even though he didn’t hit the numbers we wanted, Brent still got 5th place.

Wendy Hajik is my new buddy who trains at the same gym as Brent (he avoids speaking with her along with any other female). Brent sort of introduced us and I asked who she was there with, and she was about to compete in her second national meet by herself. II offered to at least count attempts for her if she wanted it. She accepted, so I helped her warm-up and got her ready for squat. Wendy has short, explosive upright squats with a high bar; short femurs are good for that. She was set on her openers but said she would “figure it out based on how it felt”. That’s not really how I roll when I handle someone, but I didn’t want to interfere or change much since we had just met.

Wendy opened with 304 pounds on the squat. She crushed the opener and…then stepped forward before the rack command and was red lighted. I felt terrible because I always tell my lifters to wait, especially on the first squat. I had the impression she was more experienced than her four previous meets (I found this out later); it was also her first national meet. I still feel like it was my responsibility, I just didn’t want to over step my bounds as a handler when I had just met her. In any case, she took the same weight on the second attempt and…shifted her hips backwards and missed the second attempt. I would later find out that her weightlifting shoes were stolen a couple weeks prior; the minimalist running shoes she’s wearing undoubtedly attributed to the technique miss.

At this point Wendy is borderline freaking out at bombing out of the meet. People keep coming up to her and talking to her. They all walked away and I said, “Look, I don’t know what all of these people are saying, but you’ve done thousands of squats before, right? This next one won’t be any different. Take a deep breath. Visualize what a normal squat feels like. You’ll be fine.” I had her relax and visualize a few times as she waited. When her bar was loaded, she walked out, went through her routine and…squatted the weight up for three white lights. When they beamed, she IMMEDIATELY burst into tears, sprinted, and jumped into my arms. And stayed there for ten seconds. I actually walked back to the warm-up room carrying her. I didn’t realize how nervous she was, because, in her words, she “gets pretty zen” before doing a lift. It was a high pressure situation and she came through for an impressive 304 squat — a bit more than double body weight (148 lb weight class).

Wendy went 2/3 on bench, hitting 134, then sort of a hard 148 (a 7.5kg jump). I made the smallest jump (2.5kg) to her third at 70 and she missed it. No big deal; who benches anyway? Wendy opened on deadlift with a simple 314 lbs. Then we took 331 for a moderate second attempt. At this point, things were getting fun. She was competing with another lifter, Jill Joiner-Wong for second place (1st place was locked up by world champion Kimberly Walford, who had a completed deadlift of 507 red lighted in this meet!). Jill called for 342 on her final deadlift and so we called for 353 to have a 2.5kg edge in the total (Wendy squatted more than Jill, Jill benched more than Wendy, and  success with Wendy’s 353 would mean she totals 2.5kg more [Jill was lighter, so tying the total would have let Jill win 2nd]).

I asked Wendy four times if she wanted baby powder on her thighs. She insisted in wouldn’t be an issue. This would prove to be a regrettable decision. Wendy pulled a very hard third attempt with 353 and slowly locked it out…yet her leg movement and the bar sticking to her thighs resulted in the judges red lighting it for hitching. Had I applied baby powder to her legs, she would have gotten it.

Not a bad meet, especially with how the squat started. I know how I’ll handle these situations in the future by always cuing the “wait” before the first squat and applying the baby powder, but I’m pretty sure Wendy will use it forever from now on. Wendy also qualified for the Arnold, so we’ll see her again there.

Sean Dunston trains at Outlaw CrossFit and has posted on 70’s Big since the beginning. He competed in the master’s and open 181 class (I handled 2 other lifters in this class). He squatted 435 and 457, so we went for a national master’s record of 480 on the third attempt. Unfortunately it just wasn’t there that day, but I think it’s doable in the future. Sean then went 3/3 on bench hitting 220, 237, and 254. He opened deadlift with an easy 440, hit a second attempt of 474, and then hit a meet and lifetime PR deadlift of 507. There was more in the tank as well, but he was happy with that pull and it capped off a great meet. Sean finished 8/9 and I think he got second in his master’s class.

Jordan Feigenbaum is a meticulous lifter who was competing in his second meet (first nationals) and aimed to qualify for the Arnold. His body fat sits at sub 7%, so he’ll eventually move into the 198 weight class (he has room to fill out, he’s around 5’10” or so). We opened with 419 and then hit 441 on the second attempt. He missed his third of 463, and I sort of recall it being a mechanical issue. Had he been thinking “push hips”, he would have kept his posterior chain engaged instead of shifting forward into the quads. Jordan opened on bench at 308, then hit 320, but had a crack at 331 before missing it. He opened with a solid 507 opener, qualified for the Arnold with a 529 second attempt, and that had a really solid battle on a successful third attempt at 551. I was really happy to see Jordan hit the 551, especially since we didn’t get his third squat and bench. I think modifying his training can facilitate the third attempts on the other lifts. Great second meet for Jordan, he qualified for the Arnolds, and he finished 8th overall in a very competitive 181 class.

Andrew Pichardo is a friend of Chris’ from Wichita Fallsand was also competing in the 181 session in his second meet (first national meet). I wasn’t present at the fellas’ weigh-in because I went to get breakfast (one of my two main meals of the day), so I missed the fact that Andrew’s squat opener was incorrectly labeled as 220kg AKA 485 — higher than what we planned for his third attempt. The actual attempt was supposed to be 200kg AKA 441, and I just didn’t pay attention to what was on the chart projected on the wall. As the coach, I should have double checked all of the openers (there were two instances of openers being wrong later in the weekend, one was the lifter’s fault, the other the judge’s fault) and I feel that this is my fault. I didn’t find out about the wrong weight until Andrew was pinned on his first attempt. When the bar was loaded it was too late anyway, because he signed the card. Still, I could have prevented the snafu. I took him in the back to hit 445, and it was a grinder; he barely got it. I had to tell him that he wouldn’t be getting any squats that day and I waved his third attempt.

We had trouble on his first two bench attempts at 270 (I can’t recall exactly what the problem was), but he came back and made good on a third attempt at the same weight. At this point I feel terrible and only want Andrew to deadlift well since the world has gone to shit on squat and bench. We hit 463 on the first, then a moderate 507 on the second attempt. It wasn’t slow enough that I didn’t have issues calling for 546 on the third (lower than what he originally planned if I recall), but when you aren’t adapted to multiple high intensity pulls and you cut weight for the meet, it results in being fatigued for third attempts at a national meet. The 546 didn’t go. Andrew and I both learned a lot at this meet, and I felt terrible for him because I knew I could have prevented it from happening. This experience leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I messed up, but he got to experience his first national meet and still hit 507 in competition.

The next update will have the rest of the lifters.