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Powerlift Results and Meet Observations

Suffice to say that I didn’t win anything. I would have liked to do  better, i.e. move more weight, but it is what it is. I’ll offer my lifts before I go into my more esoteric observations about the meet.

Squat

1. 300 – good
2. 325 – good
3. 345 – good

Nothing unexpected here. I might have been able to hit 350, but I’m satisfied with 345. My personal best is 365 done 14 years previous, at the age of 32.

Bench Press

1. 220 – good
2. 235 – good
3. 245 – miss

I’m pretty far below my personal best of 285, which I as also done 14 years ago. Between bad elbows (surgery on one), shoulder pain, and the other associated joint aches that come from 25 years of heavy lifting, I doubt I’ll get close to that again. So I’m disappointed, but don’t think there’s anything to be done about it. For what it’s worth, although 235 went up fairly smoothly, I wasn’t even close to getting 245….

Deadlift

1. 400 – good
2. 420 – good
3. 440 – miss

I had a 580 total going into the deadlift, so I needed to pull 420 to hit a 1,000 pounds. I’d set the start weight at 400 and had no problem with that. For my second attempt I choose 420. In retrospect, I probably could have gone 425, but decided to be conservative in order to hit that 1,000 pound mark. The 420 pull wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped, so I went into 440 pretty much feeling I was going to miss it. And miss it I did. Although I managed to pull it all the way up and lock out, I got red lights from the judges for leaning back to far, which has the consequence of the bar resting too much on the thigh as you pull. So I got it, but I didn’t get it. My previous best was 435, and had I performed this lift in the gym without benefit of judges, I would have counted it…. so I’m on the fence. Should I count it as a new PB or not? 

Random Thoughts

As to the meet overall…. I’m not sure I would do another. I arrived at 8:30 and didn’t get out of there until 4:30. A long day… and I’m not sure the fun returned was worth the time invested.

Another aspect is the – for want of a better term – culture. When the average person thinks of powerlifters, I’m sure they get a certain image: big bulky men (although there were women there as well), not all that aesthtically shaped, grunting, groaning and screaming their way through lifting large amounts of weight, ultimately for no other purpose that to say they lifted a large amount of weight.

There was the requisite too-loud heavy metal music, chalk and baby power clouds billowing, face slaps, primal screams, red faces, popping veins, the singlets…. the exortations of the crowd to ‘pullpullpullgogogo!’ To someone not into the scene, the only word I can think of is… embarassing.

My wife called and expressed some interest in watching, but I actively discouraged her from coming and bringing the kids. If you’re into powerlifting, it would be a good time. But powerlifting…. I think it’s kind of like being a Star Trek geek. I mean, when you’re around other Star Trek geeks, it’s OK to wear your Federation uniform, but you don’t wear it out in public, you know? You do, and people think you’re a freak. And they’re right.

Would I do it again? The way I feel right now, probably not.

I’m not strong enough to set records or win awards, I feel too old to be able to make significant gains in strength, in that I’ll probably never suprass my total from 14 years ago. Now don’t get me wrong – I think strength training is an absolutly essential part of any fitness program, regardless of your age. But do you reach a point where pushing yourself to the absolute limit lifting weights is really a smart thing to do?

As we age, we all go through an inevitable physical decline. No matter how hard we fight, in the end we all lose. It might be that participating in this contest simply reminded me of that….

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