6 weeks ago or so I was surfing the web and ran across a powerlifting meet schedule. There was a meet at The Foundry Barbell Gym in Greenville NC on November 16th. I looked up the sanctioning body (federation) past meet results and current records. They were reasonable in my age group of 60-64. I would have to compete single ply due to shoulders being what they are…not destroyed but one silly stunt away. Legs are recovering from nerve damage. My weight loss had me down to 186 to keep my blood labs in check for the beetes and a myriad of other nasties.
I warmed up one evening, put my bench shirt on from when I was 50 pounds heavier and took some weight for a ride. Low and behold, it felt good. No pain even days later I felt good.
I hadn’t done any successful/meaningful benching in over 2 years. I formulated a plan… the raw full range eccentric portion of the bench was doing the damage to my joints. I trained for 3 weeks or so and had a drop dead date of pull the plug or enter the meet. Everything went well and I entered the meet with 275 pounds as my goal below is my training.
Raw warmup only to 135 with a medium grip. Put shirt on loose without jacking it up for the ramp up sets. Tighten shirt up for work sets. I was working with a short timeline so worked with lots of singles and some doubles. Working with percentages of 275. Only 4 lifts a session above 90%. On heavy days it was medium ancillary movements… triceps push down and ytws.
On the 2nd day was raw close grip pin presses from approximately 6 inches off my chest. Usually with chains or bands to overload the top end. These were always done explosively 3-4 reps…4-6 sets. Then heavy triceps and medium ytws.
I never got above 260 in training but kept the bar moving fast. One week out I took my planned opener of 235 and 2nd at 255. The 3rd was going to be 275 or maybe higher.
Day of meet…I felt good. Opener and 2nd attempt went well. So well I was going to ask for 300 on my 3rd but had a moment of clarity and stuck with the plan of 275. The 275 flew up… so easy I thought I had 300 plus in me. Oh well… shoulda woulda coulda.
Final thoughts:
I now have a real good template that works well for me.
I’m going to apply the same principle to my squat.
I had several go/no-go gates in place:
I had to compete in a shirt I could get on and off myself
Very little to no pain
Blood labs and health were paramount.
Be conservative on my lifts
Tell very few people. @Neuro @BBSQ5 my wife were the only 3 that knew.
All in all a positive great experience. Maybe another full meet in the future.
I warmed up one evening, put my bench shirt on from when I was 50 pounds heavier and took some weight for a ride. Low and behold, it felt good. No pain even days later I felt good.
I hadn’t done any successful/meaningful benching in over 2 years. I formulated a plan… the raw full range eccentric portion of the bench was doing the damage to my joints. I trained for 3 weeks or so and had a drop dead date of pull the plug or enter the meet. Everything went well and I entered the meet with 275 pounds as my goal below is my training.
Raw warmup only to 135 with a medium grip. Put shirt on loose without jacking it up for the ramp up sets. Tighten shirt up for work sets. I was working with a short timeline so worked with lots of singles and some doubles. Working with percentages of 275. Only 4 lifts a session above 90%. On heavy days it was medium ancillary movements… triceps push down and ytws.
On the 2nd day was raw close grip pin presses from approximately 6 inches off my chest. Usually with chains or bands to overload the top end. These were always done explosively 3-4 reps…4-6 sets. Then heavy triceps and medium ytws.
I never got above 260 in training but kept the bar moving fast. One week out I took my planned opener of 235 and 2nd at 255. The 3rd was going to be 275 or maybe higher.
Day of meet…I felt good. Opener and 2nd attempt went well. So well I was going to ask for 300 on my 3rd but had a moment of clarity and stuck with the plan of 275. The 275 flew up… so easy I thought I had 300 plus in me. Oh well… shoulda woulda coulda.
Final thoughts:
I now have a real good template that works well for me.
I’m going to apply the same principle to my squat.
I had several go/no-go gates in place:
I had to compete in a shirt I could get on and off myself
Very little to no pain
Blood labs and health were paramount.
Be conservative on my lifts
Tell very few people. @Neuro @BBSQ5 my wife were the only 3 that knew.
All in all a positive great experience. Maybe another full meet in the future.
