Frankovic
08-22-2011, 07:36 AM
J0flfEqEx_Y
9/9 with 1261.7 total is pretty much the perfect day that I was hoping for and it was quite a learning experience as well. *Let’s start off with this from the very beginning. *I decided to drop to 198 since I was weighing only 202 five days out.
Monday to Friday – pretty much drank as much water as possible and ate a little less than usual. *I dropped quite a bit of water weight as I normally don’t drink as much water as I should so I probably retain more water than most. *I was already weighing 197 on Thursday and Friday morning and I probably could have not tried anything drastic but I guess I’m a little nutty. *I decided to cut out water at 8pm and my friend Andrey came up with the idea of each eating a lemon for its diuretic effect. *It was the most calm I’ve ever been before a meet as I think I’m starting to not take things so seriously anymore in all aspects of life. *I don’t see a point in getting worked up about a meet since the training is done and whatever happens, well happens.
Saturday – I was weighing around 196 when I woke up so I decided to eat some peanut butter and drink a little chocolate milk to hold me over until weigh-ins at 12pm. *I get to the meet and inform the woman at the desk that I signed up for the 220 class but emailed the director that I am dropping to 198 and it was confirmed that was okay. *She told me that I would have to be charged $50 for a “late fee” just to switch classes. *The last thing I needed was to get into some argument right before my meet so I just said whatever and paid. *To this day it still doesn’t make sense to me. *I came to lift so I quickly forgot about this and concentrated on what I had to do.
I get to the weigh-ins where there are basically 100 guys in some hall way standing around. *There were two rooms and only one scale in each room so this was going extremely slow. *There was a “lottery number” given to everyone and I was number 226. *I asked a USAPL guy if I need to weigh in at the 198 or 220 room given my situation and he had no clue. *I find somebody else and she directs me to the 198 room and bumps me up to like 107 so I lucked out and cut a bunch of people. *Weighed in at 195.5 which was much lighter than I anticipated. *I chugged two 32 fl oz gatorades and my stomach felt pretty uneasy for a while. *After laying on the floor for a bit, I felt better and started to feel re-energized. *
I was originally supposed to be in Flight B but was unsure if it would change due to my changing of classes. *I couldn’t find any postings of the official flights so I assumed I would just stay on Flight B. *I stumbled across a revised edition and sure enough I’m in Flight A which starts in 15-20 minutes. *
I basically run to get singlet and gear on and start squatting. *Never warmed up so fast in my life. *It sucked so much ass. *Surprisingly the weights felt pretty light but just the act of rushing is one thing I hate when it comes to lifting as I usually take a good 20-30 minute warm up before I even touch a barbell. Two glute activation exercises then 135x5, 225x3, 275x2, 305x1, 335x1.
As I walk up to the platform on my first squat attempt, I’m being asked what my rack height is. *I waited in a long ass line for like 20 minutes for them to take down my rack heights and now they lost them all of the sudden. *I didn’t know the number. *My friend suggested I take a 10 so I went with that. *It felt okay on the first attempt at 369 which was fairly easy. *My walkout with 402 sucked as the rack height was too high. *I felt like I was stumbling all over the place. *It felt a little sticky near the bottom so I wasn’t extremely confident. *I went with 424 and I told them to put the rack height down to 9 which was perfect. *The walkout was much better and it came up with a fight. *So basically everything that could go wrong did except for my actual lifts.
Time to warm up on the bench. *I somehow misplaced or lost my wrist wraps during warm ups. *Luckily my friend let me use his. *I was in a daze and thought I saw two 45’s and a 10 on each side so I ask if I can hop in really quick. *I do the rep and it felt heavier than expected. *My friend asks me what I’m opening up with and I say 270. *He tells me that I just did 275… The day is just getting better and better. *I pretty much knew I had this in the bag so no big deal about the 303. *Not sure if 308 would have went today. *
Time to pull. *135x5, 225x3, 315x3, 315x1, 405x1, 425x1. *My friend Hollenbeck taught me some things about warming up for deads. *His theory is to warm up with 315 for a few explosive singles rather than progressively loading up the bar and wasting energy. *Also, don’t sit down and keep pacing around. *Throw in some squat jumps if you are waiting too long for your flight to begin. *462 was a smoke show. *501 was a smoke show as well. *534 wasn’t really hard, but I felt my left pec tightening up a lot and was really hoping that nothing would happen. *Luckily it seemed to not be an issue. *I had 551 in me today.*
1261.7 total which was a 60lb total PR. *Pretty much a perfect day. *Wilks was a 368 which is not that far off the 375 required for the Arnold qualifier. *If I knew I was this close, I probably would have given that a run for its money.
There were a few things I learned during this meet. *My friend Ben reminded me of the importance of the mental aspect of this sport. *I tend to scream and get rowdy in the back right before my lift and he told me to stop wasting my energy and save it for the platform. *I started to just basically talk to myself about how I’m going to smoke the lift and not so much go nuts. *It seems to have worked. *I’m going to exercise the mental aspect much more in my training. *
I learned that I could drop a good amount of weight if I have to. *202 to 198 is only 4 pounds and I ended up dropping about 7. *It did improve my wilks a bit and it seems that I didn’t lose any strength at all. *The Gatorade made my stomach feel a bit uneasy for a while but that is probably expected when you chug half a gallon of it. *I might use pedialyte next time. *I tried to eat much more than in previous meets where I barely ate anything at all. *I was drinking chocolate milk, eating chocolate chip cookies and some potato chips. *My idea was high calorie, sugary and salty foods to gain my weight back. *I think consuming too much fat made me feel like I needed to take a dump throughout the day. *I’m going to consider finding options with less fat next time. *The funny thing is that I weighed myself when I got back to the hotel to shower and I was only 199. *So I was still lighter than when I started the week.*
I’m extremely happy with the way that things went and now I am more motivated than ever. *I’m knocking on 1300’s door and I am going to rip it off the hinges. * * * *
9/9 with 1261.7 total is pretty much the perfect day that I was hoping for and it was quite a learning experience as well. *Let’s start off with this from the very beginning. *I decided to drop to 198 since I was weighing only 202 five days out.
Monday to Friday – pretty much drank as much water as possible and ate a little less than usual. *I dropped quite a bit of water weight as I normally don’t drink as much water as I should so I probably retain more water than most. *I was already weighing 197 on Thursday and Friday morning and I probably could have not tried anything drastic but I guess I’m a little nutty. *I decided to cut out water at 8pm and my friend Andrey came up with the idea of each eating a lemon for its diuretic effect. *It was the most calm I’ve ever been before a meet as I think I’m starting to not take things so seriously anymore in all aspects of life. *I don’t see a point in getting worked up about a meet since the training is done and whatever happens, well happens.
Saturday – I was weighing around 196 when I woke up so I decided to eat some peanut butter and drink a little chocolate milk to hold me over until weigh-ins at 12pm. *I get to the meet and inform the woman at the desk that I signed up for the 220 class but emailed the director that I am dropping to 198 and it was confirmed that was okay. *She told me that I would have to be charged $50 for a “late fee” just to switch classes. *The last thing I needed was to get into some argument right before my meet so I just said whatever and paid. *To this day it still doesn’t make sense to me. *I came to lift so I quickly forgot about this and concentrated on what I had to do.
I get to the weigh-ins where there are basically 100 guys in some hall way standing around. *There were two rooms and only one scale in each room so this was going extremely slow. *There was a “lottery number” given to everyone and I was number 226. *I asked a USAPL guy if I need to weigh in at the 198 or 220 room given my situation and he had no clue. *I find somebody else and she directs me to the 198 room and bumps me up to like 107 so I lucked out and cut a bunch of people. *Weighed in at 195.5 which was much lighter than I anticipated. *I chugged two 32 fl oz gatorades and my stomach felt pretty uneasy for a while. *After laying on the floor for a bit, I felt better and started to feel re-energized. *
I was originally supposed to be in Flight B but was unsure if it would change due to my changing of classes. *I couldn’t find any postings of the official flights so I assumed I would just stay on Flight B. *I stumbled across a revised edition and sure enough I’m in Flight A which starts in 15-20 minutes. *
I basically run to get singlet and gear on and start squatting. *Never warmed up so fast in my life. *It sucked so much ass. *Surprisingly the weights felt pretty light but just the act of rushing is one thing I hate when it comes to lifting as I usually take a good 20-30 minute warm up before I even touch a barbell. Two glute activation exercises then 135x5, 225x3, 275x2, 305x1, 335x1.
As I walk up to the platform on my first squat attempt, I’m being asked what my rack height is. *I waited in a long ass line for like 20 minutes for them to take down my rack heights and now they lost them all of the sudden. *I didn’t know the number. *My friend suggested I take a 10 so I went with that. *It felt okay on the first attempt at 369 which was fairly easy. *My walkout with 402 sucked as the rack height was too high. *I felt like I was stumbling all over the place. *It felt a little sticky near the bottom so I wasn’t extremely confident. *I went with 424 and I told them to put the rack height down to 9 which was perfect. *The walkout was much better and it came up with a fight. *So basically everything that could go wrong did except for my actual lifts.
Time to warm up on the bench. *I somehow misplaced or lost my wrist wraps during warm ups. *Luckily my friend let me use his. *I was in a daze and thought I saw two 45’s and a 10 on each side so I ask if I can hop in really quick. *I do the rep and it felt heavier than expected. *My friend asks me what I’m opening up with and I say 270. *He tells me that I just did 275… The day is just getting better and better. *I pretty much knew I had this in the bag so no big deal about the 303. *Not sure if 308 would have went today. *
Time to pull. *135x5, 225x3, 315x3, 315x1, 405x1, 425x1. *My friend Hollenbeck taught me some things about warming up for deads. *His theory is to warm up with 315 for a few explosive singles rather than progressively loading up the bar and wasting energy. *Also, don’t sit down and keep pacing around. *Throw in some squat jumps if you are waiting too long for your flight to begin. *462 was a smoke show. *501 was a smoke show as well. *534 wasn’t really hard, but I felt my left pec tightening up a lot and was really hoping that nothing would happen. *Luckily it seemed to not be an issue. *I had 551 in me today.*
1261.7 total which was a 60lb total PR. *Pretty much a perfect day. *Wilks was a 368 which is not that far off the 375 required for the Arnold qualifier. *If I knew I was this close, I probably would have given that a run for its money.
There were a few things I learned during this meet. *My friend Ben reminded me of the importance of the mental aspect of this sport. *I tend to scream and get rowdy in the back right before my lift and he told me to stop wasting my energy and save it for the platform. *I started to just basically talk to myself about how I’m going to smoke the lift and not so much go nuts. *It seems to have worked. *I’m going to exercise the mental aspect much more in my training. *
I learned that I could drop a good amount of weight if I have to. *202 to 198 is only 4 pounds and I ended up dropping about 7. *It did improve my wilks a bit and it seems that I didn’t lose any strength at all. *The Gatorade made my stomach feel a bit uneasy for a while but that is probably expected when you chug half a gallon of it. *I might use pedialyte next time. *I tried to eat much more than in previous meets where I barely ate anything at all. *I was drinking chocolate milk, eating chocolate chip cookies and some potato chips. *My idea was high calorie, sugary and salty foods to gain my weight back. *I think consuming too much fat made me feel like I needed to take a dump throughout the day. *I’m going to consider finding options with less fat next time. *The funny thing is that I weighed myself when I got back to the hotel to shower and I was only 199. *So I was still lighter than when I started the week.*
I’m extremely happy with the way that things went and now I am more motivated than ever. *I’m knocking on 1300’s door and I am going to rip it off the hinges. * * * *