2015 RPS Southern Mass Blast 2-Full Writeup

[LawBro]

This past weekend I competed in my second powerlifting meet. I shifted over from bodybuilding style training to powerlifting about a two years ago and have been hooked ever since. For those who are just starting out down the powerlifting path, I thought I would write up my experience at the meet.

Background
The first meet I competed in was the RPS 2015 New England Revolution held in Sterling, CT in March. I chose the meet because of its proximity, the time of year, and the reputation of the federation. Speaking with other powerlifters in the area, I quickly learned that RPS runs very safe and efficient meets. Starting out as a new competitor, these characteristics were my top priority. Going into my first meet I learned a lot about how a meet was run and how to properly train in order to prepare. The most important part of the whole experience was that I had a great time. The powerlifting community is filled with a great group of people that genuinely love seeing new competitors.

Training
Which brings me to this past weekend's meet. The Southern Mass Blast 2 was a Novice Push/Pull meet and was held in Lakeville, MA. After having had a great experience at my first meet with RPS, it was a no-brainer to sign up. The timing gave me 4 months of solid training to lead up to the meet. In preparation I switched from the 5/3/1 training I had been doing leading up to my prior meet in favor of the Candito 8 week trainer. I also changed up my cardio from long distance running to interval hill sprints. My numbers across the board went up, especially in Deadlift. At the prior meet I had missed my final attempt at bench (250 lbs) and had hit a personal best on deadlift (455 lbs). Going into the meet, I had two goals, get the 250 bench press that I miss last time and set a new PR in deadlift. Leading up to the meet, my deadlift shot up and I hit a gym personal record of 480 three weeks before the meet. As meet day got closer, I tapered my training down significantly in order to properly rest and recover. I also changed my water, sodium, and carbohydrate intake in order to cut approximately 7 pounds. At the previous meet, I had been doing way too much cardio and lifting leading up to the meet and overdid my cut. As a result, I weighed in significantly underweight. This time, I tailored my cut and was able to weigh in at 163 at the Saturday morning weigh in. In the the final week leading up to the meet, I performed some mild stretching and some very light lifting. However, during the week I felt stiff and there was a slightly lingering pain in my lower back. Nothing major and I thought it would go away with some stretching (more on that later).

Meet-Week/Weigh In Day
During the week I weighed myself every morning upon waking up. On Thursday when I saw that I weighed in at 164, I contacted the meet director asking for a morning weigh in since I was no longer worried about making weight. The benefit of shifting from an evening to morning weigh in gave me more time to refeed once I made weight. When Saturday morning rolled around, I woke up, weighed myself and saw I was at 162.8. I hopped in the car and brought a Gatorade and Quest bar with me so I could start re-hydrating as soon as I had weighed in. After finding the gym where the meet would be held, I met up with the director and weighed in at 163.4. One thing I would recommend to other lifters is that if you are trying to make a certain weight class, be sure you are a couple of pounds under the target weight. You never know how much of a fluctuation there is going to be between two different scales and you don't want to fail to make weight because a scale was slightly off in its calibration.

I hopped in the car and started to sip on my Gaorade and stopped at a Dunkin Donuts for a breakfast sandwich. Once I got home, I spent most of the day hanging with my girlfriend, eating a variety of high-carb food, and watching TV. At night, she cooked for me and we both went to bed early.

Meet Day
Woke up early on meet day and took a nice long shower to warm everything up. I alternated between hot and cold in order to get the blood flowing. I started to pack up all my gear and change into workout clothing. I packed up some Quest Bars, Pop Tarts, Preworkout (C4), BCAAs, Water bottle/shaker, wrist wraps, belt, and singlet. I headed to the meet and arrived on time for the rules. The flights were posted and I found that I would be lifting on the tail end of the second flight (there were only three flights in total). The first flight was all women, I set up a spot with my girlfriend in one of the chairs and started to warm up for bench press after the first flight completed their openers. The warm up area was massive. There was an entire gym attached to the meet event, so I had plenty of space to stretch using my foam roller. I briefly socialized with some of the other lifters and did my normal warm up routine. I got back to the competition area while the first flight was finishing up. There was a ton of energy in the room and there was a large crowd of people. The place was packed. After the first flight was done, I moved over to the staging area to hang out. Unfortunately, the signal was terrible, so I couldn't connect to Slacker Radio to listen to music. Instead I tried to stay loose and focused. I watched the other lifters hit their openers. When it was my turn, I mentally went through a checklist and hit the lift easily (220 lbs). I intentionally picked an opener that was extremely easy. I was deadset on hitting that 250 lbs that I missed last time. After my opener, I decided to take my preworkout. The timing was perfect. I had maximum intensity and energy for my next two attempts. My second attempt went up just as smoothly as my first (235 lbs). For the last attempt I knew I had to get in the zone. I had hit this attempt in the gym the past two times I attempted it, so I knew I had it in me. When my name was called, I approached the bench and tried to get the crowd to cheer. Having a packed house cheer was definitely a big boost. I was focused and blasted the 250 bench. It went up easily.

So far so good. I took care of business on the bench and hit the lift I went there for. In my group I was performing a little bit better than middle of the pack, which was fine by me. I talked some more with the other lifters and spent some time with my girlfriend and watched the third flight. These were the heavy weights. One thing that surprised me was how many strong lifters there were for a novice meet. It's great to see so many people perform so well at their first meet and I hope they come back for more.

Deadlift
After watching the third flight, there was about a thirty minute break until the deadlift started. I ate some food, and hung out.

My mental process for deadlift was the same as bench press. I started to watch the first flight and when they started their second attempts, I went to the warm up area to start stretching and warming up. I started with a lengthy roll on the foam roller to try and get everything loose. When I performed my first two warm ups, everything went smoothly. However, on my third and fourth warm ups, things went bad. The nagging lower back pain that I had been feeling the past week hit home when I pulled 365. This is a lift I normally perform with ease. I knew things weren't right. My lower back just felt sore and like I had tweaked something. I immediately knew that hitting my PR was out of the question. But I didn't want to bomb out of the meet. I had gone too far and spent too much time to just walk away. My opener was 405. This is a lift I've performed for 6 reps before. I knew that even though I wasn't feeling anywhere near 100%, I could hit that weight. I told my girlfirned before our flight started that I wasn't 100%. She was super supportive but reminded me it wasn't worth my health to try and grind out a lift that might injure me long-term. I tried to get myself mentally right for my opener. When my name was called, I got on the platform and dug deep. I hit the lift but immediately knew it was going to cost me. The lingering pain in my lower back was now a sharp pain. I was done. I just didn't want to give up. I put in my second lift, an increase of 425. At this point, I knew I wasn't going to hit the 480 lift that I wanted to. I just wanted to try and get as high a score as possible. I took another scoop of pre-workout and tried to get as psyched up as possible for my second lift. 425 was still something that I performed all the time for reps. As soon as my name was called and I touched the bar, I knew lifting it was out of the question. I was just in too much pain. I told the judges I was done and walked off the platform. I went outside, frustrated and in a fair amount of pain. I had trouble moving and knew I had a lower back muscle strain. The meet director and a couple of the other lifters came outside to see how I was doing and asked I needed anything. That kind of concern and camaraderie is what I love about powerlifting. People didn't even know me, but were genuinely concerned about my well being. It took me about 30-45 minutes to get back to a point where I was comfortable walking and moving around. I went back in and watched the remainder of the meet and got changed back into my street clothing. I stuck around for the awards ceremony and found out I had gotten second place in my weight class despite my injury. The results were posted on Tuesday and I found that even if I had performed my max attempts, I still would have come in second. Overall, I was disappointed in my performance. Even now while I'm writing this post, my lower back is still sore. It will be a couple of weeks until I deadlift again, and I have to be careful around weights.

Overall
So for new lifters there are a couple of important take aways leading up to a meet. For me, sitting around doing nothing was a bad idea. I'm a stiff athlete to begin with. Doing some light cardio, stretching, and lifting weights might have helped in preventing an injury. Also, listen to your body. If something is feeling funny, don't push it. It is only going to get worse. Most importantly, if you are going to compete, start with an opener that you can do in your sleep. If I hadn't picked such a light opener, I would have certainly bombed out of the meet. Instead, I was able to finish. The numbers aren't my best, but I competed and finished. I also learned a ton and met a lot of great people. RPS put on a top-flight meet with a great environment. I know this won't be my last meet and I certainly would recommend RPS as a federation for beginner and advanced lifters alike. There were some guys there that could bench and deadlift some serious numbers. Also, the trophies and swag are awesome.

For those of you that didn't want to read, here are the videos of my two best lifts:

[Shawal16]

Thank you for this post. I just registered for my first meet (RPS). I'm a little excited and nervous. It's good to know what to expect... Repped!!

[phillysteak]

Thanks for sharing dude. Grats hitting that bench. Funny, we may have met at the meet back in March. I came out to meet my buddy from Mass. and we were both in the 165's. Then, I just happened to be out that way this weekend and we got in a training session at the gym in Lakeville the day before the push-pull. Small world!

[NeverDeload]

Good detailed write up. You showed great heart for attempting deadlift, but I'm going to tell you it was also very stupid. Never do a meet injured, or do a lift injured. Not unless you're trying to hit an all-time record or win a national/world meet. Lifters with that level of experience may choose to roll the dice. But there's no need for an average joe to ever risk further injury. Your focus should be on living to fight another day, especially when you're a long way off PR's. There's no shame in pulling out of a meet if you're injured. Bear that in mind for the future and I hope everyone reading this bears it in mind. Rather than pulling out there's always the option of doing a token opener to be sporting, but imo that's pointless unless you hit a federation record on squat or bench prior to the deadlifts.

[BLK00TJ]

Great job hanging in there to get the job done. I think you made a wise decision stopping after your opener. RPS is a great fed and your meet director is an awesome man and part of the reason I got into the game.

Rehab and get back at it when you are ready.

[MonkeySlayer]

RPS is an awesome fed from what i experienced. Anyone know when they will start planning out 2016 meets?

[LawBro]

Good detailed write up. You showed great heart for attempting deadlift, but I'm going to tell you it was also very stupid. Never do a meet injured, or do a lift injured. Not unless you're trying to hit an all-time record or win a national/world meet. Lifters with that level of experience may choose to roll the dice. But there's no need for an average joe to ever risk further injury. Your focus should be on living to fight another day, especially when you're a long way off PR's. There's no shame in pulling out of a meet if you're injured. Bear that in mind for the future and I hope everyone reading this bears it in mind. Rather than pulling out there's always the option of doing a token opener to be sporting, but imo that's pointless unless you hit a federation record on squat or bench prior to the deadlifts.

I 100% agree. I think one thing I need to do in the future is listen to my body. I wasn't injured, but there was just a nagging soreness. I've never been very good at determining if I'm actually hurt or not (probably a left over football mentality). I should have done a token opener and then bowed out. Attempting to lift heavy singles with even minor soreness or discomfort is a recipe for disaster. Luckily it's just a soft tissue strain and I should be back in the game in a couple of weeks.

[naturalguy]

Great choice RPS runs great meets, they really cater to the lifters

[DerAlta]

LawBro:
Glad you enjoyed the Meet, I put a lot of work into it, and wanted everyone to have a great day. It's great to hear that your Back is not a serious issue, and that it should heal up quickly. I absolutely hate to see lifters get injured. It's why I stopped out to check on you. My goal, with the SMB, is that I have a great crew to run the day so I can visit and enjoy the day with the lifters.

I've heard back from a lot of lifters, and the only issue I've had so far, is that I didn't have a food truck or someone grilling food for everyone to eat. Next year, that will change.

Rest up, heal up, and looking forward to seeing you at the next one.

[DerAlta]

RPS is an awesome fed from what i experienced. Anyone know when they will start planning out 2016 meets?

A good amount of them are already up on their website.

http://meets.revolutionpowerlifting.com/

[MonkeySlayer]

A good amount of them are already up on their website.

http://meets.revolutionpowerlifting.com/

fuarakkkk repped! now i know my next meet

[bushmaster88]

This meet was the first I have ever attended. It was well put together, Alex.

To the OP, nice write up! I haven't done a meet so there are a lot of pointers j can take from this.