Of Late

I've had a hard time trying to string together good training sessions over the last couple of weeks since my last post. It wasn't ideal as I was trying to get ready (in my head as well as my body) for the Best Of The South/South Island bench champs held in Greymouth last weekend.

I managed one rough shirt session the week prior to the meet, but that was the first time I had put it on since the meet in September. I didnt feel great about it, but after an ugly 1 board effort I figured I'd be able to mongrel it down if I had to. I was never going to touch with anything lighter then 205kgs, and although I certainly wasn't pressing as well as in September, I figured I'd probably be able to mongrel that up as well.

come the day of the meet and after a long drive I weighed in at 100.25kgs .05 heavier then Sept. We didnt have our comp bench, and the one we used was higher then normal. I stupidly didn't have any practice setups before my opener, which set me up for an ugly day of lifting.

On my opener I didnt get my shoulders back properly. This was due to the high bench and me not paying enough attention. I have to say that the hand out was rough too, but again that's something I should have accounted for and gone over with the spotter. While waiting for the start signal I could already feel the shirt tightening up, and it felt like it took 10 minutes to reach my chest. I got stuck for a bit at what felt like 2cm from touching and nearly decided to flag it and press it, miss the lift and go on to my 2nd attempt. But I decided to give it a bit extra and manged a touch. The press felt slow, wonky and ugly but I got 2 white lights.

All that time spent straining and arching caused a spasm in my right lat, low down about inline with my elbow. I couldn't stand up for a while so flagged my last 2 lifts. Luckily for me Alf (the guy who would have won) was reffing so I managed to win with my rude lift.

Craig (a close to 2x bodyweight raw bencher) and Alf (probably pound for pound the best bencher in NZ) both lifted in the Best of the South section (all the guys using bench shirts were in the Sth Is champs section that went first. Craig did 180, the 205, both quite easy, then got hurt (torn bicep I think) having a crack at 220kgs. He got the win though, and Alf cleaned up second with 140, 150 and 160, all of which looked easy.

There were a few giggles from the girls and frowns from the guys in greymouth when they saw me wearing my bench shirt, and the bloody shiny black softsuit that Alf lent me, but it was a good day and there were some good new lifters that had a go. Steve Barnes, a new comer who had to lift, then shoot off to fill in a grave (his job) managed to place 3rd in the Sth Is champs which was awesome. But all in all it was cool to see the Eastside guys dominate.

Training is feeling really good, and I think it has a lot to do with getting more sleep! And training more in the evenings. I think a few simple things like having water to drink on my work desk help as well.

I'll hopefully be able to make more consistent posts on here as well. In the mean time Craig has set up a blog at www.biggerstrongersmarter.wordpress.com which will be well worth looking at and Spida, a PT who works and trains out of Eastside has an up coming MMA fight. He's done some videos as he builds up - some training, some talking, - which are pretty cool too so look for him at www.ehpfitness.com.