AAU World Push/Pull championships
21 October 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Saturday morning I awoke in a really nice hotel room I was sharing with Zebulon John. He hadnt arrived yet, due mid-day, so I wandered downstairs looking for strong coffee to help clear the mental fog. I found it in the hotel lobby and cup in hand made my way down the long hotel corridor to the lifting hall and backstage warm-up area. This would be day number one of the AAU World Championships and this powerlifting competition would be limited two powerlifts: bench press and deadlift. Each lift is done for a single maximum repetition; each lifter allowed three attempts in each lift. Eleven weight classes would be contested. I loved The Vibe of the Richmond meet, loose and friendly but the judging of lifts tough and rigid. Old timers like me appreciate strict standards and we are totally down with the insistence on proper lift execution. Each lift was scrutinized by three referees and had to pass technical muster in order to be counted. Loose judging is fertile ground for chaos, anarchy and promotes the poisonous introduction of subjectivity into what should be coldly objective. The Amateur Athletic Union is one of the few organizations in which lifters can compete without wearing the poundage-inflating power gear. Performance-enhancing lifting apparel has made it tough to tell where man-strength ends and gear-strength begins. Things got started on time. All women lifters and men up to and including the 198-pound class would hoist iron on day one.
The lifting would occur in three flights. In order to speed up the proceedings the lifters were broken down into three equal sized groupings. Michele, Ellen and my pal Vondah would be lifting in the first flight. All lifted well within their respective capacities and made attempt after attempt. Brooklyn Ellen lifted really well, she had been a member of an IPF world championship team a few years back and while she bench pressed exceedingly professionally, her deadlifts were even better. Michele lifted under control and did not miss a single attempt if memory serves. Vondah was an interesting case study. She is controlled and analytical and was quite surprised to see that her palms were sweating prior to her first attempt deadlift. Spock-like, she noted to me in a detached fashion that she couldnt remember the last time an event caused her palms to sweat. Ah, I said, but when was the last time you were competing in a national championship and suddenly it was your turn to lift like now? She laughed and proceeded to make four straight deadlifts, the last breaking the 200-pound barrier. She later asked me (as she basked in the afterglow that comes after performing really well in an important competition) if that feeling of elation immediately afterwards ceases over time. How would I describe that feeling of total satisfaction that accompanies being the winner? First, I said, that flush of victory that comes when you win after three months of intense preparation never fades and we call that afterglow sensation runaway triumphalism. She liked that.
My old training partner Larry Christ returned to the lifting platform after a decade of training but not competing. The last time Larry and I were at a competition was when he and I lifted in Bratislava in the Czech Republic in 94 when we both were members of the United States powerlifting squad at the IPF world masters championship. What a time that wasLarry is a seven-time national masters champion and at a bodyweight of 132 could squat and deadlift 500 and bench press 300. This ex-wrestler looked incredible for a man just shy of 60. He showed how Old School lifters rollhe never missed a single attempt and took down a national title with his trademark all-business nonchalance, so cool to observe. Larry used perfect technique, amazing strength and his remarkable self-analysis ability: he judges his capacity on a particular day and point in time and then turns machine. He is a lifting robot, detached, yet relaxed and laughing when not preparing to lift. When its his turn he becomes totally and completely focused at dealing with the barbell. I asked if he wanted any 4th attempts for records or to extend the records hed already established, Nah! Came his instantaneous reply. That sounds too much like work and Im gonna be sore as hell tomorrow as it is. So matter-of-fact, so levelheaded and practical, LC gathered his trophies and medals and award certificates, lit up his pipe and headed off into the sunset. I have a feeling that this competition might ha have rekindled a competitive pilot light that had been left unlit for quite a while. Informed spectators and all lifting affectionados who appreciate technical perfection are ecstatic that LC is back in the saddle.
Bobcat, El Gato, the consigliore, Bob - had a dream day. Made everything he touched - then made some more - eventually deadlifting 200-kilos, 440-pounds. This only weeks after hed set an American record, squatting 402 with no gear weighing 181-pounds. Now a week later he was on fire again. He told me in the lobby as we waited for the taxi to take us to Mortons Friday night that A 424-deadlift would be great. Secretly I would like to pull 440 sometime in the near future. He had a dreamy look in his eye. The future in Now! I said. I made a mental note how his eyes got real wide, not with fear but with excitement. At the competition El Gato got his groove thing on and got stronger with each subsequent attempt. I warned him not to look ahead of his 3rd lift. Many a man has looked for what lay around the bend only to trip on that that lay at their feet. He took my advice and crushed his third which set a record. I didnt even have to ask him as I put down 440 for a record breaking 4th attempt. He was so fired up (in his quiet way) and so technically grooved in that even though the lift was maximal, damn heavy and in question from start to finish (the cumulative fatigue of pulling four, 400-pound plus deadlifts within 30-minutes was taking a toll) he nailed the lift for a three white light success. This guy is getting so good so fast its mind-boggling.
Pavel Tsatsouline is my closet fitness cohort insofar as how we think. We are sympacato all up and down the line. We come from two different worlds yet agree on nearly everything insofar as strength philosophy goes. Pavel wanted, as Picasso put it, to be jerked from his torpor occasionally. Nothing puts a fire into training like having a date with athletic destiny looming on the near horizon. Pavel weighs 170-pounds at 6-feet in height so his muscle density per inch of height ratio was going to be pathetically low compared to the staggering density-per-inch ratios of elite powermen. Still, he was on a mission. Pavel is a lifting machine and his deadlift technique goes past technician onto clinician. He is actually constructing a conventional deadlift technique that is unlike anything Ive ever seen and Ive seen all the best deadlifters lift up close and personalWalter Thomas, Lamar Gant, Danny Wolheber, Doyle, Heisey, Kuc, Chaillet, Vince Anello, the Great Ed, Cashon and on. I really think Pavel is on the verge of perfecting a new style of deadlifting that, if teachable, could make its way into deadlift orthodoxy: the conventional, the sumo, the Pavel. Basically the technique requires the lift (using conventional stance) is commenced in standard fashion but when the barbell passes the knees the hips are shot forward in synchronization with a savage, martial-art style KI! breath. The net effect ends with the barbell locked out somehow without having to muscle the shoulders back into place. Quite extraordinary to observe and the more attuned the person to the subtleties of classical technique the more intriguing The Pavel becomes. I had him teach it to some of the cat herd but its pretty subtle stuff.
Putting his technique to the test in the white-hot spotlight of national competition proved a great test-track shakedown cruise for the Pavel. Nothing brings out flaws and problems like limit lifts done in front of steely-eyed judges searching for technical infractions in order to turn down a lift. Pavel asked me to handle his attempts so in quick succession he made 440 and 463 before 479 stopped him. The first two were picture perfect and on the 3rd attempt his initial acceleration off the floor stalled and the height was insufficient (maybe six inches shy) for him to utilize his stylized lockout. I thought it weirdly dj vu that he had devised a pre-lift foot stomp. This technique is designed to fire the lifter into a psychological frenzy the instant before lifting. The interesting part was that Pavel had unconsciously replicated a foot stomp my Zen Master powerlift sensei taught us to do prior to taking a squat out of the rack. This back in 1979. Pavel won the national title and afterwards asked my advice. If he decided to stay in the power game, I said, he should consider developing more density per inch of height. At a full 198 he would deadlift between 600 and 660. I said. He said he would take it under advisement. I still had another day of competition left. That night we went to Outback Steakhouse and Zeb re-introduced me to the joys of coconut shrimp. I had vague memories of Mai Tais and coconut shrimp at Trader Vics back in the seventies.
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