Bobcat strikes hard: the incredible tale of a prototypical purposeful primitive
10 October 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
AS A MATTER OF FACT I DO KNOW SQUAT
By Bob Friedman
Springfield, Ohio is almost exactly three hours from Lexington, Kentucky, where I live. It’s not too far from Dayton, where they’re really proud of aviation. But NASA, in the iron world, means Natural Athlete Strength Association. NASA puts on a lot of meets in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, and Saturday, October 8 worked for me. I entered in the Power Sports division, squat only. (”Power Sports” allows only a belt–not even wraps–and the full Power Sports meet consists of curls, bench presses and deadlifts. There’s also a Power Sports squat for the relatively few people who want to squat raw.) I didn’t bench because of an injury to a small muscle in my left hand; I didn’t deadlift because I’m going to do that next weekend. My wife Vondah and I drove up to Springfield Friday night, checked into the Ramada, and went into town to have dinner. Ten-ounce steaks, nice and rare. After we got back to the Ramada, I left to go to the evening weigh-in. I usually weigh more in the evening than in the morning, but I expected no problem making weight and I didn’t want to be too rushed in the morning.
Weigh-ins, and the meet, were a 10-mile drive from the Ramada at a high school east of town. It was a cool, drizzly night. Driving east on a slick I-70 and then finding the slick road to the high school in the dark was a slightly scary proposition, but I made it there after one wrong turn. There was a football game going on, so it was hard to find a place to park. Once I parked, I had a short walk across wet grass before setting foot on pavement. I found the way in and to the weigh-ins. I came up to a table at the far side of a gym and encountered a fifty-something guy who was taller than I–but not a lot taller–but was big: a dead giveaway that this was where the powerlifters would be. This was Rich Peters, the meet director and head of NASA. He found my entry, masters 2 (50-59), but not the record of my buying a membership–which I bought about the beginning of September. He said he wouldn’t worry about it; he had only brought the list of Ohio lifters with him. Nice guy. There were a pair of hydraulic squat racks close by. I went and tried them out to find the right setting. It wasn’t going quickly. As I was getting close, Gary, the powerlifting coach at the high school, gave me a hand. 14 was the right setting. Then, off to a small room to weigh in. 181.0 in nothing but my briefs; a fraction of a pound below the upper limit. Time to go back to the Ramada and make an early night of it.
Next morning, we ate a large breakfast and checked out. Off to the high school. The meet would be held somewhere other than the weigh-in location. It was in a gym that looked as if it used to be the garage for the county government motor pool. This was some garage gym! The meet area was on one side of a wall. On the other side were a couple of treadmills, a stair machine or two, and lots of bars and plates. There were two sets of hydraulic squat racks and a cage-style rack. The gym had a nice platform, roomy as platforms go. Benches, a couple of cable pulldown machines, . . . you get the idea. They were into powerlifting at this high school. They initially expected 40 to 50 lifters. Fewer appeared. There was plenty of talk about the price of gasoline. Bo, from West Virginia, conducted the rules briefing. It was more detailed than the last one I attended, but I appreciated the detail. For squats, there would be both audible and visible signals to squat and to rack the bar. Most importantly, Bo said that if he gave you a lift, but it was a close call, he’d tell you about it. He was interested in helping his fellow lifters get better and avoid getting injured. Good deal. The meet started with the Power Sports curls. I missed most of them because I was warming up for the squats: 5 minutes walking on a treadmill and five paused singles. I then went and saw the end of the curls.
After a short break, it was time to squat. There was one flight of squatters. I took a bottle of flavored water and the Nitro-Tech bar from which I was taking small bites to one of the seats behind the platform. There was plenty of chalk available as the lifter approached the platform. The squat racks were set up so that you took the bar and walked it out onto a piece of thin carpet. I had never squatted on carpet before! In fact, I hadn’t squatted outside a rack with spotter bars in years–back when 85 pounds for reps was the best I could do. When I was on deck, I chalked up my hands and stepped forward to the bar. It was loaded to a weight (in kilograms) a mere 21 pounds heavier than the weight I had used for a set of five paused squats a few weeks ago. Remembering the Commandment of Powerlifting, “Thou Shalt Not Bomb,” and knowing that the conditions would be unfamiliar, I had chosen a conservative opener: 336-pounds. I walked the bar out. “Squat.” Down I went, and I was sure I went more than deep enough. On the way up, something felt very wrong and soon three alert spotters had both me and the bar, and it was racked. No lift. The announcer, the Ohio state chair, said, “He’ll get it next time.” I went to the scorekeeper’s table and said, “Same weight.”
I was not amused. I was disturbed. “Thou Shalt Not Bomb” ran through my mind several times. The squatter next to me, Mark, said his handler thought it looked as if I came up too much on my toes. Well, that would explain a fast-developing problem with a weight that should have been a breeze. I now had an idea what squatting on a piece of carpet felt like, and could try to correct for the surface. Also, now I knew how things would go if something went wrong with a squat. That was comforting. I took my second attempt with 336. It was good: I would not bomb! That took a weight–of the wrong kind–off of me. Bo beckoned me over and told me that he’d really like to see it go a little lower. O.K. I had practiced that with pause squats. I went over to the scorekeepers table and requested 15 kilograms (33 pounds) more, 369-pounds for my third attempt: double bodyweight. I also made my third attempt. It was enough weight for one of the officials to do a quick equipment check right there on the platform: was my belt the right thickness, was my singlet really a legal singlet, and did I have plain briefs on? (Yes to all.) I felt considerably better, though I hadn’t broken the psychological barrier I wanted to break. Bo told me that I had descended quickly, and he observed that he had seen some guys lose control of otherwise good squats for that reason. I thanked him. Good call:
I’m not huge enough or young enough to do a safe dive-bomb squat. The scorekeeper asked if I wanted a fourth attempt. I said yes, grabbed my kilo chart and asked for 15 kilograms more: 402-pounds. This one would just break the psychological 400-pound barrier. I fiddled with my belt; I didn’t want it too loose, but I knew I didn’t want it as tight as some of the other lifters had theirs. I wanted to be able to take in a large breath and keep my midsection really tight. Too-tight belt equals not enough air to feel right to me. There was a little confusion in loading the bar, so I had a short additional wait. When the bar was ready, I stepped up and grabbed it one hand at a time. The last thing I remember before walking out was a view that spanned nothing but the short expanse of bar between my hands. “Squat.” I went down at a more moderate speed and quickly pushed up out of the hole. I slowed a bit on the way up, and I’ve got to admit it was a tiring effort. Nevertheless, I got it all the way up. “Rack.” My tired leg took a tentative step forward and the spotters helped me guide the bar into the rack. Three white lights! The announcer said, “He makes it look easy.” Subjectively, it wasn’t that easy but it did feel like a better squat than my previous ones. But for the helpful observations of Bo, Mark and Mark’s handler, it might have looked bad.
The weight on my first and second attempts was 152.5 kilograms, or 336 pounds. A state record if the Ohio chair allows lifters from other states to set them. In NASA, you have to submit an application for a record. On one of the NASA forums, there is currently a debate over whether out-of-state lifters should be allowed to set state records. My third attempt was 167.5 kilograms, or 369 pounds. I believe that’s 1.5 kg over the NASA American record for my age and weight. The fourth? 182.5 kilograms, or 402 pounds. Had I made my first attempt, I probably would have asked for a 185 kilogram (408 pound) fourth; however, 400 pounds was the psychological barrier. I had broken it in the gym before, but I wanted to do it while people who “knew squat” were watching to see that it was a proper squat. So I filled out my American record application, changed back into street clothes, and settled in to watch the bench presses and deadlifts. The highlight of watching the rest of the meet was watching a girl who just turned 13 make some nice lifts–several lifters ahead of her grandfather! It was all over by about 2:30. We hit the road, and stopped for a celebratory early dinner at a Korean barbecue restaurant just off I-75. It was very good, and I ate a lot. Squatting really stimulates the appetite.
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