From Enfeeblement to Empowerment Part II
3 February 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Ron and Nick had finished their squats. For Ron it had been a quasi-nightmare and for Nick a transcendental experience. Ron had ended with 236 and missed 254 on a technicality. Its one thing to out and out miss an attempt on account of not being strong enough and the poundage too heavy its another to make a weight and lose it because of an obscure technicality. I told Ron that there were 27 causes for disqualification in the squat and he had been tripped up on one of them: once the lifter begins the upward ascent in the squat the barbell cannot go back down before hitting lockout. Ron went down plenty deep and started his ascent when for whatever reason he stopped went back down a few inches before pushing the bar to completion. It was turned down by two judges and passed by one no lift. He was not a happy camper and wanted to get into some major league bitching. Normal and natural but hardly timely; we had to recalibrate him psychologically and force him to look ahead, not behind and for him not to get sucked down the black hole of negative thinking this competition was rolling ahead and we needed him in the immediate present. Nick sailed through his three squats ending with a phenomenal 308-pound effort - a personal best by 38-pounds and double-bodyweight plus sixteen pounds. Super for a rookie. Rolling into the bench presses Kirk said to me, Dude, this man needs three successful bench presses to reestablish momentum. No close misses. If we have to leave a few pounds left on the platform, thats fine. I had Ron starting his bench presses with 215 but went to the scorers table and lowered his opening attempt to 203. He had made 230 and missed 240 during training. This proved a smart move as he handled 203 then 215 and finally 226 on his third bench press. This was four pounds within his best and Kirk and I where ecstatic: Ron was all smiles and his squat disappointment was a fading memory. The 20-year old power protg continued his rampage making benches of 250, 263 and 270. He could have made 281.
Now it was time to deadlift and this was Rons best lift and he did not disappoint. He made his opener with 336 then tore up a double bodyweight 364, my pre-competition goal. On his final lift he made a superb 402 final attempt. A sour note was struck when his beautiful 3rd attempt 402 was turned down by two judges for a perceived hitch; the bar must travel upward without any hesitation or pause and two judges said the bar stalled before he locked it out. Kirk and I both felt they were wrong and I went to the jury of appeals to appeal the lift: they informed me that because his placing would be unaffected regardless if they overturned the decision of the judges (3rd place regardless) they were not going to get involved. It was a fine lift and we have the video tape to prove it. Ron again was deservedly pissed and it was impossible for him to appreciate how incredibly far hed traveled in 120-days. Nick finished his perfect day with three perfect deadlifts: 336, 363 and 402 for a nine-for-nine day. In addition to making all his lifts, Nick received three white lights on every lift (27 white lights total, not a single red light on any lift) for a perfect/perfect day. Hed won his division and a world championship in his initial outing. Quite a day for a guy who never considered entering a powerlifting competition until I strongly suggested he do so a mere four weeks prior. One day a few months back Ron bought Nick by to a training session at my unheated garage and he asked if he could train with us. Sure. I said. Im not easy to impress but when this just-turned-20 kid took to my squat and deadlift training with such technical ease, I was impressed to the point that by the 5th session I told him he should consider lifting in the Richmond competition. Why not? was his nonchalant reply. If he sticks with this sport for five years he could morph from interesting protg to something truly incrediblea sort of Michael Vick of powerlifting.
Larry Christ and I have trained together off and on for twenty years. He is a seven time national master champion and he I have been on numerous international squads for Team USA, most notably to Bratislava in the Czech Republic in 1995 where he and I and the stoic Martin Brown shared rooms in a gulag-style ghetto hotel prior to the IPF world championships. He lifted in Richmond and it was great to see him pull 418 weighing 130-pounds just shy of 60-years old. He also had a perfectly good double-bodyweight 263 pound third attempt squat turned down 2-1. Always in good humor and totally realistic (he is an accountant by trade) Larry continues to lift great. His physique is amazing and a testament to the benefits of hardcore power training. The days lifting started at 9am and finished at 2pm a long day and a good day. Once it was over, Kirk and I decided to get a drink and decompress. We checked into our rooms and I collapsed for a few hours. My day had started at 4am and now it was 4pm and physically and psychologically I was wiped out. I ran into Lorrie and we all decided to meet at 7pm to try a promising BBQ house down the road from the hotel. Lorrie, her husband Kevin, Kirk, my old friend Larry and his friend John met at BBQ house with high expectations: we were disappointed by the fare (pretty lame) but the company was great: Larry, John, Lorrie and the ever mysterious Kevin Jen and her sister were there when we arrived but left early as Jen would be lifting in the morning. We ate and drank and laughed and around nine everyone split leaving Karwoski and me to kick back and talkwe talked about the past, the present and the future. It promised to be a long day on Saturday but it seemed a shame to prematurely end the day so the two of us sat at the table in the substandard BBQ joint ordering drinks and following a stream of consciousness that bounced from one related topic to anothersince wed known each other for twenty-plus years the time flew and soon they were closing and asked us to leaveThings promised to get quite strange the following day as the estrogen festival would take center stage.
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