Reactive Training Systems

hehehehe. Careful now

Great Job, Mike. You made the USA proud!

Congratulations on the silver! 

helluva battle Mike, wish I could have seen it. Congrats on the Silver.

Thanks for the congrats, everybody! Here are my thoughts on the meet...


Results for 2008 IPF Worlds in St Johns, Newfoundland

Squat
1- 848 (good)
2- 892 (good)
3- 921 (miss)

Bench
1- 584 (miss belly bench)
2- 584 (good)
3- 623 (miss missgroove)

Deadlift
1- 771 (good)
2- 804 (good)
3- 826 (miss)

Silver medal for squat, Bronze for bench, silver for Deadlift.
Silver medal overall.

Obviously Im disappointed in my performance. Any time you go 5/9, you know you left quite a bit on the platform (especially for my bench). To go 5/9 and barely miss gold is even more bitter, but at the same time I know I need to move past it. Ill relive it one more time, then its back to training
If youll remember that during my test week, I put on a tight suit and was getting bound up in the bottom. I decided to lift in a looser suit to make sure I could hit depth. It turned out to be too loose because 921 should NOT have been a hard lift, but I missed it. I can blame a little of it on the platform (everyone at the meet was falling forward), but that should have made a minimal impact on a 921 lift. I think a lot of the blame goes to me for having a suit that wasnt fit for competition. Oh well, it was disappointing, but by this time, we went on to bench press.
Benching started out fine in the warm-ups. Everything felt as it should. I took my opener and was called for belly benching (by a small margin). Personally, I feel like it was a bad call. There was a chalk line on my shirt where the bar touched and it was clearly NOT the belly. Oh well, bad calls happen its what you do about it that matters. I asked to repeat the weight. In hindsight, I should have moved it up 5-10 pounds because 584 was easy. Even so, benching can be my Achilles heel at times, so I opted to play it safe. I smoked it on the 2nd. Then, I called for 623 (or whatever it was) on my 3rd. I did so because I wanted to change shirts and doing so would require me to go to this weight in order to touch. Again, it should have been an easy lift on any day. When I took the attempt, I misgrooved it and it slipped back toward my head. Disappointing to say the least. And that REALLY hurt the total.
Deadlifting felt GREAT in the warmup, but once I got to the platform, it fell apart. My back rounded over on every pull. I pulled 771 rounded and it actually felt okay. I pulled 804 rounded and that felt decent. I told Sherman I felt good for about 830. I needed 826 for the win, so thats what we did. Shepil hit his last pull, forcing me to do the same. I pulled and pulled like Ive never pulled a Deadlift before. I got it to my thighs before I dropped it.
So I felt like garbage for a little while at this point the US team needed me to place 1st to have a chance at winning. I also lost a meet that I should have won. Yes, I had some externalities that affected my lifting (having to travel for 48 hours before the meet, getting minimal sleep the night(s) before, etc). But at the end of the day, its what you lift and I lifted crappy. I sat down with some folks afterwards and we talked. It was at this point I realized, Hey, its still 2nd in the world on a bad day. Not what I wanted, but it couldve been much worse. We also talked about lessons I can take away from this meet.
Some of it I was already thinking about. Some of it was new. Heres where Im going with things:
The biggest take-away is just my meet-focus. Ive been hitting on that for a while now, but its time to really get serious about it. No more training for trainings sake. I need to be focused on gaining contest result. Two things Im going to change to do this Im going to do a skills evaluation about 3 weeks out instead of a test week about 2 weeks out. I expect this to 1) help refocus me toward the meet and 2) give me a more clear picture on how things are going in a contest format.
Youll also see me doing more singles during the course of this next block. Im going to use the singles as technique practice. Sometimes if, say, youre doing reps in a bench shirt, the focus is on doing the reps and not touch/pause/press. Thats fine as I feel thats a good way to build strength, but I also need to hone my technique in a highly specific way. This will be it.
Theres plenty more lessons learned, too. I need to know my gear better so I wont have any more fiascos like I did with squatting I need to make sure my technique is no-doubt execution for Deadlift in particular, I just need to get stronger. Ive been neglecting some movements that will help build my strength in the Deadlift and it wont happen anymore.

Ive got some questions about why my bench numbers were so far below what I did during my test week. The reason is that I wore a very tight shirt during test week and didnt touch. I wore looser shirts during the meet, so that accounts for the difference. Ill be working on getting one of these super tight shirts to work, then my bench should start looking better.

So whats in store for me down the road? Im going to take the rest of this week doing GPP stuff, then Im going to start training for the Raw Unity Meet. Ill be doing that meet at the end of January and Im very excited to be doing a raw meet. After that, Ill be doing the full meet at the Arnold again. Im really looking forward to that one.
I got invited to do the World Games next July. For those who dont know, the World Games is organized by the International Olympic Committee and is pretty much as close to the Olympics as you can get for now. I wanted to do World Games because its a once-in-four-years opportunity and the best competition will be there. Its in Taiwan. Before that meet, I think Ill still do Mens Nationals in June. Its in Denver, so it would be a cheap trip for me to make and it would be nice to see some friends that live in the area.
Thats the foreseeable future for me. Its disappointing to not do as well as you KNOW you can do, but Im going back to training with a good mindset. This meet is now behind me and its time to focus on Raw Unity and the Arnold.

Lift Big Weight

Hey its Grant im at work,

Hey was thinking in the past about some of the same stuff you have coming into this meet.  I have made some changes to what i have been doing but we will see what the result is after the meet this weekend.  But i think the training set up that i have is really beneficial.  Putting that main squat movement right before the main bench movement.  Hopefully this pausing the benches for around a second to simulate the long pause that i may get at the meet will help.  Going into bench im usually pretty beat.  Anyways you gonna try that deadlift suit again?  Ill let you know how the meet goes and if i start looking at making more changes. 

Finally i never got to say congrats.  I know gold would have been nice and what you wanted, but silver is no small accomplishment.  In one way i think it may be just as good for you.  It may give you some motivation, what if you were one of those guys that won it on your first time and didnt have much to work for after that.  I know your work habits which are similar to mine and you always want to boost that total as high as you can, but wether you like it or not competition will always effect how you lift.  Alright man ill try and give you a call this weekend after i lift.