The Meet
11th annual Ironworks Open (USAPL)
This is my third time doing this meet. The previous two years were awesome. They were in a nice convention center with plenty of seating and the warm up area was right near the lifting platform.
This year, it held in a small gym with no A/C, and the warm up area was down a flight of stairs in the basement.
The weigh-in, equipment check and rack heights were supposed to be from 7:00-8:00am, but the people running the meet were walking in the door right at 7:00. We didn’t start anything until 7:15. For rack heights, they did squat first, and had everyone go single file until all squat rack heights were done before they would start the bench rack height. Which would have been fine but there were still people strolling in at 7:30. Lifting was to start at 9:00, and the people who traveled had to get back to their hotel rooms to eat and get ready, but we were still messing with rack heights at 8:00. It was a hot mess.
Weigh-In
I was 285 lbs at my last meet in March, and I wanted to compete in the 264 weight class for this one. I weighed in at 261.6 lbs. I was able to drop 23.6 lbs in 5 months, so I started the day with a win.
Squat
I was able to do 485 in the gym 3 weeks prior to this meet, so I was hoping to get at least that. My 2nd attempt went so well, I jumped to 496. On my 3rd, the spotter grabbed my chest right as I came out of the hole. You can see in the video after he touches me, I shake my head. My friend was one of the side judges, so I asked him what happened. He said he had no idea. Oh well.
1st – 205 kg (451.9 lbs) – Good lift
2nd – 215 kg (474 lbs) – Good lift
3rd – 225 kg (496 lbs) – Bad lift
Bench Press
I did 300 in the gym 3 weeks back, and my opener went up good, so I went for 303. Not even close.
1st – 125 kg (275.6 lbs) – Good lift
2nd – 137.5 kg (303.1 lbs) – Bad lift
3rd – 137.5 kg (303.1 lbs) – Bad lift
Deadlift
After the Bench Press, I was feeling gassed, so I decided to lower my opener from 529 to 507, just to be safe. The guy at the table said pretty much everyone lowered their openers. In fact, so many people lowered their deadlift openers, it delayed the first flight of lifters while they got things adjusted in the computer. Anyway, I did 555 in the gym, and figured that would be the goal for the day so I could end on 3 whites.
1st – 230 kg (507.1 lbs) – Good lift
2nd – 245 kg (540.1 lbs) – Good lift
3rd – 252.5 kg (556.7 lbs) – Good lift
Overall
Squat – 215 kg (474 lbs)
Bench Press – 125 kg (275.6 lbs)
Deadlift – 252.5 kg (556.7 lbs)
Total – 592.5 kg (1306.2 lbs)
I didn’t do as well as I wanted to, but this was the first time I’ve lifted in a meet at this weight, so I have a benchmark to build off of going forward. I look at it this way, I did this meet last year and totaled 1300.7 @ 277 lbs, so totaling 1306.2 @ 262 is still better
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