Twin Ports Open

Recently, I have been training my squats and deadlifts raw, but training with my bench shirt for bench press. This is because Bench Press Nationals is coming up in September and I will need to wear my shirt there. My original intent was to lift at the Twin Ports Open and to squat and deadlift raw, but bench in my shirt. However, about 6 weeks out from the meet, meet director, Joe Warpeha, decided to make the meet a "raw only" meet. This meant that I could not bench in my shirt. Squats have been going great for me. So, I decided to lift anyway, primarily to test out my raw squat max.

I woke up the morning of the meet weighing 115.2. YIKES! This was exactly where I did not want to be! Fawn Friday and I were driving up to Duluth the morning of the meet and I needed to have coffee to make this drive. If I had been 116, I would have just lifted in the 123s. But being close enough to make it to the 114s, I decided to try. Fawn and I put on our sweats and turned up the heat in my Mustang on the way up to Duluth. Come to find out - this trick does work!! Good for about two pounds on someone small like me.

After a long drive up to Duluth, we finally got to weigh in. I weighed in at 51.5 kilos - a half kilo under where I needed to be. Then, it was time to rehydrate, eat, and get ready to lift! One of the cool things about this meet was there were 10 women lifting in the full-power division and 2 more doing bench only! I don't remember ever lifting in a local meet with so many women. Needless to say, the competition was fierce!

First up was squats! Squats are fast becoming almost my favorite lift. If anyone ever wants to host a squat/bench meet, let me know.... Squats were really the whole reason I was at this meet. My best raw squat up to this point was 193 at the Arnold. I missed 203 at the Arnold due to being distracted by the lights. I opened at 182. Felt easy! Three white lights. Off to a great start. I then put in 203 for my second attempt, just as planned. This weight also felt easy. What a change from the Arnold, which was only in March! Three white lights again! Next up was 215. Weight felt heavy, but it went up. Two white lights = good lift. Good enough for me! :) New personal record and state record by 21 pounds! Can't get much better than that.

The bad news was that squats took a lot of my energy. The meet was really long. We had to wait and hour and a half between squats and bench press. For me, this is not good. I tend to lose my energy if I sit around forever like that. GRRR! Bench press was kind of an unknown since I had been training in my shirt for the last 7 weeks. I opened with 137 pounds. No problems - three white lights. Next up was 148 pounds. Good lift - three white lights again. I decided to try for a raw PR with 160 pounds. But it was stuck on my chest. No lift - good job spotters. Mike Siegler was on hand to cheer Fawn and me on. He said I would have gotten my third bench if Paul had been there to yell at me. LOL!

For me, the meet pretty much went downhill from there. We had another hour and a half wait between bench press and deadlifts. YAWN!!! My back was sore from squats and arching on the bench press. I felt like I usually do in a three-lift meet - "WHAT - I still have to deadlift?!?!" My main goal at this point was to just not bomb on the deadlift so that my squat record would count. I opened at 215. Good lift - but it felt frickin' heavy. This was just sad since I deadlifted 260 at the Arnold. I lowered my expectations based on this opener and went to 236 on my second attempt. Again it was a good lift - three white lights. But it felt super heavy. I decided to go for 253 instead of the 264 PR I had wanted to do. No luck. Even 253 was nailed to the floor. Oh well, end of a long day.

Next up, I am going to Seattle for a Bench/Dead on August 15. After that will be Bench Nationals!

Raw Squats

Monday was the last heavy squat day before the Twin Ports. My schedule called for two singles at 205. I was a little intimidated because I have never done this before, but the weight went up and felt good!

Squats
45x8x1
95x8x1
135x3x1
155x3x1
175x1x1
190x1x1
200x1x1
205x1x2

Pause Squats
135x8x3

Glute/ham raise
3 sets of 10

Sit-ups on Decline
25x10x3

Hypers
25x8x3

Gym PRs, a YouTube Channel, and More...

I have been crazy busy the last few weeks with a move at work, some big projects at work, moving at home, and of course lifting! But I have had hardly any time to update my blog. Despite all the hectic stuff that is going on, training has been going great.

Last Sunday was heavy bench day as usual. I did some warm-ups and then got into my shirt. In my shirt, I hit 185 for 4 sets of 2, but it felt really difficult. Like I just wasn't totally on. I was going to do some board presses. Based on my training to my chest, I thought I would go light. Well, it ended up being my best board press day yet.

Here is how the two-board presses went:

205x2x1
215x2x1 - this felt great, so I decided to go for 225
225x2x1 - this felt equally great, so we put 235 on the bar
235x2x1 - This is my best two-board press to date. If only the two-board were a contested lift....

I was lucky to have the Balyeat brothers helping me with my two-boards. When you can't reach the bar and want a hand-off of 235 pounds having a Strongman around sure comes in handy! Here is a video from my brand new Youtube account for your viewing pleasue:



The week before (so almost two weeks ago), I also did 195 to my chest for a double. Here is a video of that bench.



Raw squats have also been going great. On Monday, Fawn and I had our usual heavy squat day. Here is how it went for me:

45x8x1
95x8x1
135x3x1
155x3x1
175x1x1
185x1x1
195x2x2 - This was my first time doing doubles with 195!
Back-off set - 165x5x1 - no belt

Pause Squats
120x8x1
125x8x2

Glute/ham machine
3 sets of 10

Abs - Weighted Sit-ups on Decline Bench
25x10x3

Cardio: 30 minutes on treadmill

Light Bench and Some Other Stuff

Usually I think light bench is boring. But I have been mixing it up a little with some fun stuff, like my weight releasers. Here is how it went on Wednesday:

Bench
45x8x1
95x3x1
100x3x1 - plus weight releasers

It took some playing around to get the releasers to release right, so there were a few sets messing around.

100x3x3 + weight releasers +20 pounds (total weight 136) - med grip
100x3x3 + weight releasers + 20 pounds - close grip
100x3x2 + weight releasers + 20 pounds - wide grip (kind of - not shirt wide)

Overhead Press
45x5x1
65x3x1
70x3x4

Pull-ups
3 sets of 3

Chin-ups
3 sets of 3

Cardio: 30 minutes on treadmill

Then, today, I added in some extras with outdoor cardio, including the Stillwater stairs, pull-ups, push-ups, and abs at home.

Heavy Bench

As usual, Sunday was heavy bench day. It was somewhat of a heavy bench party - Fran Huston showed up with Justin from Lifetime Fitness to work in her shirt as well. I am in the middle of a shirt cycle. I never like being in my shirt very much, but it gets easier after a few weeks. Here is how it went for me:

Bench Press
45x8x1
95x8x1
115x3x1
135x3x1
145x1x1

Shirt
170x2x1
175x3x1
185x2x1
195x1x1 - felt good

Two-boards
210x2x1
215x2x1 - slow
Amazingly, these did not feel like a truck like last week.

Raw Three Boards
180x2x1
180x3x1 - better groove

Rep-out set
135x7x1 (med grip)

Tricep Push-downs (with rope)
30x8x3

2 point DB rows
30x8x4
20x10x1

Rower - 2:30 minutes

A Special Deadlift Treat

Deadlift is not my favorite lift. But tonight I had a special treat for deadlift night - Jo Rivet showed up to coach me! Fawn and Fran will also along for the fun. Jo totally revamped my workout and pushed me to do more than I would have done on my own. Here is how it went:

Sumos
135x5x2
175x3x1
190x2x1
205x1x1
215x1x1
230x1x2

Conventionals off block
165x5x1

Sumo-stance bent-over rows
75x8x2

Sumo Rack pulls
225x2x2
245x2x1

Heavy Bench!!

Yesterday I trained in my bench shirt again. I am really lucky that Paul has learned how to put on a bench shirt. It was a beautiful sunny day and the Press Gym was almost empty. The only other people in the Power Room were Cheryl Anderson and Mitch Edelstein, which turned out to be perfect. Cheryl and Mitch are very serious about training, but also fun to chat with so it worked out great.

Here is how my workout went:

Bench Press
45x8x1
95x8x1
115x3x2
135x3x1
145x1x1

Shirt
170x2x1
180x2x2
180x2x2 - with first rep paused

Two Board (in shirt)
200x2x1
210x2x1 (felt like a truck to quote Katherine Clark!)

Three Board (raw)
180x3x2

Tricep Push-downs
35x8x3

DB two point rows
25x8x5

This was a great workout. I am really happy with how my shirt training has been going.