There was a lot of pressure to do well at this meet. Not only from myself (I bombed on all three squat attempts the year before) but mostly pressure from my 6 year old son. He is OBSESSED with all things Ahhhhnold, he owns every movie, all his action figures, he even has the leather coat, boots, and sunglasses from the terminator movies AND he now flexes every second of the day. I guess there are worse role models, but seriously I have to take 20 pictures of the boy just to get one where he is not trying to mimic this…..
When he found out this was the qualifier for that meet he pretty much warned me that I wasn’t allowed to return home if I didn’t make it…talk about a positive support system.
I felt really good going into this meet, initially I was going to cut to the 103 lb class, but when my weight wouldn’t drop below 109lbs I decided to eat up and hover at 113 lbs. USAPL is same day weigh in. I probably could have water loaded enough to drop the 5lbs BUT I did not want to feel weak and depleted and with only about an hour to eat before competing it isn’t enough time to get carbs in the system to feel remotely strong (at least for me anyway). If you’ve never done same day weigh- ins it is really tough to eat with nerves n all I literally felt like I was choking down each bite. Oddly enough, I ended up weighing in at 109lbs (I think I dropped the 4lbs I had gained with my ½ mile trek to Starbucks in the awful Florida humidity the day before).
Squats
This is my nemesis. I think once you bomb out its hard not to replay that in your head over n over again. I was originally going to open at 235 or 240, but in warm-ups my left glute in hamstring felt really tight (more on this in regards to my dreadful deadlifting later). I decided to play it super safe, get the nerves out and opened light with 225.75 lbs. Oddly enough I got all three attempts and it actually felt like I had good bar speed for once. After my first attempt Jeremy Hartman and Greg stepped in to help me pick 2nd and 3rd attempts. Thank goodness for these two guys because I sometimes don’t think and have the GO HEAVY or GO HOME attitude when picking attempts. Apparently, there is strategy in attempt picks…who knew?! Jeremy basically said to me do you want to be in this to place or not? He was totally right I mean we all have numbers we want to hit in our minds, but at the end of the day you need a decent totally to get to the next meet. So appreciative of him and Greg I cannot even begin to thank them enough. Ended squats with 264.5 lbs (not a meet PR as I did this in Nov, but it was a hell of a lot easier this time around and I think I finally got the squat monkey off my back).
Bench
I love bench. I have no nerves at all when I do this and I wish I had this same calm attitude and confidence with squats and deads. I think my only mistake here was on my third attempt jumping 10lbs. I have done 175lbs for doubles at the gym and really thought I could push 181lbs on my last attempt. Hindsight is 20/20 and looking back I probably could’ve had a meet PR had I done 176lbs instead. Nevertheless, I ended the day with the same bench I did at Novembers meet 170.75 lbs
Deads
UGH- I had such big plans for deads. Training was going great and I have never had any hesitation when pulling…I LOVE deads. Unfortunately, about 2 weeks prior to this meet I went to train with my BFF and Spirit daughter Jennifer Petrosino at Gold’s. It was my last Dead session and I was pulling 315 (which is something I can pull for reps) when POP went my back. Thankfully, it wasn’t a bad pop in the sense that I didn’t fall to the floor in convulsions and pain. However, a pop is a pop and I stopped training and immediately iced it. I love Jenn because unlike most people she instantly told me I was fine. There is something very calming about that…..it’s what I tell my kids when they fall, it almost takes some worry out of your mind and you start believing it. I asked her not to tell anyone about it because I didn’t need all the comments like, I told you so, or you better not dead you’re gonna hurt your back…blah blah blah. There is risk it doing anything and I HATE excuses. My low back was tight but I wasn’t immobile and I didn’t herniate anything (I’m a biology major, which basically qualifies me to self diagnose-lol). The next day I woke up with an ache in my low back and knots in my left glute and hamstring (kind of like a period pain-sorry guys you will not understand this) but I was still able to move and do a handstand-so I decided no doctor was necessary and I would just continue to ice, contrast shower, take my anti-inflammatory and go see my masseuse the AMAZING Jennifer Lopez. She did some deep tissue and said she felt no bulging or muscle tightness around the area which totally eased my mind. She also thinks that the pop was a good pop in that it probably realigned my back from last year’s right leg ligament tear (I was pulling and shifting onto my left leg to compensate for the tear). However, she did say even good pops hurt and cause some tightness because muscles that were not being used are now having to work and vice versa (it was more technical speak than that but you get my point).
Back to the meet, because I was a little scared to pull, in warm-ups I didn’t pull over 220 lbs-I figured if my spine was gonna snap I’d do it on my first pull and at least total decent-my opener was 319lbs and on that first pull it didn’t move……WTF?!?! Did someone super glue it to the floor?? I was mortified!! Jeremy and Greg to the rescue! I told Jeremy about my warm-up and he said to go back and pull 285 before my 2nd attempt because my CNS wasn’t ready for that big of a jump…(think it was a combo of that and my head thinking my back was gonna pop and break). I went and did what he said and thank God I pulled the 319on my 2nd attempt because I seriously would have had to lie to The make a wish foundation so my son could meet Arnold if I had bombed on deads. On my third attempt Greg put my attempt in for me at 325 because I really struggled with 319 and my left hamstring was so tight I could barely straighten my left leg. I made my third attempt but it was a real disappointment because I had pulled 358 lbs, an unofficial American Record, in November and I really wanted to beat my total from that meet and I know I am capable of pulling 390 or more. Oh well, all in all I made 7/9 lifts and I qualified for the Arnold, my back held up and I just have to move forward to the next meet and rehab my left hamstring and glute.
Meet Highlights
Met some AMAZING people!! This meet was so awesome because all the female lifters are so supportive of one another. Yes we are all competing and wanting to be the best but how cool is it to miss a lift and have Matt Gary (Sioux-z Gary’s hubby n coach) come over and tell me I’m gonna get that next dead, shake it off you got this. I mean, I’m competing against his wife and it’s just a great feeling that we can all be there for one another like that.
- Shalona Connolly and I ate together after weigh-ins and she did an amazing job for her first time at nationals and is a cool ass chick.
- Mune Van Luen –MOOOOON-She doesn’t know it yet but she’s my new BFF and I’m prbly gonna Facebook Stalk her. Not only does she have a cool name she’s got tats, a cool haircut and can lift some heavy shit!!
- Amanda Padgett-On Saturday after the meet I pretty much chilled with her and we talked the entire time. She is so cool and her daughter is the cutest thing ever, not to mention they have the best North Carolina accents. I met her at nats last year but we have never interacted til this meet. She is an amazing lifter and I can’t wait to bounce training stuff off each other and battle it out at the Arnold. I think we both have the same go heavy or go home mentality and we both are chasing the legend Sioux-z and this is what makes competing fun-push one another so we can all continue to get better-lift heavier and throw up some respectable and hopefully mind blowing numbers and at the end of the day still be able to hang out and laugh.
- Talking with Jenny P. the morning of my meet is always good-we basically concluded that I already had all the world records but that it just happened in my mind, but it still counts-HAHAHA OMG I can’t say enough how much I love her because the entire time we were talking, which was about 40 minute,s she was doing cardio and not even breathing heavily-something is seriously wrong with this child.
- I met the wonderful JO JORDAN!! This is probably the HIGHLIGHT of the weekend in Florida. It’s so cool to meet people you have only interacted with on social networks and find out they are simply wonderful in person too. When you only talk via text and Facebook you never know how real life interaction is gonna be and I love that there was no awkward silence and we hit it off so well. My only gripe is Jo CANNOT drive and he almost killed me going down a one way. I’m pretty sure I know my way around Oralndo better and I was only there for a few days.
THANK YOU’s going out to Sheryl Condon for taking video, Purgear for sponsoring me and Eddie for watching the kids for 4 days alone and not killing himself-so appreciative of you !
Meet video: Don’t laugh at the deads…ugh
