Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Things to Read / Watch

Eric Cressey runs a pretty good sports performance gym in the northeast popularized by his acumen for preparing baseball players.  His latest post is about some of the biggest powerlifting mistakes he has made throughout his competitive career.  Definitely worth reading since the guy squatted 455, benched 350 and deadlifted 630 in his gym... raw... at 180lbs!  Not too bad.


Soon to be the greatest weightlifter of all time: Ilya Ilyin.  Just watch this guy who has snatched 185 kg (407 lbs) and clean and jerked a world record 233 kg (513 lbs) at 94 kg (207 lbs) bodyweight.  Oh, I forgot, two Olympic Golds, three world championship golds and two Asian Games golds.  Enjoy!



I don't know much about the weightlifter Milko Tikola, but I do know fast when I see it.  He is the fastest lifter that I have ever seen.  When you watch the videos, he moves so quickly that you think that the footage has been altered to make him appear faster.  Amazing.


Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Bacon Beatdown Comeback


My first time on the platform since November 2011, was this past weekend at the Bacon Beatdown in Daytona, FL  I have improved some things, and remained surprisingly stagnant on others.  In retrospect, I should not be surprised.  In the last two and a half years I have warmed up religiously with the snatch, to the detriment of the clean and jerk.  My previous competition PR snatch was 80kg, but has now been improved to 90kg.  Not exactly world class improvement, but not bad for a nearly 40 year old guy without a coach.  The clean and jerk was an almost embarrassing near disaster.  My opener at this meet was 100kg on this lift.  This is weight that I have done for a triple within the last month… a no-brainer!  I missed… THE CLEAN!  Unbelievable.  This is normally weight that I could have done almost one handed.  I guess that you cannot account for nerves though.  I finally came back, made 100kg and made 110kg on my final lift of the day.  After it was all said and done I had gone down by 2kg from my competition PR of 112kg after 30 freakin’ months of work… pathetic.  A couple of issues were in play though.  For the last month of so before the meet, my clean technique was just plain out of whack.  It felt different every time I grabbed the bar.  Also, just plain nerves played a role.  It wasn’t a Superbowl sized crowd, but the fifty or so people watching can still make each lift a little tougher.  With all of that being said, I know what I must now do.  Spend months focusing on the clean and jerk from a technical side of things and continue to get stronger. 

 Snatch 85kg



Snatch 90kg



Clean and Jerk 100kg



Clean and Jerk 110kg