[Meet Report] USAPL Aggie Showdown 20 Feb 2016, 495kg @ 73.5kg, Raw Teen 2/Collegiate

So I competed in the 2016 Aggie Showdown this weekend.

Cut:

I had to cut about 7 kilos in 5 weeks to make weight, and I had never cut this much before so I didn't know what to expect. The cut went well until the last week; the water cut didn't really drop that much weight. Didn't sleep very well the night before the meet because I was hungry and such but oh well. Ended up weighing in a pound under...

Meet Prep:

After my last meet in April 2015, I trained focusing mainly on squats for about 4 months until I suffered a fairly serious glute strain in August. After this, I focused solely on bench from then through November, because I couldn't squat or deadlift. After a brief 6 week lower body hypertrophy cycle, I went into a simple peaking program for this meet. My last gym lifts were 410 squat, 280 bench, 410 deadlift the week before meet week.

Coming into this meet, my goals were to break all the state teen 2 records, (170/120/205/487.5kg; 385/264/451/1074lb) and the state collegiate squat record (200kg; 441lb), and possibly chip the american teen 2 bench record (137.5kg; 303lb). Thus, I set my goals (202.5/138/207.5/548kg; 446/304/457/1208lb), which looking back may have been too ambitious... Ended up falling way short.

Squat:

warmups felt solid and fast but i was still a bit nervous because of that fairly big cut...

180kg/396lb: 3 whites. opener flew up. after this all my pre-meet nervousness about the hard cut vanished...

192.5kg/424lb: 3 whites. this one was fast but it felt a bit weird. lost a bit of my air while coming up. still seemed pretty fast but felt a bit off for some reason...

202.5kg/446lb: 3 reds. died about an inch above the hole, same as usual. looking back i feel like i definitely had this lift in me though. need to work on my ability to grind out squats over the next 8 months leading up to raw nats...

overall: 2/3, 6.4kg/14lb pr, 32.5kg/72lb meet pr. broke the texas state teen 2 record and just missed the texas state collegiate record. gonna smash 500 in 8 months at raw nationals.

Bench:

last warmup was kind of slow so i was a bit concerned...

122.5kg/270lb: 3 whites. opener was nice and smooth and everything went well. expected good things.

130kg/286lb: 3 reds. got it off my chest and then it just stopped. no idea what happened on this rep. i've tripled 275 paused so i shouldve been able to hit this...

130/286: 3 reds. same thing as 2nd attempt. bench just was not moving on this day. showed some rare emotion after this miss...

overall: 1/3, no pr, matched meet pr. broke the texas state teen 2 record but still very disappointed with this meet's bench. need to train bench more often and more seriously. can't let my bench be slacking just because its kinda strong. oh well on to deadlifts...

Deadlift:

warmups felt nice and smooth as usual but with deadlifts i never really know what to expect...

180kg/396lb: 3 whites. pretty standard pull. didn't really hold my air, just kinda rushed it a little bit but still got it up. deadlifts didn't look too good at this point...

190kg/418lb: 3 reds. didn't set up good enough on this but i knew i had one more attempt to kill it...

190kg/418lb: 3 reds. needed this pull to take 1st in the collegiate 74kg division. didn't budge at all off the floor. need to fix my deadlift issues...

overall: 1/3, no pr, 10kg/22lb meet pr. deadlifts always have been my biggest weakness and i need to work on them hard over the next 8 months if i wanna hit my goals at nationals...

Final Thoughts:

495kg/1091lb total, 4/9, 42.5kg/93lb meet pr. broke the state teen 2 total record, and finished 1st in teen 2 raw 74kg division and 2nd in collegiate raw 74kg division. this was a very disappointing result, but i'll use this as a learning experience for the future. bench and deadlift need some serious work. took down 3 state teen 2 records but didn't get what i came for.

tl;dr:

squat: a few technical things need to be fixed to generate more power, need to learn how to grind

bench: arch needs to be improved, leg drive needs more work. will get into heeled shoes soon to see if its any better.

deadlift: completely scrapping my deadlift and starting over from scratch. never really learned how to deadlift properly so now that i'm healed and the meet is over with it's time to go back to the basics and learn from the elders on the longhorn powerlifting team.

overall: weight needs to stay down at around 76kgs so i won't have to cut as hard and be weak next time around.

grind to raw nationals starts now. lpl for life. hook'em horns.

shout out to the longhorn powerlifting fam for supporting me throughout the day and to u/Magic_warlock0- for judging and letting me bother him for a while after the meet.