What a meet! The meet was held at the Philadelphia expo center. The facility was huge. The warm up room was a few thousand feet and the platform area was double that. Plenty of room for venders, spectators and lifters. The meet had 208 lifters over 2 days and it flew by. 2 platforms going at once and a lot of lifting. I’ll start off by saying I had a great meet. I headed out to Oaks PA the night before with the wife. We left the kids at home with the grandparents. The trip was only 2 hours. We ended up at a mom and pop shop for dinner. I had a 10 ounce burger that was topped with pulled pork, barbecue mayo, deep fried breaded pickles, fried onion rings, 3 kinds of cheese and slapped between two pieces of Texas toast. Hot damn, it was amazing. In honor of my “Fat is back” theme for this meet I couldn’t resist that cholesterol bomb shell. We stayed at a very nice Hilton garden inn. My wife enjoyed 9 dollar glasses of wine while I ate candy before hitting the sheets.


Meet morning rolled around and I headed down to the breakfast buffet. I slopped it up once again. I hit the scale at 267 in the morning and had full intentions of being 270 at the 12:00 weigh in. After breakfast I headed out to the venue with Boh. Boh was water loading and had 10 lbs to cut for a two hour weigh in. He was 252 the night before and hit 241 at weigh ins. Money Mike was lifting at 9:00 so we got to the venue early. Mike ended up hitting a PR squat and missing some PR lifts for the bench and deadlift. Not the day he wanted but he will live to lift another day. After a bunch of bullshitting and helping Mike it was time to get warmed up. The meet was planned to start at 2:00. Around 1:00 I put the singlet on and got warming up.

Warm ups

I always do a small moderate warm up before the meet. The first half of the day for me is typically helping one of the guys out so I am usually warm and loose come my flight. I did the usual soft tissue work and I hit the rumble roller and ELITEFTS roller on my legs and back. I then hit the lacrosse ball on my delts and pecs. I then hit my Mobility warm up consisting of 10 movements for 1 set of 10 each. I was ready to go and hit the warm up rack.

Squats

To date my USAPL PR at 275 was 639. I decided to plan my attempts out to end with a 5LB PR of 645. My main goal for the meet was to total at least 1800 and a 645 squat was a must for that. I set this goal in March of 2011 and had yet to meet my mark. I set up my attempts to PR on third attempts. I opened at 572. This felt great so I decided to make a jump to 622. Judging was tight so I picked something that would get me ready for my 645 attempt. 622 went up well so I called for 645. I sat deep, Money Mike called me up and it was a grinder. I stalled halfway but managed to fight through the sticking point and finish the lift. Good lift.

Video of 645 Squat



Bench

I went into the bench feeling pretty confident. I was mixed about my strategy the night before and was ready for a game day decision regarding my bench attempts. I had two choices. Go for a USAPL PR or go for the 275 American record. MY USAPL best is 490. I could have gone 495 on a third or went for 502 for a shot at the record. I chose to open low at 429. This popped up and then I took 474 for a second. I mimicked by squat attempts and chose a number that was heavy enough to add to the total but not too much to jeopardize too much energy for my third lift. 474 went up well so I decided to go for the record. In the USAPL records can’t be broken at just any meet. You need to be judged by a certain category of judges. This keeps the records legitimate and keeps integrity in the lifts. Knowing that the right judges were at the meet I went for it. I took 502 out of the racks and waited for the start command. My set up felt amazing. Super tight and my leg drive was the best it has ever felt. I heard the press command and the bar popped up about 4-5 inches and then dropped. No excuse on this other then it was too heavy today.

Video of 474



Video of missed attempt at 502 for a new American record.



Deadlift

After missing 502 I was now ready to go for a sumo PR. I switched to sumo last meet for a change of pace and I was really looking forward to seeing how my meet prep played out. I feel I found a good mix for training the sumo but you only know after the results do the talking. I opened at 600 and this was super easy. I then jumped to 666 for a 5 lb sumo meet PR. I did a hard 660 in July and felt convinced I could improve on that. 666 went up very well. I then did the math and realized I needed 683 to go 1801 on the total. I called for it and waited. My flight was large and it felt like an eternity for my name to get called. Since I took a shot at 502 I gave
up 12 lbs for total. I wasn’t planning to go more than 675 on my third so now it was do or die. I have done around 35 meets now and can only remember pulling my third deadlift 2 or 3 times. I was nervous and worried but cleared my head and got focused. The pressure got me fired up and I ended up pulling 683 fairly strong.

Video of 683 sumo deadlift



I hit 1801 and made my goal. Next meet will be USAPL PA states in March. I am going to take a week off and get back to work ASAP. I plan to go back to 242 now that the new kid is over the 3 month mark and sleeping great. She sleeps from 7pm to 7am with only one bottle in the middle of the night now. The wife and I take turns. The four year old is doin great too so I’m comfortable starting a diet back up now that my sleep is better. I will be planning my next meet cycle this weekend.

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Scott Yard