Last week I competed in my first International Powerlifting Competition – the Oceania’s held in Christchurch, New Zealand. My initial goals heading into Oceania’s was a 110kg Squat, 65kg Bench Press and 150kg Deadlift. These goals were set straight after Nationals before I knew if I would even qualify to compete at Oceania’s or not.
After setting these goals I had a PT session with JP Cauchi thanks to Cross Fit East Auckland who hosted him for a weekend seminar (which I was unable to attend) and we completely changed my technique on squat and bench and added some cues for deadlift.
I went from being a high-bar squatter to wondering if I was going to fall flat on my face low-bar squatting (I’d never tried low-bar before the PT session) and my hand grip on the bar for bench moved out a full hand width either side, I had to stop using my triceps so much and start trying to use my Lats (which completely makes sense, but felt horribly foreign to me!).
After this PT session, I got myself a coach to add some structure (and experience!) to my training as I’d been doing everything by myself and with the help of Kyle and being pretty new to Powerlifting knew that I could learn a lot from someone who had been doing it a while. We increased my training load from 3 to 4 sessions per week and it was a completely different way of training to what I had done in the past.
We spent three weeks in the USA in November and this was the first time I needed to stick to a training plan the whole time while overseas. I’ve done a few sporadic workouts when we’ve been overseas but never had to ensure I got 4 workouts in each week while away. I did some research before we left as to gyms which offered casual sessions and had squat racks in them (surprisingly harder than you would expect! Hotel gyms definitely do not work for powerlifting training!).
The hardest thing about the training in USA was that I hadn’t packed any chalk and it was HOT and muggy in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas making it extremely hard to do heavy deadlifts as the bar kept slipping out of my hands, I had to resort to buying some lifting straps just to hold onto the weight. Not ideal but it got the job done.
When we came back from USA I was sitting about 2.5kg heavier than I usually do and this put me over the 57kg which was a bit stressful for a few days there. Luckily my weight stabilised back to normal, it just took a few days longer than I expected it to! Something I will need to keep in mind if I ever compete overseas. I ended up weighing in even lighter than I expected at 54.6kg (an afternoon weigh-in) and was the lightest in my class. I felt a bit guilty as I know how hard some of the others worked just to make weight, meanwhile I was sitting there eating my lunch and drinking water the hour before weigh-in, I even enjoyed the Cookie Time cookie and a cup of tea on the flight down earlier that morning.
Squat
Going into the Oceania’s I was feeling reasonably confident with my squat (and low-bar feels normal now!), and while I knew it wouldn’t be the biggest squat in our class by far as my squat is probably my weakest lift based on what others are doing, it was starting to feel better and my final attempt at Nationals was moving quickly a week out from Oceania’s. I ended up going 3 for 3 in the squat and I definitely still had a little bit more in the tank surprisingly! My attempts were 105kg, 110kg and 115kg which gave me a 2.5kg gym PB and a 10kg competition PB and blew my personal goal of 110kg out of the water.
Bench Press
I have struggled with my bench press the whole time since Nationals. Let’s be honest I’ve struggled with it since Central Districts Champs in April 2016 as I haven’t increased it since then! The change in technique had me feeling like I was taking about 50 steps backwards and not moving forwards at all. On my last heavy bench day I finally cracked a new bench PB (+1kg) which I was happy with, but not as happy as I should be. I was hoping for a 2.5kg increase at that session so I knew I would be able to get a 65kg at Oceania’s. My bench ended up being my worst lift despite wanting it super badly – I think I let nerves get to me on this lift and I went way too quickly and technique went out the window. I was lucky to go 2 for 3 on Bench press and my attempts were 60kg, 62.5kg and 65kg – I missed the 65kg and I think my attempt at this at Nationals was closer than this one. This was the same result as Nationals and with a new technique I should be happy with it, but I’m not. Bench press technique is going to be a huge focus for me come the next training cycle.
Deadlift
The deadlift training sessions went really well and there was definitely an increased volume from what I had been doing in my training prior to getting a coach. It was mentally hard for me not going for a 1RM in the lead up to the competition so I didn’t know if I’d be able to pull the 150kg I had set as a goal come competition day. I did get a new PB the week before getting a coach which was 147.5kg so I knew I could most likely get that, but the 150kg was a huge mental barrier for me, kind of like a 100kg squat, it sounds super daunting and it’s easy to talk yourself out of it. I ended up going 3 for 3 with deadlifts and broke a New Zealand record for my third lift (according to the current records, so fingers crossed they are up to date!), my attempts were 140kg, 145kg, 150kg – and the 150kg moved quicker than the 145kg! This gave me a 2.5kg gym PB and a 6kg competition PB.
Results
The final deadlift ended up securing me a Gold in the Oceania Champs, which I was over the moon about! I had no expectations for placing at all in this competition let alone winning it. Unfortunately as I was entered in the NZ B team I only received a medal for first place in the Oceania’s and didn’t get the Medals for the Asia-Oceania portion of the competition as well. It kind of worked out well though as the person who got second in Oceania’s (we had the same total but as I was lighter I won) got first in this competition and she had done a massive cut to make weight and really did deserve getting some medals! Overall I ended up with a 16kg competition PB and a 2.5kg gym PB in both Squat and Deadlift. I ended up with a 393 Wilks which I am stoked with, my goal was to get a 400 Wilks by the end of 2017 and it’s looking as though I should be able to hit that pretty soon!
My first international competition (and 5th ever competition) was a great success and I can’t thank everyone who helped or supported me enough! New goals have been set for 2017 and I’ll be working diligently towards them! I’ll also be looking at finally getting a belt and knee sleeves – I’m pretty sure I’m the only person at the competition who didn’t have either of these! But hey, I didn’t deadlift in my squat shoes for the first time in competition so I am slowly becoming a ‘real’ powerlifter 😉