After posting about what being strong means earlier in the week I realised that I hadn’t actually done a recap of my latest powerlifting competition. So far it’s been the only powerlifting competition I have done this year and I had feared it may be the only one but a lucky change of date for Nationals means that I may get another one or two in!
The Central Districts Champs Powerlifting competition was held over ANZAC weekend in Wellington. My aim was to get a 100kg squat in competition and a 60kg bench press with no other real expectations other than that.
The morning of the competition I was super nervous as the scales at the Powerhouse Gym seem to weigh on the heavy side compared to the ones at Zenith gym where they weighed on the light side. I was also very nervous as this was the first competition I did where I didn’t really consider myself a complete novice any more. Being the Central Districts champs there were going to be some amazingly strong people there!
It turns out I didn’t have anything to worry about as I ended up being almost 3kg under my weight class and 2kg lighter than the last competition I did.
Squat
As you can see from the video above I made my 100kg goal which was awesome. I made a rookie mistake on my first attempt of 92.5kg by stepping forward to rack before the command was given and as soon as I moved my feet I realised what I had done. Being that I made the lift with no problems (other than not listening!) I moved on to try at 95kg which I made relatively easily and then went for the 100kg for my third attempt.
Bench
Bench press has always been my weakest lift, however I am happy with how it has been progressing. Although I don’t think I’ll ever be happy with it and will always be wanting to increase it, I’m stoked to say that I got a PB in competition! I opened with an easy 52.5 with the intention to go to either 55 or 57 and then try and get a 60 as my third lift. After the 52.5 went up so easily I decided to give the 60kg a try for my second lift, thinking that if I missed it I would have one more shot and if I made it I would give 62.5kg a go. That’s exactly what happened and I ended up getting a 62.5kg in competition which was a new PB.
Deadlift
Deadlift is my current favourite lift (mostly because it’s been the one where I’ve seen the most progress!), I opened with a 120kg, after changing my opener after a warm up (it was originally 110kg), I then went for a 130kg which I made successfully (although for some reason the records are showing I didn’t get it?!) and then tried for a 140kg which I also made successfully. I am super happy with the increase in deadlift in competition as I had been struggling at the end of the day after the other lifts to do as well as I would have hoped in deadlift and I feel as though I’ve redeemed myself with this competition.
While I’ve still got a lot of work to do to get to where I want to be I’m super happy with how I’m progressing as that’s a 32.5kg increase in totals from my last competition and my bodyweight was down 2kg! My WILKS score jumped up 49 points and I’m now at a 365. I thought it would take me forever to get over a 350 wilks so I’m stoked with that! Next goal is a 400 WILKS! That will no doubt be a wee way off though!
If you’re wondering how to get started in powerlifting check out this post!
Aargh! That is awesome! Although I don’t want to compete I still want to set goals and smash them! Go you!
Thanks so much! Set goals and smashing them is the best!!
That was interesting to watch and read, thanks for sharing 🙂