A couple of weeks back I competed in my second powerlifting competition, held down at the Powerhouse Gym in Wellington. I was surprisingly nervous when we arrived at the gym ready for the weigh in. It could have been partly due to the fact that I new I had put on a little bit of weight since the last competition and partly because I hadn’t actually lifted any weights in two weeks! (Say What?!)
Who would have thought! Sometimes even the PT’s amongst us have a little rest from training and their weight fluctuates! I guess we are human after all!
The rest from training had come from a mixture of fatigue and a week off in Sydney (post to come!), where I decided not to visit any gyms and instead get my exercise via all the walking around we did and a short run I did in preparation for the Iron Maori!
When my name was called out for weigh in I was particularly nervous as I knew there wouldn’t be much in it as my weight generally hovers between 56-57kg and the weight limit for the class I wanted to be in is 57kg! I was lucky that I scrapped in at 56.18kg, almost a kilo over my last competition.
The increase in weight is not a problem by itself as it meant I was fine to stay in the weight class I wanted to be in (there was only me and 1 other girl in this class!), however it does mean that I had to lift even more to beat my WILKS score from last time! A WILKS score is a score that is assigned to each lifter at the end of the day, this score takes into account your lifts compared to your body weight and is a way of putting everyone on an even playing field!
After the weigh in was over I was still feeling nervous and struggled to get my breakfast down (because you know, you can’t have breakfast before you weigh :P), I was feeling quite nervous right up until the point I started actually picking up some weights and doing some work and then the nerves started to slowly disappear.
I knew that havi1ng some time off before the competition could either go amazingly (because my muscles were fresh and repaired) or terribly (I could meet strugglesville because it’d been a while!) and lucky for me it seemed to be the former!
I set my starting weight for the squat at 90kg (last competition I did 80kg!) which I smashed out, I then increased it to 95kg and tried to do it too fast and failed (I was playing other peoples games and not my own. I know that going fast on the downward motion and trying to pop out of it to get back up just doesn’t seem to work for me at heavy weights), I repeated 95kg for my third attempt and had a little struggle but I never thought that I wasn’t going to get it up and got it. +2.5kg on my last competition
Next we moved on to the bench which is my weakest exercise by far and the one I enjoy the least (because it is my weakest!), my wrist had been giving me pain for the past few days as well so I went with a lower opener than I originally was going to do – 47.5kg (success), I moved on to 52.5kg (success) and then attempted to match my PB of 55kg and it would just not move at all! – Same as my last competition
Last up we had the deadlift and I was super happy at this point that the lifters had been split into two flights for the day as at the last competition I was kind of over it by this point as it was such a long day. For the Powerhouse Open it was just after lunchtime when we started the deadlift and I was feeling GOOD! So much so that I did a last minute change to my opener from 105kg to 110kg. I had an axe to grind with the deadlift as I was dissapointed in my performance at the last competition so it was something I had been working on and it showed on the day. My first attempt at 110kg went up FAST, I jumped up to 117.5kg and even the commentator said that 117.5kg shouldn’t move that fast so my final attempt I jumped up to 122.5kg which also went up without too much of a fight. I was tempted to jump up to 127.5kg but I didn’t want to miss it so settled on 122.5kg. +12.5kg on my last competition
So overall I increased my total weight 15kg from the last competition which I was really happy about, my goal was to get at least a 265kg total which was a 10kg increase on last time so I was very happy with my 270kg total and even happier at my WILKS score increase – up 14 points from 302 to 316!
I still have a long way to go but considering my very time pressed training and the fact that I literally do those three lifts one day each per week and that is all I do for the most part I was very happy!
Now I have a decision to make as to whether or not I want to stay in the class I am in or try to drop down to the 52kg class and focus on increasing those lifts. I really want to get a 100kg squat in competition and hit that 55kg bench in competition as well as bump my deadlift up to 130kg – I’ve done it once before in training so I know it’s possible I just need to work on it to get myself up to a point I can do it at the end of the day in competition!
I have an aim of trying to do regionals and nationals next year which is kind of exciting so let’s see what 2016 brings!
Wow awesome stuff Amanda! I really enjoyed watching the video as it gave me such a better understanding of what all this powerlifting stuff is about – quite fascinating!! Congratulations on your increases too, that’s brilliant and you must be so pleased. Keep smashing those goals xx