EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the Athlete Journal of world champion powerlifter Chris Duffin. Follow Chris as he trains and competes in various events over the coming year. Chris’s journal will be posted every Tuesday. You can also read about Chris on his personal website KabukiWarrior.com.
Athlete Journal, Entry 30 – The Meet
This last week’s meet didn’t go as planned. Everything leading up to the meet went really good. Did the last bit of my rehab, fully deloaded, and just felt absolutely great heading into the meet.
In fact the day of the meet I felt simply the strongest that I have ever been in my life. My warm-ups went great and all of my attempts on the platform felt absolutely weightless. Even when I got out of position on my opening squat attempt, I was able to muscle through it with relative ease. I was squatting a little deeper than I usually do to get whites for depth from the judges and the adjustment didn’t affect my perceived strength at all.
Unfortunately on my third attempt on my squat the adductor/hamstring issue I’ve been dealing with for several months gave way without notice. Prior to this I was not feeling ANY pain. I did choose to finish up the meet and did my bench press with no leg drive and a token deadlift. Again, on the bench press I felt very strong and was amazed at quickly and strongly I pressed the weight considering the lack of leg drive.
Without the injury I feel that coming into this meet I had one of the most effective training cycles and deloads leading to peak strength that I have ever had.
I decided to quit cutting weight down to 220 the night before the event so I was already rehydrating by time of weigh-ins weighing in at 237.4 for the 242lb class.
Squat
749 – 3 Whites
782 – 2 Reds for depth
782 – Muscle tear
Bench
365 – 3 Whites
424 – 3 Whites
Pass
Deadlift
143 – 3 Whites
Pass
Pass
Deeper reflection on the meet is posted on my blog post Never Give Up.
