12 September 2010

Whoops! I Appear To Have Broken Something...

Though it's not official, as the meet promoter's computer didn't work yesterday, so he couldn't confirm the numbers.  I happened to be passing through Georgia yesterday and decided to pop into the APF Georgia State Championships for a bit, to see what was what.  According to the APF Website:
If that's correct, which I find difficult to believe because my openers broke all of those, they'll now read:
S: 257.5 Lewis, Jamie
B: 157.5 Lewis, Jamie
D: 280 Lewis, Jamie
T: 695.5 Lewis, Jamie 
This means that I totaled Elite as a Raw lifter (no wraps, no suit, no briefs, and no belt [just as a bit of icing on the cake, however unnecessary]), as the cutoff seems to be 1396, and I hit 1531 for the 181 weight class.  So much for the internet shit talkers who predicated the entirety of their criticism on the "fact" that I hadn't competed- that's right, I did this meet almost entirely out of spite.


Tonight, the lone wolf rides alone.
It was actually a pretty good learning experience.  I decided to do this meet about a month ago, so I started cutting calories and carbs back further, and knocked my cheat meals down to 1 per week.  Due to the fact that I've only got one meet on which to base my experience, I'm not entirely convinced of the veracity of the following reflections, but here are my initial thoughts:
  • I might have cut a bit slowly.  I leaned out nicely, but as of last week, I was still 195.  I hung onto my strength by cutting very conservatively, but it made the last day a literal hell, and I'm not certain how much that took out of me on meet day.  My diet for the last month generally consisted of 4 or 5 days of low carb and low fat, drinking around 5 shakes a day, supplemented with either a couple of lbs of 93% lean ground beef or a lb of that an something more calorically dense, like wings or beef ribs.  I never tested my bodyfat, but I was accused on many occasions of being a bodybuilder at the meet.
  • Shrugging and squat lockouts help the deadlift immensely.  I do not think, however, that squat lockouts have much of a direct carryover into the full squat.  My hips are retardedly tight and I have a hell of a time getting into the bottom position of a squat, but 1-2" above parallel, I am a fucking beast.  This is not conducive to making people shit out their spleens watching you squat in a meet.  Additionally, if you have to pay a hobo to do so, find anyone to call your depth while squatting- it'll save you the heartache of missing lifts because you're too deep or too shallow.
  • Deadlifting with straps in no way hurts your deadlift.  I didn't deadlift without straps once in training, due to the fact that my gym's bars are bereft of knurling and bent all to hell (by me).  Stiffness and boredom were my downfall in my final attempt of the deadlift (the reason for the stiffness will be addressed later, as it's awesome).
You might be asking, "how'd you lose 14 lbs in a week?"  I really ended up losing 10 lbs in a day.  I cut out my last cheat meal, opting instead for two medium carb days the weekend before the meet, and weighed about 191 a day out.  As I knew I would weigh in on Friday night, I started drinking 2-3 gallons of water a day on Tuesday, and from Monday through Thursday ate as close to 0 carbs as I could, and kept my fat under 50 g.  That basically meant 6 protein shakes and 2 meals of 1 lb of 93% lean ground beef, topped with Sriracha hot sauce, for Monday through Thursday- making sure to keep my sodium as close to 0 as possible, and my potassium as high as possible.  Incidentally, topping your food with Ms. Dash gives you the same amount of potassium as any potassium pill you'll likely to find in a health food store.  At 10PM Thursday, I stopped drinking liquids and eating.  Friday fucking sucked.  I spent the day popping ephedrine, caffeine, and aspirin in an effort to stay awake, and chewed so much gum that by the end of the day my jaw was horribly cramped.  I did, however, learn that massaging the jaw muscles from the inside of one's mouth is far more efficacious than the outside- you stick your index finger inside your mouth and push outwards on the muscle.  In any event, I weighed 185 at lunchtime, so I hit the sauna for a half hour, wore a sweatshirt at work for the remainder of the day, and then started the roadtrip from hell.  Birmingham is about 2 hours from Atlanta, so I alternated full blast heat and mild heat for the first hour, and then left the heat on high, wearing a sweatshirt the entire time, for the last hour of the drive.  I arrived alive, though I'm pretty sure I followed my spirit animal on a fucking vision quest during that drive, and weighed in at a paltry 179.  That's how you fucking make weight.


Refeeding was surprisingly difficult.  By the time I made weight, I was running an awesome fever and had heat rash all over my body- it was ultra hot.  I looked like a fucking tomato.  I slammed two liters of water, at half a box of Captain Crunch, and checked into my hotel.  Thereafter, I struggled to finish a burger, fries, and rolls at Texas Roadhouse, due to the fact that my stomach is now the size of a preteen girl's, and I had so much water and cereal in me.  I knew I needed the salt and calories though, so I pushed through, nearly crashed my car from exhaustion on the way back to the hotel, made two protein shakes and left out the Captain Crunch, along with a gallon of the mineral infused water for infant you can find at any store, and crashed.  Every time I awoke, I had some protein and as much Captain Crunch as I could fit down my gullet, and polished off the water by 4AM.  


The day of the meet was a lot more Captain Crunch, Supreme Protein Bars, Baked Lays and the like.  I tried to get as much salt into my system as I could due to the cramping I was getting, and the carbs and protein for obvious reasons.

The result?  I learned:
  • Cutting weight is much harder without wrestling practice to aid it.
  • I should not ever drive in that state.
  • Severe water and food depletion can make you oddly euphoric, in a wildly angry way, but you're too tired to happily smash anything.

As to my lifts, in anyone's interested.  I opened at 534 on the squat, as my legs were cramping badly and I had no one to call my depth.  As an aside, as much fun as it is to be the lone wolf who rides alone due to his acerbic wit and the fact that I'm surrounded by nothing but humorless, angry, judgmental evangelical Christians, having any moderately friendly person along with you to call your depth would help.  I sat way into my opener and 567, and then dropped way in the hole on 598 and crapped out halfway to the top.  Had I turned it around at parallel, my numbers would look far better.  On the bench, I opened at 331, then smoked 347, whereupon I discovered that I could reverse grip in the APF.  I had unracked the weight myself on the first two attempts and didn't want to risk dropping the weight in my mouth doing so with a reverse grip, so I stalled out halfway through my lift with a conventional grip and 363 lbs.  Next time, I'll reverse grip like a motherfucker, and hopefully have someone who doesn't want me dead doing the liftoff- the search begins.  On deadlift, I was a fucking beast on my opener at 574 and my 2nd at 617.  At the beginning of the 3rd attempts, some awesome chick named Erica projectile vomited in the midst of her pull like she was auditioning for the Exorcist and sprayed down everyone in the first row with half-digested Muscle Milk.  As such, there was a massive delay cleaning shit up, whereupon I lost my momentum and missed my 3rd attempt at 639, as did everyone else who lifted after the delay.  I wasn't pissed though, as the chick was fucking fun, tatted, and happily turned the meet (which was perhaps the most boring thing I've endured, though it gave me the time to finish a Vince Flynn novel and get halfway through Chuck Hogan's The Strain) into a fucking GWAR concert.  I've no idea what her last name is, but that chick's metal as hell, as she got three whites while puking her intestines onto the platform.

Final analysis?  APF meets are a pretty good time, all things considered; I kind of want to try to total Elite for equipped lifters while still competing raw and sans belt; powerlifting now boasts hot chicks; and finally, Alabama sucks ass- do not ever come here, as Georgia looks like fucking Vegas by comparison.  Apologies for the lack of pics, but all my cell pics were shaky, and I had no one to take pics for me.  Example of a shaky pic- me the morning of the meet:
Blurry and generally shitty.

65 comments:

  1. Fuckin' A Jamie way to go. Awesome shit there.

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  2. I like the idea of getting three whites even after projectile vomiting.

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  3. Excellent stuff jamie well done on the meet and surviving a pretty hellish prep/cut. One thing though, please drop the aspirin from your eca stack asap, it has no thermobolic effect and will rot your organs. Being the smart man you are I'm sure you'll do some research on this and come to the same conclusion that the aspirin is unnecessary and pretty dangerous for something that is giving you shit all. That's just a small thing though, well done again. Onwards and upwards.
    Brian

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  4. Congrats man that's fucking awesome.

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  5. When you decided to go to the meet what changed in your training regime or how did you prepare lifting wise?

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  6. Congratulations, that's gnarly as shit!

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  7. Nice results and write up! You bear a somewhat striking resemblance to the Skeptical Cat from the last blog......

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  8. I thought you'd done at least one or two meets before.

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  9. October 23rd
    Enterprise, AL (Not sure how far it is from you)

    There is an SPF meet. Go own it.

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  10. Thats awesome man. You're a BEAST.

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  11. Huh. I didn't realize there was that much cutting involved in powerlifting.

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  12. It's a weight categorised competition and if I'm not mistaken when two guys make the same total, the one with the lighter bodyweight wins, so cutting is involved.

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  13. Great lifts. I'm skeptical of your squat though as I know that meet is ran by a roider whose website is filled with awful half squats.

    http://northgeorgiabarbell.com/

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  14. *claps in approval*

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  15. Awesome meet, Jaime! Hooligans-1, Shit-talkers-0

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  16. Nice Mystery Men reference

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  17. I vouch for Alabama being the most boring place on Earth.

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  18. Kickass.

    And now for a question that will likely draw your ire.

    What shakes were you drinking when you were having 5-6 a day, and how much did that cost you?

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  19. "I happened to be passing through Georgia yesterday.." Great stuff and amazing results.
    I tip my hat to you.

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  20. Impressive accomplishments Jamie.

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  21. Was the puking chick this Erika?

    http://www.ironscene.com/videos/4741

    Hrrmmmmmmmmmmm???

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  22. That's the Erika to whom I referred. That chick is cool as hell.

    Jolly- Myofusion, which comes out to about $1.25 a shake. Thus, I saved money on food last week.

    Anon- There were three judges there, all of whom were unaffiliated with NGB. I can't tell you much about my depth other than I've never in my life gone that deep on a squat over 135 lbs, just because I couldn't tell where parallel was. They seemed to be calling high squats though.

    Glen- I'd done the 2007 WNPF worlds and bombed out of the 1995 Keystone State Games, in addition to few regional push-pull meets in southern AZ. Facts rarely get in the way of internet shit-talking, as I'm sure you know.

    Brian- I'd read that the aspirin had synergistic effects with the ephedrine and caffeine. By "rot your organs" are you referring to stomach problems?

    Anon- That SPF meet's about 3 hours away. I'll give it some thought, though.
    Everybody else- Thanks!

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  23. Interesting tidbit- that'll rank me 6th in the squat, 12th in the DL, and 8th for my total, according to Powerliftingwatch.

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  24. Nice work man, but could you restrict yourself to only posting pics of women in their undies? There's just some things that I just don't want to see...

    Which reminds me, our favorite Swedish arm wrestler posted such a pic on her last blog entry!

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  25. Well done man, awesome performance.

    I liked the bodybuilder accusations, as if being so would automatically give you an advantage over everyone else. Were they addressed directly at you, or overheard?

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  26. When I weighed in, the promoter goes, "Damn, man, you're ripped up like a bodybuilder", to which I replied "thanks", to which he chuckled and told me it was definitely not a compliment. The day of the meet, I think I was asked 7 times if I was a bodybuilder by various people.

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  27. Nice work on the lifting.

    Did you ever work at the U of A Rec Center weight room when you were there?

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  28. Mystery Men is a fucking awesome movie, for those of you who are unaware.

    Anon- Yup, for a semester or two. Why?

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  29. I worked there too for a while. I thought I might remember you. What year(s) were you working there over? I was there from about '96 to '99.

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  30. I think 98 or 99. I quit shortly after breaking my face trying to enter one of their stupid 7am Saturday employee meetings- I had busted open my eye in rugby the day before and was still wearing sunglasses to cover my horrorshow of an eye, and ran facefirst into a floor-to-ceiling window in an aerobics room, haha.

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  31. Yes, I definitely remember you then!

    You were fucking a chick who also worked at the Rec, had short blonde hair, and was taller than you during that time, yes?

    Also, you were doing tricep bench dips with like 4 plates stacked on your legs, IIRC...

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  32. Cap'n Crunch and mineral water for babies...that is awesome

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  33. Hahaha. Yep, that was me. I ended up marrying that chick- she still lives in Tucson and works out Gold's on the Eastside.

    I abandoned the epically heavy tricep dips long ago- they were a pain in the ass to set up, and require a lifting partner.

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  34. Never went to a PL meet but why is being called a bodybuilder not considered a compliment ?

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  35. The terms smacks of narcissism and weakness, generally. Plus, powerlifters like to propagate the myth that being fat makes them stronger, which guys with builds like mine refute.

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  36. Divorced? That's a surprise, you seem like you'd be so easy to live with..
    ;)
    Congrats on the meet: IMPRESSIVE.

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  37. Jaimie, have you ever tought of trying out Mixed Martial Arts ? Since you already have a wrestling base, it might not be such a far-fetched goal (That's if you're willing to lose some weight in the first place.)

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  38. You look like a guy that can only bench 350 after nearly 20 years of lifting.

    Shitty, antisocial blog, too.

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  39. Re mma- I used to train at Rincon High School with Joe Riggs and Don Frye in and a shitload of other people in Tucson. The place was awesome- $5 a month and you could roll with pro fighters and nationally ranked judo players. I never really had any interest in competing in it though.

    Hahaha. True. A bodybuilder would definitely be able to bench more. There's nothing like a bit of anonymous shittalking by weaksauce pussies on the internet, though. Well played.

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  40. You trained with Don Fry ? Holy shit ! The next Baddest Motherfucker post should be about him.

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  41. This blog is so shitty and anti-social that I'm gonna troll it and hope my e-hate comes flying out your USB drive.

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  42. Already repeating yourself, haha. Epic. The fact that the blog's anti-social is point of pride, though I'd prefer to call it post-modernist, rather than "anti-social". As the distinction is assuredly lost on you, you can call it whatever your obviously limited vocabulary will allow.

    In re Don Frye- I just rolled with him a few times. He and Joe Riggs and a couple of other UFC and Rage in the Cage fighters would come in on occasion. We were hardly bosom pals- I just worked into rotations where he would beat my ass, haha.

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  43. Jamie, you're a pussy. I'd stomp a mudhole in Don Frye's ass, then walk it dry.

    This was a great post. I commented last night but stupid blogger wasn't working. I love hearing the nuts and bolts of your lifting and this entry was choc full of it, but I was wildly entertained by the cutting. Fantastic stuff, but, um, try not to die next time. What will you do differently next time?

    I'm sure having done this once now, you'll stomp on babies and piss on invalids next time. Awesome shit, man.

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  44. If we were both drunk I would easily kick Chuck Norris' ass.

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  45. Maybe you ought to get some gear and take first in everything, just for spite?

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  46. Glen- Was that Keg tapped or was it full? I am pretty positive that it's taped, just figured I would give you the benefit of the doubt. haha Wither pretty badass!

    More on the MMA, not only with a wrestling background but, your height and body structure Jamie are optimal for that shit! I wish I was a little shorter.

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  47. Damn i'm so pummped i feel like bumming a real man right now!!!

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  48. Hi Jame, yeah I was pretty much referring to the stomach but was not on my own computer and didn't have time to check definitively, so just used organs to sort of cover myself. As for the synergistic effects, I'm fairly sure this has been proven not to be the case, or aspirin's thermobolic effect is so small as to be insignificant especially when someone is already taking ec. I can do some research later in the week when I'm at home and see if I can find something decent to read about this point.
    Brian

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  49. Congratulations mate, awesome total at that bodyweight. I did find this chart over at powerliftingwatch but wasn't sure how legit it is. http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/node/10926

    Even if those are the true elite raw numbers you're still only 78lbs off. According to that article you should consider yourself to be one of the best lifters in your country.

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  50. Jip-

    Thanks man. I've no idea how AAU lifters hit the numbers they did then- all of the records in raw lifting are from the early to mid-70s, seems like. Good call though- I just have to unfuck my squat and pick my 3rds on bench and dead a bit more conservatively next time.

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  51. I think you could easily hit that number, you clearly have the dedication training wise. I think that more than anything this post shows that you don't have to look like a pile of fucking shit to hit high totals, hopefully that bullshit notion can finally be fucked into submission.

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  52. Great numbers and great performance, Jamie. Did you do anything different training wise to prep for the meet? How many times per week were you benching, deadlifting, and squatting in competition style leading up to the meet?

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  53. I'll post a blog this week detailing my training for the meet.

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  54. tenner bets the KEY was shrugs and BTN pushpress ;)

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  55. "massaging the jaw muscles from the inside of one's mouth is far more efficacious than the outside"

    i'm quoting this verbatim the next time a chick complains about her sore jaw during a bj....

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  56. Hahahaha. That's solid fucking gold, right there.

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  57. Solid meet, if you ever do a meet in Virginia or one of the carolinas let us know ahead of time.

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  58. Is this the chick that vomited during the meet?

    http://www.break.com/index/chick-vomits-during-424-lb-deadlift

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  59. That's the chick, and I desperately wanted to fuck her, but I'm not sure that was a 424 dl. Tatted, cool as shit, and had a ghetto booty, but not a 424 dl.

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  60. It was 424, but wait for 450 at RUM.. Erika... ps... Jamie, I tried to fb you after the meet- look a girl up. Erika Medlin.

    ps. Odd, I only saw your blog because of Tony Black, a CROSSFITTER.

    pps. Yes, you were the only one there with abs... I am no ab fan, but you have a smoking upper body.

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