If Wishes Were Horses, We'd All Ride Instead Of Walk... And I'd Be Able To Make 165

192, the day after the meet... and a little vascular.

THIS JUST IN: there's no way in hell I can make 165.  

Thus, to all of the people who told me I was insane and that it couldn't be done, you were right.  After hot baths, wearing a sauna suit in a sauna, and about 18 hours without food or water, I managed to get to 170, and could go no further.  I'd thought that it would be just as simple to drop 15 lbs to get to 165 as it was to get to 181, but I was apparently wholly incorrect.  As I was bigger and leaner than I was a month ago, there was just not enough of me holding water to get 15 lbs off me.  Thus, I ended up guest lifting at 181 and have completely banished any thought of a future cut to 165 from my mind.  Again, naysayers, you were right and I was wrong; you are smart and I am dumb; you are good-looking and I am unattractive...

Unless you think crazy vascularity is attractive.

All of the cutting nonsense will go into the new competition prep book, I'm writing, which should be out next month sometime.  There was nothing new or Earth shattering in it, other than the fact that just because your brain says you can do something and you think you're essentially the fucking Terminator does not necessarily mean you can pull off any wacky weight cutting trick you want.

The meet itself went pretty well.  I went 606-622 (called for depth)-644 (fail) on the squat, 227-355-369.8 on bench, and 617-644-655 (fail)on the deadlift.  My second squat was so easy I just decided to pile on the weight and try to tie or break my total record at 181, and got a little overly ambitious.  While I was recovered from walking pneumonia, I still had back tightness issues plaguing me throughout the last month that prevented me from doing a lot of heavy training.  Additionally, Canadian 181 lb badass Willie Albert clued me in to the fact that the record at 181 in the squat is actually 673 (a Russian broke the squat record without knee sleeves, even, in 2011 or 2012), so I decided not to try 650.  Thus, I was pretty aggressive in calling attempts because the whole thing was pretty much a wash anyway- my total reflected that as a result.

Ridiculously easy 622.

Bench actually went well due to my addition of volume training one day a week for chest, it seems.  Rather than simply pounding singles, as I am wont to do, I took one day a week and did singles and doubles on close grip, and on another day did a traditional bodybuilder-type program.  Thus, my benching looked like this:

Bench Day 1
Close Grip Bench Press
1 x 1 x 135, 225, 315
10 x 2 x 325-345
5 x 1 x 345-365

Pushdowns
10 x 10-20

Bench Day 2
Bench Press
5 x max 135
5 x max 225

Dumbbell Bench Press
5 x 10-20

Cable Crossover
5 x 10-20

Having more volume in my program seems to have helped with stabilizing my bench, which has a tendency to vary wildly from week to week and month to month.  With this, I was able to steadily improve my lifting and actually ended up far stronger than my numbers would indicate from the meet- I erred on the side of caution for my third after missing my second and third on the squat.

Getting back to the meet, the most impressive lifter there was Vashon Perryman, apparent love child of Bryant Gumbel and Wayne Brady.  This dude is nice as hell and so low on street cred that standing next to him I look like Eazy E, but he is one phenomenally strong motherfucker.  Vashon broke both the squat and the deadlift record at this meet, which is a feat one would generally ascribe to Klokov and his ilk, and pretty soundly fucks my "specialize in one or the other theory" directly in its ass.  In any event, Perryman hit 606 for his fourth on the squat and a ridiculous 716 on the deadlift to break both records.  Sadly, his bench is even worse than mine and he thus left the total record remarkably unscathed, but the dude is definitely one to watch.  Get on Facebook or something and show the dude some love- none of us are making any money at this, so you might as well make him grin more than usual over his afternoon tea and Tom Jones break by telling him what a bad motherfucker he is. That, or buy him a celebratory cardigan or something.

Krista makes an excellent beaker face.

For those of you who are curious, the gf did damn well in spite of the fact I forgot to tell her half of the rules, and hit a 242 squat, 126 bench, and was credited with her 275 opener on deadlift and not her 303 pull because I forgot to tell her she couldn't drop it from her waist.  She was a little overly hopped up on Hellfire at the time and appeared to have been having a panic attack as a result, but it was a badass performance for a 130 lb chick who's only been powerlifting since August.  She can only train with me when she's in town, and thus doesn't get the benefit of basking under the soft glow of my knowledge... though she never listens to me anyway, so anything I attempt to impart is ignored until someone else tells her.  Apparently, I need to beat her more.

L-R: Me, Jay, Jason, IFBB pro and sole non-fisherman from Nova Scotia Greg Doucette, and Kade Weber.

Post meet, I went out with Willie (who's a fucking maniac and generally awesome guy), Jay Nera (who I'm going to try to get on a podcast for at least one episode to discuss libertarianism, training, his love of Reese's cups, and Crossfit), Kade Weber (who came within a hair's breadth of breaking Larry Pacifico's total record at 242), Jason Manenkoff, Krista (the gf), Sin Leung, Paul Ngyuen, Noriko Kariya (who has an awesome, full-back geisha tat) and a couple of other people and tore it up at some shitty dive bar in downtown Tampa.  The post meet and day after hangouts with the lifters were probably more fun than the meet, and it was a good meet. In any event, good times were had, butts were hurt about a variety of things, and vascular abdominals were prominently displayed (including a set on Ann Vanderbush, who is now fucking shredded).

For now, it's back to training whatever the fuck I want and eating my face off.  No idea when I'll do another meet, but the people shown above are definitely descending upon Clash for Cash to wreck fucking shop if it ends up happening.