Where have I been? And where am I going?

Haven’t updated this thing in quite awhile. I have still been lifting and competing. I did a deadlift only meet last summer at a WADBL event and pulled 551 in a really loose single ply suit. Spent the summer training single ply again and was getting good at squatting and pulling in it, but could not get it together with the bench shirt. That’s a hard one to learn without spotters and people who know gear. So I went back to raw and just like the year prior, found my raw numbers were down. I ended up doing a meet in December and one most recently in February. Neither went as I had hoped. I hadn’t been having fun training and it can be really disappointing when you have a less than expected performance at a meet, when you consider the time you put in training and the cost of entry and travel and whatnot.

After those two disappointing meets, I decided to go on a hiatus from powerlifting. I’ve been interested in olympic lifting for quite some time and figured now would be a good time to give it a go. It is a lot more technical, and requires a lot more speed than powerlifting. It is extremely different and difficult, especially since I have no one to coach me. But training lately has been fun. I actually stopped benching recently, but I was hitting some PRs when I haven’t hit any in about 9 months. I even hit a beltless deadlift PR after not pulling in a month.

 

So that’ where I have been. As far as where I am going- I am not sure yet. I am just trying to have fun in the gym. Not stressing myself out about hitting certain numbers or worrying about a competition. I think it would be fun to at some point compete in a USAW meet, but if that happens, it will be in the distant future. I can’t say I won’t ever do a powerlifting meet again either, but right now that’s not where my heart is.

The best pieces of advice I’ve received lately have come from my fiance and a 70s Big article. She said “do what is fun” and the article was titled “Hit It and Quit It.” Together, these two things have put me on a different path with my training and my philosophy toward training.

More on that next.