I had meet!

This is a little bit of a late update but I had meet!

Me and Ashleigh got to Dundee a few days before the comp and had fun on HOLIDAY.  I ate lots and rested lots and it was fun.

On the day I went to the complex to weigh in.  I'm very far into my weight category (84+kg) so I wasn't worried about dropping weight or anything.  I ate every time I was hungry!

I weighed in at just over 105kg, which I was surprised at.  I was certain it was going to be nearer 110.  Great!  At the same time as weighing in I set my openers for all 3 lifts - 70kg squat, 57.5kg bench, 130kg deadlift.  Top tip: decide these before.  I didn't realise I had to have prepared that early in the day and one of the numbers I wasn't 100% certain about so had to YOLO a little.

Because I was in flight B I didn't need to warm up until flight A was on the platform, so I just fannied about a bit, drank Rockstar, ate what food I could stomach.  After warming up on squat I carried out my first attempt at 70kg and it went up SO easy.

Then was the 2nd at 80kg:

And again it was easy as hell, so I upped the final attempt weight to 100kg for an all time PR:

HAPPY.

Another tip - bring a pen.  You have one minute after each attempt to fill in a card to let the table know your 2nd and 3rd attempt and if you don't have a pen this causes a lot of unnecessary stress!

Next up was bench press.  I warmed up to 55kg ready for my first attempt of 57.5kg:

This felt really good!  I thought I'd push myself and instead of going for 60kg as per my plan, I upped the weight to 62.5kg and it didn't go as planned...

NIGHTMARE.  Went for it again as my 3rd attempt and similar happened.  I got it up more but still couldn't lock out.

I wasn't totally happy with my bench performance because I know I have more strength in me, but I know what went wrong and i'll talk about how I'm going to correct it going forward a little later.

Last up was the amazing deadlift and I wanted to go all out and hit that 150kg PR.  First attempt was an easy 130kg:

Upped to 140kg for my 2nd attempt, which I knew I was going to get.  It went up fast but it felt harder than the last time I got it, so I was worried:

At this point I was DYING to pee and I didn't want to piss myself on the platform so I ran to the toilet.  After washing my hands and re-chalking up my hands felt way too smooth and I was worried it would affect my grip on the final deadlift attempt.  Went for the attempt and TADAH

Very happy!  I could *probably* have grinded out a 160kg attempt, but I'm glad I stuck to the plan.

Where do I go from here?  I qualified for British Champs in September and by then I want a 150kg squat, 70kg bench, and 190kg deadlift.  GOALS.

I learnt a lot about my bench press from this competition.  I basically didn't know how to do a pause bench press before and did a waaaaaay too fast descent.  I've changed my programming and now all my reps are paused reps, I've widened my grip because of my massively long arms, and slowed the descent of the bar to a snails pace to keep mega tightness.  All of this, along with upping my chest accessory work, is giving me really good results already.

I have to say thank you to everyone who wished me luck, especially to ARRG for their constant support and putting up with me missing practice to lift heavy things off the floor.  OBVIOUSLY I couldn't do this without Ashleigh.  She supports me 100% in the gym and on the day was absolutely amazing.  The competition was awesome experience and I loved every minute of it.  Looking forward to putting in the hours now to hit my goals and make an impact at british champs!