Meet Report

Meet Prep
So, about 4 months ago I decided to enter this meet. I was on my second or third cycle of 5/3/1 and changed to a more Westside approach to try and up my numbers a little bit. It went pretty well, except my deadlift. I finally got to film myself and figured out what was up with an [/r/weightroom](/r/weightroom) formcheck. My bench didn't go up, but I was also practicing the pause. Squat didn't go up, but it was now with wraps instead of sleeves and taking a lot more effort to focus on getting below parallel. My workout nutrition was a custom trueprotein mix and good old dextrose. Other than that, I focused a lot on very simple and effective accessory work- pendlay rows, zerchers, lots of ab work.

The Drive
Friday my wife and I got up, loaded the car and hit the road. For breakfast I downed a protein energy shot, food and orange juice. We had funyuns, pork rinds, and cheez-its in the car for all purpose snacking. I had a couple of those tubes of protein for ease of use. Lunch was a few McD's burgers and lots of fries with extra salt. Also a protein shake. Dinner was more burgers and fries with a big salad. I think I salted the salad for good measure. The weather on the way there was generally good, but there was a stretch of about 75 miles in Nebraska where snow was sticking and I tapped the brakes just wrong- we spun sideways and into the median. Thankfully there was no one around us. We were a bit shook up, but after we got our heads together and back on the road, we proceeded slowly without incident. Got to the hotel, did lots of mobility stuff and downed a few tylenol pm.

Meet Day
Got up early and downed a finibar and a ton of gatorade and another protein energy shot. Made our way to the meet. I got checked in and all my gear checked out, then weighed in- 149.9 kilos. Set my openers and then waited for instruction. They took a long time making flights because a lot of people missed weight and they had to do some re-arranging. I got put in flight H (the 8th one). They had two platforms going, and luckily I got on the one that didn't have issues. On the other platform they kept calling lifters out of order. That was no fun. Bill Sindelair was the organizer and he did do a great job of being involved and explaining things. There were a few hiccups, but this was the first meet they had run there, so given that it wasn't too bad. Lifting started an hour later than expected.

Squats
They were calling squats high left and right, so I knew I wanted to lower my opener- just by 5 kilos- to make sure I'd hit it with good depth. Warmups felt really good. Ran into Kenny Ruben- kid is insane! He opened with 711. He holds some records at 242.

[Squat 1]- 235 kilos, 3 whites
[Squat 2]- 250 kilos, 3 whites
[Squat 3]- 270 kilos, 2 whites

Overall, really pleased with squats, glad my depth was good. I felt like I should have made a bigger jump from 235- maybe done 235, 255 then 275. Ah well, it's only 10 lbs short of my PR. Also, on the second attempt the judge gave me the rack command with the squat signal- you can see my confusion. Third video my wife accidentally cut short.

Bench
Bench warmups went okay. The pauses were way long and I would say about 3/4ths of the lifters missed at least one attempt at bench. Several people bombed out because of bench. It was tough to watch.

[Bench 1]- 145 kilos, 3 whites
[Bench 2]- 160 kilos, 2 whites
[Bench 3]- 170 kilos, no lift

Kinda pissed about this- I was sure I'd have 170. Also, I just realized 160 kilos is 352 not 355, so my total was 1564. Ah well. 170 just disappointed me. Need to drill in form for this and make sure I can get the pause.

Deadlifts  
Deadlifts were pretty straightforward. I kept my warmup short and simple. I upped my opener because I knew I could get it. I didn't feel like I had blown my energy on squats, so I knew I could get a PR in deads.

[Deadlift 1]- 250 kilos, 3 whites
[Deadlift 2]- 280 kilos, 2 whites
[Deadlift 3]- 290 kilos, no lift

I tore open my hand on deadlift 2 (11 lb pr) and spent a lot of time looking for a bandaid. Then when I got to the platform and set up, the head judge hadn't given me the signal. So I waited. When he finally gave me the signal, the combination of things just came together, I got loose and went nowhere. Ah well. I know I could have had it if I hadn't let myself get distracted.

Post-Meet Analysis
So there were some computer issues and they couldn't sort out who did what in what divisions. I'll find that out later I guess. Just checking their results posted online there are a few anomalies, such as my name not being listed, nor Kenny Ruben. So we'll see- if I don't hear within the week I'll check in with Bill and see what's up. Went home, laid around, then went to Buffalo Wild Wings, I downed a couple dozen wings and a few sides, then dozed off.

All in all, I feel really good about how things went. I have a few regrets, but they're definitely overwhelmed by how good I feel about everything. I definitely left some weight on the platform, but it was my first meet and I don't think dwelling on it will help.

I wanted to make sure and say a special thanks to my wife, who sat through the whole meet and the car rides there and back. She hardly complained and did a great job videotaping, making sure I had enough to eat and drink, and being just dang wonderful.

Accessory to the Crime

In my pursuit of helping others stop being weak and overcome things, I've always loved shifting accessory work around. In this, one thing I cannot stress enough is to not major in the minors. I will write a lot about accessory work (I intend this to be a three part series) but let me get this across first: IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE LIFT LOCKED IN, THERE'S NO REASON TO FOCUS ON ACCESSORY WORK. I can't repeat that enough. There are people who probably need to do next to no accessory work because they have the lift down and all they need are a few minor tweaks. There are others who may need to spend a lot of work on the accessory lifts to help them overcome sticking points and weaknesses.

When talking about accessory work, I want to classify the whats before the whys: let's talk about types of accessory work, because each type can serve our purposes.

1. Overload/ Overspeed- partials, banded work, chains, etc. These are sometimes used as max effort lifts themselves, but they serve the purpose of an accessory to the basic movement even when going all out on them.
2. Ballistic- reverse bands, plyometrics, speed versions of the lift.
3. Bodyweight- not exclusive of ballistic, obviously, but things like pullups, dips, third world squats, etc. 
4. Cable tower movements- anything done with cables
5. Machine movements- anything done with machines.
6. Technique focused movements- variations on the lift like JM presses, different stances for squat/ dead, close-grip bench, band-only movements, etc

Now, this is by no means an encyclopedic categorization, but most accessory work will fit in here somewhere. The order I've given them in is no hierarchy of needs or priority, don't let it trip you up. The fact is that which ones are most important depend on your goals and your needs. Someone who has a strength imbalance in their legs will need to do something different than someone who can't fire their glutes and they both will probably need to do something different than someone who has a sticking point in the lift. What I want to get at here is that you have to choose the medicine for the ailment, not just the medicine that feels good.

This categorization can help you also understand why some people can seem to dick around and get great progress, while others will fail. If your work is assisting the main lift to suit your needs, it'll always be better than someone else doing the same work and failing to meet their needs. People are mostly the same. We share a lot of the same general DNA, we breathe the same air, we synthesize food the same (unless we're keto, then magic gets rid of excess calories), but we see such great variation within even a family that to subscribe to an idea of "one-size fits all" is fool-hardy.