I got a rugby team for my birthday one year...

This is my team -- seriously. These boys were gifted to me.

And this is my boyfriend (engineer named Whitey), who was also a rugby player, though not active.

He came to pick me up from work on my birthday and found someone has gifted me a team. 

Awkward.

Then some other stuff happened - outrageous, really. I told this whole story once, not sure where it is though

I keep forgetting that I am sometimes an athlete. I never did team sports in school or anywhere. I always tried to sneak to the back of the line when it was getting near my turn to go at bat in softball in gym class. I was active, but mostly liked to do solo things because I was intimidated, felt awkward, and shy as a kid. But I just finished a three and a half day powerlifting camp yesterday and wanted to talk about it here, instead of wandering off in the other thread 😃

Every day I would come home and my husband would ask how it went and what I learned and I would just be on cloud nine telling him the lift we did that day but there was so much information that I couldn’t summarize! It was amazing. Amazing. 

It was coordinated by a former weightlifter whose father was an Olympic weightlifter and among his achievements, was a member of the ‘84 and ‘88 USA Olympic team. She was also a star as a teen but training young girls in the early 90’s was rough and they trained them like men. She ultimately suffered many injuries, retired, met her husband who is more into powerlifting, and that’s how she’s now involved in USAPL as Colorado chair, organizing these events, and has also competed in equipped lifting (powerlifting with suits).

We also had a man who has been a world team collegiate and masters coach coach, he owns a gym in Brooklyn, coaches, and has the most zen approach to everything in life, it seems. 

We had a 6x National Champion who also coaches and has coached people to 60 World records and countless other accolades. His two athletes also attended and assisted us. One woman lives here in Connecticut, has helped me at meets, and has also been a ref at some of my meets. She came in second at the Arnold this year and it was awesome to watch the live stream of her lifts. The other young woman is 24, has been lifting for 10 years, has won Nationals, and her bench press in like 320, and her deadlift is 501 🤯

So we had these amazing people to watch us do our lifts, give us suggestions, give us support, with information we can use immediately, and also add things in the future. Everyone says, yes, you got a lot of information thrown at you and if it doesn’t click now, probably a couple months, it will hit you and you’ll have an aha moment.

My immediate takeaways, other than the cues I can start implementing now (positions like chest up, etc) are: push the accessory work (lat pull-downs, hamstrings, etc, etc) even more. Push them to rise to the level of the lifts you’re doing. For instance, make you work more proportional, make it rise to the effort of your main lifts (squat, bench, deadlift). Even try for some PR’s there.

There we’re also times of self-reflection on my part. Out of 13 attendees, only two were under the age of 40. That means there were 11 of us 40+, most of us in our 50’s and three in their 60’s. Some of these women (there were only two male attendees) were incredibly strong. Like, wow. So I’m there with some demonstrating my lifts for the coach, as we all were, and my top sets were 165 squats (we were not going all out). They wanted to see it somewhat challenging to watch how, when, our form was. Then there are women going 235 for three and that their top would be, idk, 300 or so. And while you don’t really compare because these women were bigger or proportionally different, etc and nobody judges, I still had a moment of, why can’t I do that? What am I doing wrong?

And the next morning I woke up and I felt better because I know some things I can try, it’s not a sprint, you can’t compare except to use these women as perhaps something to aspire towards. Working with stronger people inspires.

I am happy that my deadlift was pretty good and after watching my bench, I think the one coach was, like, ok 👍 (He was incredibly helpful on my bench but it’s far, far below my deadlift.) So I got great pointers on how to make my deads better, both styles (there are two was to stand, conventional and sumo).

But wait, there’s more!

We learned about things like, starting clubs, avoiding burnout, the rule book for competing and what you should know about the back end of a meet and competition as well as the reasons you might get called for a lift (you broke a rule or something), accessory work and specific variations of lifts to help sticking points, examples of programming to get ready for a meet, what not to do: don’t check your equipment if you have to fly to a meet!!!

They told a story about one OG, Susan Elway, who was flying to a meet and they wanted to check her bag at the gate. She said, no way. When they resisted, she but on all her gear and wore it on the plane. We’re talking whatever suit she was using, her belt, her shoes. There was no way she was going to risk having her equipment bag lost or late to her meet.

One also told of how she was competing with her college team at Worlds in Belarus. She said the hotel was sketchy and they were all afraid the room was bugged and they couldn’t read the food packages because they were in Russian. Thankfully they moved to a Sheraton and it was better. 

Also, timing when to start warming up at a meet, what should you lift?

Optional was learning a little about equipped lifting, so I was really interested in that. There are suits you can wear for squat, bench, deadlift, as well as knee wraps (wrapping your knees with long elastic fabric). The suits are super stiff and tight and help get you some rebound. And they are incredibly tight. As in, you need assist or at least you have to hang on a j-hook on a rack to get you in. But you can lift more. And what I learned was that you don’t have to go all in like Ed Coan or Dave Tate. You can get less tight (although still tight). And you don’t have to have your knees painfully tight. I let them wrap one knee for me and she said she wasn’t going to do it super tight (again, it is always your choice how tight) and yes, it hurt a little, it was tight, but doing an air squat, I could feel how it would be helpful.

I took notes, took some video, and pictures. But it was incredible. It felt like I was there for a week but it was good. 

10/10 would recommend if you like to lift heavy things, make yourself uncomfortable, and get sore. 🤣

We had an entire resistance band session. Crazy! But it was good and since I’m still sore, that’s what I did this morning. Lots of different things can be done.

Getting some advice on my deadlift. This is conventional stance, the one I use.

This is a sumo deadlift where the feet are wider. Some people are just build better for this, they prefer it, or like me, I want to incorporate this more in my training as it works different muscles. Strength gained here can transfer to my conventional deadlift and my squat. In this photo, we are doing a box deadlift and it teaches you to raise your chest up, sit back, and it also targets the upper back more.

This is some squat instruction. That’s my coach, but the other coaches were helping. Chest up! Higher!

And here are the suits for equipped lifting, squat, bench, deadlift, wraps, and slippers (to help put on the suits).

And finally, she is demonstrating a deadlift suit. It’s so tight that she can grab one hand on the bar and try to pull herself down to try to reach the bar with her other hand. Once she’s set up, the suit helps you pop up. It’s still another learning curve, though, as some suits are lighter, like a Toyota Corolla, and others are like driving a Ferrari but I’d definitely dip my toe into the the little go-cart sized ones 😂

Hope you enjoyed my joy!

Running. Other than shoes, no equipment. You can go alone or in a group. Outdoor or indoor. Rain or shine. You can do it to build stamina or to build strength, and/or. Wherever you are in the world, you can run. They say it's bad for your knees, but I also read somewhere that that's a myth.

Love baseball! The pace, the food at the park, the commentary on tv; it seems to attract kinda wholesome people. Reminds me of little league seeing my brothers as a kid, eating licorice and Swedish fish. Total summer vibe. I’d live July for multiple months if possible. Minor league games in person really feel like going back in time.