KarlM: It's all about the log.

[cole]

that squat looked awesome karl. good depth, good speed, and you kept it under control. that looked like a conservative 2nd attempt

[KarlM]

that squat looked awesome karl. good depth, good speed, and you kept it under control. that looked like a conservative 2nd attempt

Thanks man. Squat feels good going in to this meet. Last meet it was lagging. Fingers crossed it shows up on meet day.

[KarlM]

Log catch up:

2/13/24
Deadlift (M)
Bar X 10
135 X 5
225 X 3
315 X 2
365 X 1
405 X 1
405 X 1

Felt good. Did this in the am with the wife.
******
2/15/24

Comp. Bench (H)
Bar X 5
135 X 5
185 X 3
225 X 2
245 X 1
265 X 1
285 X 1, @9.5
270 X 1
260 X 2 X 3

Squat (L)
315 X 2 X 2

Bench hung about six inches from lock out. Otherwise it moved well. This session was rushed - date night stuff with the wife. But I felt good so no excuses there. Will just have to see what’s there on meet day. This is the heaviest single of the prep.

[KarlM]

Current plan for attempt selection. Subject to change based on how I feel on meet day.

Squat: 165, 177.5, 182.5-185
Bench: 122.5, 127.5, 130-132.5
Deadlift: 182.5, 200, 205-210

For the deadlift I’m treating my opener as my “last warmup”. Sometimes I have a lot of lower back fatigue built up by that time during a meet and really only have two serious deadlift attempts in me. Especially if I push my squat this meet, this might happen. If I open too heavy, that will likely affect putting the best number on the bar, since that opener will sap some strength. Deadlift is fickle.

[KarlM]

Log catch up:

We skied this holiday weekend. Yeah, not the best choice given that I’m a week out from my meet, but life is life and my wife and I like skiing. We drove up to Breckenridge Friday night, and skied Saturday. I went to the Breckenridge rec center (I’ve lifted here a few times, it’s not bad at all) Saturday evening after skiing and had a surprisingly good session. This was deadlift opener session with some squatting and benching.

Deadlift (opener)
405 X 1r X 3s, thèse were very easy. Made me wonder if the bumpers they had were not accurate!

Squat (last warmup)
345 X 2 X 3

Bench (L)
250 X 2 X 3

Bench was more like a Larson press. The floor was too slippery to get any leg drive. Reps were still easy.
******
2/19/24, after driving back from Breck

Squat opener
365 X 1 X 3, moved well. Nothing to see here

Bench opener
270 X 1 X 3, same as above.

I’ll take my last warmups for 2-3 singles for squat and bench on Wednesday, then compete Saturday morning!

[alek]

Good luck, Karl!!

[EricK]

Yeah, good luck! Things look good.

[KarlM]

@alek , @EricK

Thank you gentlemen! I’ve taken more heavy singles leading in to this meet than I have in the recent past. I hope my performance is better for it.

[cole]

Good luck Karl! Have fun

[KarlM]

2/24/24

Last training session before my meet. Worked up to final warmups for squat and bench.

Squat
Bar X 3
135 X 3
225 X 2
275 X 1
315 X 1
340 X 1 X 2

Bench
Bar X 5
135 X 3
185 X 2
225 X 1
250 X 1 X 2

I’m doing a water cut for this meet. I know I said I wasn’t going to worry about my weight class, but I changed my dumb mind. I’m only 2 lbs over, and I’ve never done a water cut. I want to try. I’ve made weight a bunch of times back when I was a kid in high school wrestling by running around in multiple layers of sweat shirts and pants. I’m way too old for that nonsense and it would obviously kill performance. When I competed in judo as a 30+ adult I starved myself and used the sauna. That also kills performance and isn’t worth it. So far the water cut had been easy, with the obvious exception of peeing like a diabetic. I’ll detail my experience after my meet is finished.

[KarlM]

Good luck Karl! Have fun

Thanks you Cole! I look forward to meeting you at one of these colorado meets in the future.

[DCR]

Karl, have a great time and kick some ass!

ETA on Saturday: Cheering for you today, dude.

[KarlM]

I competed yesterday at the USAPL Colorado State Championships. The meet went well! My squat and, surprisingly, my deadlift showed up. I left kilos on the platform but even still, PR’d my dots. Bench was down on the day, but I only lost 2.5 kilos.

I’ll write up a detailed post later when I’ve got more time.

And thanks @DCR for the hype

[EricK]

Awesome! Congratulations! Can't wait to read the detailed write up!

[KarlM]

2/24/24, USAPL Colorado State Championships Meet Summary

My friend Aaron flew in to handle me for the meet. I've known him for 26 years, and we've been lifting and handling each other at meets since 2016/2017. I'll be handling him for the Master's World Cup in Memphis in mid May. I'm looking forward to it. We always have a blast when we see each other.

Water Cut: I was about 2 lb over a few days out from the meet. I was regularly weighing in at about 184 lb, and needed to hit 181.9 lb on the morning of the meet to make the 82.5 kg weight class. I decided to do a water cut, and I followed Izzy's recommendations on his old Powerlifting To Win website for a 2 hour weigh in. On 2/19/24 I drank a gallon of water. After that, the water cut wound up playing out as follows (I haven't figured out how to enter a table. The format is date, ambw (lb), pmbw (lb), gallons of water.)

2/20/24, 184.0, 188.0, 2
2/21/24, 184.6, 188.8, 2
2/22/24, 183.6, 187.8, 1
2/23/24, 183.4, 183.6, 0.5 (cut off water 12 hours out, which was 6 pm)
2/24/24, 182.0

I ate normally during this water cut, and pissed like a diabetic. I did eat a bit more salt on the 2 gallon days (salted my food a bit more than normal, and had sushi with a lot of soy sauce on the evening of 2/20), but I didn't measure anything. Weigh-ins were at 6 am. I arrived at the venue early and was able to hop on the scale before the official weigh-ins started, and discovered my home scale was one pound over. You would think I would have addressed this going in, but whatever. I had a bag of lemon drops in my car (lucky) so I started spitting. Izzy recommends spitting as the least performance-impacting option if you have to cut any final weight just before the weigh-in. I wound up being the first one called to weigh in, so I asked the guy what the procedure was if I missed weight. He said you have to wait until every one else has weighed in, then you can try again, and I had until 7:30 AM to make weight. I was able to suck on lemon drops and spit out 1 lb in about an hour. I weighed in right at 82.5 kg around 7 am. I do not think I would have been successful with spitting if I didn't have the lemon drops. You need some sort of hard candy with a lot of flavor to stimulate the saliva glands to spit out a significant amount of fluid in a short period of time. Immediately after making weight, I drank 20 oz of orange gatorade along with about half a gallon of water. Then I ate a bunch salt and vinegar potato chips, a plain bagel and a bag of pop tarts (two pop tarts). This settled pretty well in my stomach, but I have a pretty high capacity to stuff myself, so YMMV when it comes to the rehydration and eating part of this. I kept drinking throughout the meet and snacked on the above, with some nutella spread out on a few bagels later on.

I was in the second flight in the morning, which put me somewhere around 8:15 AM or so before I had to squat my opener. Warm ups felt effortless. My opener, 165 kg, flew. I called for 177.5 kg for my second, and that was a "meet PR at my lower bodyweight", and it moved well. I was too conservative with my third and only put 5 kg on. I easily squatted 182.5 for my third. I left maybe 5-7.5 kg on the platform. I should have listened to Aaron. He would have put 185 kg on for my third.

After squats I was sure that the water cut and spitting hadn't affected my performance at all, and was excited going in to bench. My warmups felt great but my opener, 122.5 kg, moved slow through the top part of the lift. This seems to be my sticking point and might indicate some direct triceps work is in order. I put 127.5 kg on for my second, and that wound up being a grinder. I put 130 on for my third, but I couldn't get it. No miss-groove or anything like that, the strength just wasn't there. Still, I was only down 2.5 kg from my last meet, and with my squat doing well that put me up 5 kg on my total going in to deadlifts. Water cut might have affected bench but not squat. Or I might have pulled volume from my bench too early for my peak. Or a combo of both. I don't know.

Deadlift has been inconsistent and mostly absent ever since my weight loss. Contrary to the common observation that squats and bench are hit the hardest during a cut, in my case it was squat and deadlift, while my bench kept climbing. Over the last two years my bench has kept climbing (albeit slowly) while squat and deadlift have lagged. Today was another story. Deadlift felt strong. Warmups were light as a feather. I usually know when I pull 365 lb how the day will go and that flew. I stuck with my plan to open light (182.5 kg) then do a big jump. Opener was effortless, then I called for 200 kg. That also moved easily. Aaron got a hold of me before I ran to the table to put in 205 kg and told me to put 210 on for my third. This was the same weight I missed at regionals in August 2023 at lockout (I almost passed out from that attempt). It also flew. I probably had 215-220 on the day. This was entirely unexpected. Just a couple of weeks earlier I struggled to pull 200 kg in training. That was a slow grinder. So deadlift is still the fickle mistress.

I placed first in masters 1 82.5 kg (out of 1, lol). I discovered a couple of days out USAPL just changed the rules on masters classification. I expected to compete in the masters 2a division, since I'm turning 50 in March, and the old rules stated that you move up an age division the year you turn 50. But they changed it to your actual age, so since I was still 49 at this meet, I was in the masters 1. I "PRd my total at my lower body weight", with 520 kg on the day, and PRd my DOTS by a pretty good margin, finally surpassing the 350 mark with a 352.25 score. Overall, a successful meet. Bench wasn't there, but as Meatloaf effortlessly belts out, "Two out of three ain't bad!" It was just a different two-out-of-three than I expected.

I'll post videos for my lifts later. I'll try to combine them all together so that I don't upload 9 separate videos like I've done in the past. Maybe I'll pay my son to do that for me!

***here is the meet recap video.

[cole]

Great job Karl! Sounds like you had a good time

[KarlM]

Great job Karl! Sounds like you had a good time

Thanks Cole! Yeah, it was a good time. Rachel Crass runs a good meet too. Gino was even there!

[alek]

Hell yeah, Karl! Great job, man!

Would you do the water cut again?

[DCR]

I "PRd my total at my lower body weight", with 520 kg on the day, and PRd my DOTS by a pretty good margin, finally surpassing the 350 mark with a 352.25 score.

Sounds like this meet is gonna need a month to recover from the beating you gave it. Congratulations!

[Clearwater47]

Sounds like everything went about as good as can be expected. Congrats!