Charlotte: Powerlifting, Golf, etc.
As most of you know, the SAPT staff traveled down to Charlotte, NC, for the weekend. It provided an awesome opportunity to talk shop outside the constant distractions of NOVA, get intense and "Do Work" at a USAPL powerlifting competition, and relax out on the golf course. Sarah, Ryan, Sean, and John all competed at the powerlifting meet, and I couldn't have been more proud of them. Sarah isn't even a year out from giving birth to her first child, so it was impressive enough that she was getting under the bar and compete postpartum. Ryan, Sean, and John all hit personal records in each of their lifts. Needless to say, I was proud to be a "SAPTer" on Saturday.
Getting right to it, below are a few highlights from the meet.
Here's a picture of Sarah at the bottom of the Squat. (Being the brilliant person I am, I didn't think to walk around to the front of the platform to shoot video footage until after the first wave, so I failed capture Sarah or John's squat on video.)
Next is Sean nailing his squat in the 3rd flight. My favorite part about the squat videos is that you can distinctly hear Chris yell his favorite coaching cue as they come out of the hole (hint: it starts with "H", ends in "s", and has "e-e-l" somewhere in the middle):
Sean easily wins the "Most Improved Squat" award of the weekend, as he made ENORMOUS advancements over his 12-week competition prep phase. I was with him when he squatted twelve weeks ago - helping him determine the weight to base his percentages off for the subsequent training cycle. I felt as if I needed to physically shove him down in order get his hip crease parallel because his hips were so tight. It was awesome to see him diligently attack hip mobility throughout the past few months - and also give himself an honest assessment of where he was at - so that he could make the most of his training. It paid off, to say the least.
Here is Ryan hitting another PR in his Squat. Ryan's body (and mind) definitely took a beating as he was finishing out his semester of grad school, so it was cool to see him remain consistent in training and come out strong with PRs on all his lifts.
Next we have John Delgado hitting a solid bench press.
For those of you who may not be familiar with powerlifting: your bench can easily be 20-50lbs LESS (depending) than your typical bench press in the gym, as you have to demonstrate control on the way down, pause on the chest, and then come up. Not to mention: your shoulders/head, butt, and feet (heels included) need to remain in contact with the bench/floor.
Moving on to the Deadlift, we have (in order): Sarah, John, Sean, and Ryan all killing it. I can confidently say we had some of the cleanest looking deadlifts of the competition (some of the pulls I saw made me want to crawl into a corner and curl up in the fetal position).
Sarah pulling a solid conventional dead (in the past she went Sumo):
Delgado hitting a big PR (and he sets the bar down as if he's holding a newborn. Love it.):
Sean "Sandbag" Healy breaking the big 400 barrier! "Easy" goes the moderator. He blasted through this one. And you'll have to ask Delgado about the nickname (which fit perfectly).
Ryan hitting a PR and then spinning around to watch all three white lights shining. Awesome.
And, just so we can prove we DO enjoy other things besides the weight room, here is the SAPT staff (me, Ryan, Chris, Sarah) getting some sun out on the UNC Charlotte golf course.
Chris still needs to take some lessons from me on the back swing, and the proper pendulum action in putting, but that's okay..... - Steve