I got confirmation a couple of days ago that I’m definitely in the BWLA British Masters Weightlifting Championships in Lilleshall, Shropshire in 2.5 weeks. The bad news is, I’m lifting against Brendan Cooke an established lifter from Northern Ireland and Ian Robertson, a 14x Scottish champion. There goes my chance to sneak a title then, lol.
I did think about trying to drop a weight category and go for the 77kg (169 lbs / 12 st 1) category, but I’ve checked the rules with the Chairman Bill Barton, and apparently I’m not allowed to do that now that I’ve entered the 85kg category. You are allowed to go up a category it seems, I assume that’s for those that don’t make the weight. I’ve also learned that you have to open within 10kg of the qualifying standard, so that fixes my opening weights at 70kg for the Snatch and 95kg for the Clean and Jerk.
I had high hopes for this week at the gym, however their new bumpers still haven’t arrived, but they have said I can have exclusive use of the knackered bumper plates. Here’s a photo of the Apollo bumper plates that I’ve been moaning about:
They really are shocking. This is the second gym I’ve been in that’s had Apollo bumpers and they’ve both broken the same way. I don’t have a shot of the 20s, but you see the 5 bolts of the centre plate, they all sheared off inside whilst I was using it, so the metal plate fell off! This is the collection of 15kg bumper bits that I collected after one session, and these are just the big bits I could be bothered to pick up:
Putting both the 10s and 15s on gives some stability, so I quickly worked up to 70kg on Tuesday and aimed to work at 70kg snatches for a while. Sadly things didn’t go according to plan. The warm up snatches were fine, upto and including 60kg, but the jump to 70kg was too much. I spent 45 minutes practising how to drop 70kg! I did finally get a scrappy one up, but was too tired by then to keep going and want to stop on a success. So I moved onto over head squats and worked up to 3 reps of 80kg (my body weight).
Then yesterday, having got my 100kg Clean & Jerk at the weekend, I was very hopeful for &J practice. But, for whatever reason, I started feeling dizzy and light headed at the top of the clean. I soon learnt that jerking whilst dizzy is not good for your health… nearly dropping 90kg on your head will do that for you! So again I moved on and decided to do a Crossfit Total:
- Back Squat: 140kg, 150, 155(F)
- Shoulder Press: 50, 52.5, 55
- Deadlift: 140, 150
- Crossfit Total = 335kg or 781 lbs
The Back Squat and Shoulder Press went well, but my back was feeling very tired on the deadlift and without someone to tell me how rounded my back was getting, I decided not to go up. I can’t remember what my PBs are, will update this post when I know.
