Meet Report: Northern California Open in Sacramento, CA

As you guys know, I started training the olympic lifts late last year, and after training for about 6 months, did my first meet this past Saturday.

I. Prep

We spent the first few weeks just learning the movements, and I was told I had utterly terrible thoracic extension, to the point that I was not able to correctly set up for the snatch.  After doing a lot of hamstring flexibility work and RDLs, things got a bit better.

For the 2 months or so leading up to the meet, we got on a structured program.  The idea was basically that we will begin with high volume/medium intensity, and slowly taper up to low volume/high intensity.  Tuesdays were snatch days where we would begin with the full movement, then snatch pulls, then back squats.  Thursdays were C&J days where we again begin with the full movement, then clean pulls, then front squats.  Saturdays were "heavy single" days where we basically tested new maxes.

For olympic weightlifting, there is very little you can do to game the system with regard to weight because there is no day-before weighing.  You have to be weighed about 1 hour before the lifting begins so there's no such thing as cutting carbs/water.  Thus I chose to be in the 94kg weight class (207lbs) which is about my current weight.  This also allows me to compete in PL in the 198s with a little water cutting.

I ended up weighing in at 92.5kg.

II. Snatch

So the last training session before the meet had us hit our openers.  I was going to open at 80kg for the snatch, but took 3 tries to hit it during the training session, which worried me a lot.  Needless to say, I was not very confident going into the meet since I REALLY REALLY REALLY did not want to bomb out.  My coach planned for me to take 80, then 90 (my PR), then 95.

Warm ups were not going that great and I missed 75kg out front.  I hit it right after but that was also kind of jarring.

Attempt 1: 80kg (3 whites).  Luckily, I managed to hit this fairly cleanly, which definitely boosted my confidence and calmed my nerves a lot.

Attempt 2: 90kg (3 reds).  I didn't set up very well at the start, so this one didn't get pulled high enough.

Attempt 3: 90kg (3 reds).  This one was pulled much better, but ended up out front.  Fairly disappointing because I was really hoping to at least hit 90.

III. Clean and Jerk

I was on the board, so I was a lot more calm when C&J came around.  We were planning to go 100, 110, 115, and I hit 100 pretty easily during the final training session.

Attempt 1: 100kg (3 whites).  This was fairly easy.

Attempt 2: 110kg (3 whites). I honestly didn't think this would have gone up so easily, but I think watching some legit people lift helped me out a lot (I think I managed to slow down/clean up my first pull and really get a good second pull in).

Attempt 3: 115kg (3 whites).  Again, I attribute this to cleaning up my form.  I may have had 120 in me.

IV. Conclusion

I was disappointed at my performance in the snatch, but my 5kg PR on the C&J more than made up for it, and even though I didn't hit my goal of 200kg total, I got very close (195).

The meet itself was very well run, and the people were really nice.  I saw some big olympic weightlifting names there: Jim Schmitz, the head judge, was the coach for the 1980, 1988, and 1992 US olympic teams, Max Aita is a top level OL, and did the 0-600 squat video, and squats 700+ (and somehow doesn't look like he lifts) , Rob Blackwell was in my flight, and holds the PWA record in the snatch and total (he got something like 135/165 @ 85).

I will definitely keep training and competing in olympic weightlifting because it was a ton of fun, and getting owned definitely gives me a big boost in motivation.