The Orlando Barbell APF Old School Push/Pull Meet

Thanks to everyone for another successful meet and a great finish to the year! Here are Lindsey Craft, Big Vince Urbanks with their dog Samson, 19-year-old newcomer Andrew Clayton, Ronnie Paras (you can see his hat in the background–he was the master griller for the meet), Rick Lawrence, Becka Scott, Justin Rogers, my wife Trinity and I, Ryan Waxberg, John Hallman, Mark Lessmann, Toby Cobaugh (his wife Felicia is missing from the picture but was a huge help), Nikki Bowles, Dave Luce, OBB employee Nate Archibald, OBB investor Al Reiss, Amy Hartman, Greg Godwin, Daniel Tinajero, Dale Lance, Wendy and John Land (their boy Caleb is up front admiring his dad’s trophy), Jo Jordan, Rich Hayes, and my buddy and client Larry Grant. Thanks also to my client, Jeff Sevor, for providing the keg for the post and during, meet celebration. The meet was over by 4PM and the keg was gone by 7PM! (Also missing are Brett Brown and Greg Norris and whoever else I may have forgotten).

Seven Year Anniversary

Orlando Barbell has officially been open for seven years this month. I thought, what better way to celebrate than with a meet/party? We used to hold small meets at the gym when we first opened, but outgrew the space with the number of competitors we now have. This meet had a perfect amount of lifters, which made for a great time. Normally, I’m too stressed from the responsibilities of hosting the event that I wouldn’t even consider lifting, but this meet worked out so that I could. I’m happy I did since I learned a couple of things that I hope to correct in time for the Pro/Am.

The Full Results

Ironman
Lifter/Division/Wt Class/Best Bench/Best Deadlift/Place

Female

Lindsey Craft/F-A-Open-Raw/132/155/270/1st/Best Raw Lifter
Nicole Bowles/F-A-Open-Raw/148/125/265/1st
Amy Hartman/F-A-Open/SHW/365/365/1st/Best Equipped Lifter

Male

Al Reiss/M-AA-M4/220/355/405/1st/Best Masters Lifter
John Land/M-A-Open/181/545/525/1st/Best Open Lifter
Brian Schwab/M-A-Pro/181/575/605/1st

Bench Only

Lifter/Division/Wt Class/Best Bench/Place

Nate Archibald/MAA/Jun/Raw/242/295/1st
Philip McCoy/M-A-M2-Raw/198/225/1st
Tom Murphy/M-A-M2-Raw/220/340/1st
Tim Mangin/M-A-M2-Raw/242/365/1st
John Hoover/M-A-M2-Raw/275/375/1st
Vince Urbanks/M-A-Pro-Raw/308/530
Rick Lawrence/M-A-Open/275/585/1st

Deadlift Only

Lifter/Division/Wt Class/Best
Deadlift/Place

Nate Archibald/M-AA-Jun/242/575/1st
Larry Grant/M-A-M3/275/565/1st
Andrew Clayton/M-A-T-Raw/308/615/1st
Vince Urbanks/M-A-Pro/308/770

Here’s video of Best Male Open Lifter, OBB’s John Land:

OBB’s own, Amy Hartman, had a great first meet to win Female Best Lifter. I only got video of her deadlifts, but she hit a solid 365 bench as well.

The always impressive big Vince Urbank benched 530 raw with a reverse grip (due to a bicep injury) and pulled 770 sumo while just wearing single ply briefs:

How I did…

I weighed in at 172.5, which is much lighter than I expected. Usually I’m around 177 fully clothed, so I thought I’d be closer to 175. I guess my clothes weigh more than I realized. At least this will make the drop to 165 easier.

Here’s how my lifts went.

Bench

Warm-ups

95 x 5
135 x 5
185 x 3
225 x 2
275 x 1
405 x 1/2 –with shirt
495 x 1 –3-board

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Attempts

First Attempt

575 –misgrooved towards my head at the top

Second Attempt

575 –good

Third Attempt

630 –miss. My best is 622, so I figured I might as well go for a PR. John Land was competing in the open 181s and was going for a PR of 630 as well (even though he’s only able to train about once a month), so I thought it would be fun to battle it out. We both missed, but I told him I got credit for moving it further. Ha!

Deadlift

Warm-ups

135 x 3
225 x 3
315 x 2 –Ace suit, straps down
405 x 1 –Ace suit, straps down
495 x 1 –straps up

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Attempts

First Attempt

575 –good, felt pretty easy

Second Attempt

605 –good, I think this felt even better than the opener.

Third Attempt

630 –miss. I thought I might as well go for a PR on this as well. Unfortunately, it didn’t budge. I’ve had 628 to just short of lockout before, so I have some work to do.

Here’s the video:

It’s nice to get back on the board with some decent lifts. I now know the couple things I need to work on and actually cover them in my e-book. The first is that I believe I need to incorporate speed work back into my raw bench workouts. In the DVD and e-book, the raw training day for the equipped bench workout is a 3-board one week, 2-board the next, then speed work the following. I’ve been replacing the speed work with 1-board, but realized that my bench has slowed down because of it. The other is that I need to start deadlifting one week, then speed squatting the next. This is actually what I planned as my training schedule in the e-book. I’ve been trying to do them both on the same day, but more often than not, I end up neglecting the speed squats. I believe that I need more recovery time between deadlift workouts now, anyway. The last is that I need to narrow my deadlift stance slightly because I’m losing some leverage by having my feet out wider than I can force my knees out. This is what I recommend to sumo pullers, so I need to follow my own advice.

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