Recently, a few of the Butcher Barbell lifters, as well as myself, competed in the American Open Series II in Miami. The 4 of us- Coach Jake, Olga P., Barry and myself- were all coming in at very different points in our training. Coach Jake was peaked and had a full training cycle into the Meet. Barry has been primarily coached by Jake in Colorado and was in top form in Miami. Olga had been struggling with a little shoulder pain, and also had to lift after driving in the day/night before. And I had come back from about a 3 month training lay off due to a health scare (which essentially turned out to be a misdiagnosis, more on that in a different post). The short version is, Jake had some tough referees but still managed to tie his National-event total PR and his Meet PR clean and jerk on a 3/6 meet, which should have been at least a 4/6 in my opinion but referees have the final say. Barry took home a Gold medal on a great 5/6 performance that included a PR clean and jerk Olga also went 3/6, also had a bad referee decision on a clean and jerk, but still came within 8kg of her total PR and 2kg of her clean and jerk PR for a great day and her first total in a National level meet. I had a meet I was very pleased with despite it being about 17kg off of my best total. I am VERY pleased with the performance of the Butcher Barbell athletes, and walked away from Miami knowing everyone gave it their best on THAT DAY.
Now, I want anyone reading this to think about that last sentence. “The best on that day.” This is an important concept because when meet day comes around, we are not always at our best. Using myself as an example, in January of this year I had as close to a perfect meet as I could get, hitting PRs in both lifts and the total. About 2 weeks after I had a few health issues hit me and had to sit on the sidelines for a few months until I was able to figure it out. I gained about 10kg of unwanted weight and lost a good bit of strength and speed. When I was finally able to start training again, I had to stay reserved at first to be safe. I was only really able to train hard for about 9 weeks leading into the AO Series event in Miami. In addition, I had to shed the 10kg I had gained from a new, sedentary job and poor food choices. While I went from a bodyweight of 102kg to 96kg, then cut an additional 2kg the week of the meet I managed to get my numbers to within about 93% of where they were before the layoff. I had wanted to get a little closer to 95-97% of my best, but arrived in Miami not really knowing what to expect of my lifting.
The stress of cutting, coaching and generally participating in a National meet in addition to some difficulties in my personal life had me questioning my abilities all the way up until weigh-ins on Sunday. Then, as I have in the past at other meets, I decided that I would simply give the best I have on THAT DAY. It may not be my all time best but it would be everything my body could produce on that day. So what does that mean? It means that I was both fired up to perform but realistic about what my performance would be that day. I adjusted my planned attempts to give myself the best shot at a 6/6 meet while still getting as close to the top 10 in my division as possible. Looking back, there is not much I would do differently on that day with the knowledge I have now and I feel I performed the best that I could on that day even though it was not my best ever.
I feel that the reflection I have on the Miami event is more important that my actual numbers. For me, and for my athletes who had a tough meet, it still stands as a meet where we performed to the best of our abilities that day. You won’t always arrive at a meet ready to set PRs or stand on top of the podium. You just have to lift the best that you can with what your training has prepared you for and what your body is capable of that day and adjust your game plan accordingly.
In the next blog post, I am going to address how to determine your attempts for success and help provide a guide for what success at a meet means.
-Stephen Butcher
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