June 24-25, 2023 – Northeast Regional Championship

Normally, I compete and then do a write-up the next day. I’ve done that about 40 times now without fail. Train, compete, reflect and repeat. This time things didn’t quite work out in that way and I’ve been left with the having my thoughts be stuck for about a week longer than usual. And finding that a disruption to the routine is not good for me. Seems better that I let it be quick and pass through me rather than have it not be able to escape and ricochet around, causing more damage. Still chasing this goal I have. And with how I treat things, it may as well be an addiction. Rarely satisfied with what I’ve done, any joy in the performance fleeting, evaporating almost instantly when exposed to any self-reflection. Ephemeral. Like I willingly want my joy stolen from comparison. Never enough. And I feel that want I’m doing is only the bare minimum for me to not go insane at the what feels like a snails pace. But slowly going somewhere. Perhaps nowhere. But a destination. I was still thinking on the things that I wasn’t happy about with the last show. Worries that I’m really only able to keep up with my good events and those will be surpassed at any time. When I feel I put in so much work but my body can’t keep up. Trying to keep those doubts in check but it becomes hard when I’m a pressure cooker of anxiety and stress of my own doing. Medical issues added to it on top of work related things. But there were some good things.

As luck would have it this year, all the shows I did last year lined up and were available. Local, Regional and National. All being able to be done in the state I live in without driving more than 6hrs one way. It was convenient (and the only way things worked for me with stress last year) and odds of things lining up again like this with my showing at Nationals last year had me eager to hit those same beats. While my overall placing at this show wasn’t what I was hoping to show, it had been a large class of competitors and it was well run. But things did seem to be different this year. Not in the quality of the show or the heart put into it. But kind of noticing that across the shows I’ve done. PA Dutch last year had about double the competitors this year. And this show had about same situation. When I initially signed up for this show, it was a one day show. That was also when I had put in my leave requests (my job requires all approved leave to be guaranteed to be approved before 12/15 of the previous year). But that ended up changing into a 2 day show with an additional event added. This had been a show to do in the event that I didn’t qualify for Nationals at PA Dutch but it also served the purpose of testing some things out in a two day show to see if I can work on recovery from Day 1 to Day 2 for better prep for Nats this year. But also to compete at a higher level. When I was seeing the people that were signing up for this, I was making it my goal to not get last place overall. That was the minimum.

Taking the day before off had been a good call this year. I woke up at my usual work time and made the concentrated effort of packing what was needed. I only ended up forgetting my toothbrush this time around. Drive out was mostly uneventful until the GPS told us to drive through Pittsburgh rather than go around like usual. That was a slog. With the show running as earlier session (another show in the afternoon on the first day), I figured it made sense to check-in the day before. I didn’t need to weigh-in going for HW but figured I’d do so anyway and I ended up being 264.6lbs so I could’ve done the under 265lbs class. Maybe. I’m not sure on the rules as I didn’t qualify for this show as that weight class. But I don’t see a point with my goals. This only recently got made it’s own class and who is to say it won’t be removed later. Be in the same boat as the 175lbs and 200lbs class athletes. Champions but no cards. Josh, the promoter, was happy to see me. He has an enthusiasm for this as a promoter that makes it very difficult to deal with just about anyone else with how spoiled I feel. Two shirts, athlete bag of stuff and instructions for the event sent ahead of time and responses to questions in like less than an hour after asking. I know there will be adequate time for warming up and safety precautions taken. I checked the equipment and then head to the hotel to unpack and get something to eat. The restaurant we picked was overpriced for the quality of the food. Best thing was the soup. Read some before finally getting myself to fall into some kind of sleep stupor.

Early morning rise and I thankfully didn’t have trouble stomaching my breakfast. I didn’t feel like I slept the best. I tend to not sleep well in a strange bed. Or with anything that isn’t normally part of my bed. I recall that Hugo Girard had similar issues that caused him to not be able to really sleep at all and suffered for it in multiple day shows. Something I was trying to mitigate this weekend. While I did improve placing on the second day at Nationals, it was more that the last event was my best event and I gobbled up a lot of points while feeling like underperforming on the other events compared to what I felt I could do. I spent time doing mobility stuff and then paced things out with getting warm and staying warm. It wouldn’t be hard with the humidity to stay warm I guess but it was a tepid balancing act. As the dust settled and things were to be underway, there were 9 competitors in the hefty boy class. Several had dropped out as the day got closer. Some I knew and others I didn’t really but I assumed there were no slouches here. I did my best to be comfortable and warm up. Know the first event wasn’t a good one for me and just get on the board and move on with the day.

The first event of the day was max axle deadlift from 13”. No suits allowed, starting weight at 405lbs with planned 40-50lbs jumps. Three attempts with 30 seconds to lift, fight, kick, scream to get it done. I had worked hard on this to try and bring up the deadlift. It is a constant uphill battle. Really feels like that with things like this and overhead. Very rarely do I not hit my expected goals or performances on other events. Training for this had been mostly heavy weeks and then banded pull weeks with eventually morphed into a combo of that and isometric pulls to peak. Even with what I was aiming for here, I was still expecting bottom place here due to the quality of deadlifting pullers in the class. Going into this, bare minimum was 635lbs, which would be a PR without any kind of assistance (suit or briefs) but really I’d like to hit 675lbs. Training that had felt like a possibility with the contest peak as stuck was feeling like I was in the halfway point of 635lbs and 675lbs. Last session I didn’t feel great and called it early (before rage quitting, it was a very stressful day). I will say that while my deadlift wasn’t feeling great at the show, I had every opportunity to warm up as I wanted. I did about plate jumps and felt that I needed to lower my opener from 585lbs to 545lbs just to be on the safe side. There was strategy for placing with number attempts with same weight but I wasn’t feeling confident that I could open with the planned opener with how things were feeling. The under 265lbs were lumped in with the HW so I wasn’t too sure who all was competition at this point. But I definitely was one of the first to go out to lift. 545lbs did go up better than my last heavy warm up but I wasn’t feeling like 635lbs was going to be there honestly. But I was going to do 585lbs. If that was loaded. The HWs had bent one of the bars warming up and ran out of room with regular plates so there were kilo plates added instead. So it was going to be 595lbs for the second attempt. I was kind of almost following myself as far as rest between attempts but it worked for me in that I generally don’t take super long rests in training, even with the heavy singles. Final pull of 635lbs. Kind of surprised it went up without a hitch. I feel that if I got to pick my attempts that 655lbs was probably there. But definitely not 675lbs. My first lift got me the same points as my last lift. Only way would’ve been to stick to the original plan and do 635lbs as my second attempt to gain half a point. But I look at things with kind of three levels of goals; micro (the event), meso (the contest) and macro (career). I felt it was best even though likely no additional points to push the pulls to find where I am for training purposes to assess things for next time as well as get a better idea of recovery for the Day 2 which was a big part of doing this show (my back was absolutely knackered after the double down farmer’s at Nats last year). Not unexpected 9th place here.

Up next was a stone event. Something I’m usually good at. But this was an unknown for me. Stone to shoulder with an atlas stone. 300lbs for reps in 60 seconds. No sticky stuff. Just chalk or nothing allowed. This was originally going to be on Day 2 but got moved up due to weather. And I was fine with that considering how this would hopefully not make Day 2 so rough. As mentioned before in posts and contest write-ups, shouldering implements beyond a circus dumbbell has been relatively new to me. My height as allowed me the luxury of not needing to shoulder stuff to be successful. But there has been an increase in this kind of event so I’ve had to kind of start from scratch and it can be hit or miss. All the other times it has been sandbag. Same principle with a stone but not exactly. Like the stone will stay the same shape unless you break it. Sandbags can be crushed a little and move. Have places to grip. I found that as opposed to getting my head out of the way for the sandbag that leaning my head and jaw into the stone helped stabilize things. I also got wrestling headgear to protect my ear. I had seen a MW pro (James Deffinbaugh) where that on a circus dumbbell event years ago and I did use to wrestle when I was younger so I was aware of this as a lightweight option for protection and had this in case I did end up doing a stone to shoulder event at some point. I made sure it was approved for use by the promoter of course. 300lbs might sound light compared to the 440lbs stone I was lifting in my last contest prep but that extra bit to shoulder and not having tacky was going to be a difference maker. Training for this was fairly unique. Yes, could do stones and did every other week. But there were things that needed to be worked beyond that and with it being no tack, doing stones more frequently could lead to biceps tendonitis issues popping up (not fun). Also had some hip issues from the last show’s prep so it was probably wise to find alternatives. This ended up being zercher goodmornings with a safety squat bar while holding a swiss exercise ball. And against band tension. Just doing these explosively and violently for doubles and triples. A way to build up for the movement and get the triple extension work in as well without worrying about balance. So alternating these two things (the stones and gms) was my bread and butter. I didn’t work up to contest weight on this in training but I felt that what I was doing was close enough as every stone is different. I was aiming for 1-5 here because of that variance. But I’d be really pissed off if I got less than 3 reps. I got ready way too early for this one as I felt the pace of the show was moving a certain way with how the deadlifts wrapped up. So I was already decked to death in athletic tape and an obscene amount of chalk. This would’ve been an issue if I didn’t know how to keep my body from sweating so much. I like liquid chalk as a base coat to use the alcohol content to dry out the skin before applying tape or regular chalk (antiseptic spray works too). Some of the deadlift stuff was still setup so I did some zercher lifts to prime things (like 160lbs only). Warming up with actual stones, I did singles up to about 250lbs and then just lapped the 277lbs stone. I was first up having gotten last on the first event. They had someone checking to make sure everyone was clear of sticky substances. I was the only athlete with headgear and it does seem like a smart choice considering all the blood that was showing up on the stones after competitors were done. Plan was to try and keep a quick pace and not let myself feel tired. That tended to be an issue for me in training getting over nerves and just pushing through as fatigue feels like a lot with the arc of the movement. Made sure the judge was aware I was left-handed to be on that side. Got the first rep quick and proceeded with a second. I hesitated a bit after that one as I got a warning from the judge for not holding it long enough. That did slow the momentum down. Going for the third the stone slipped and I stopped and repositioned it to how it was at the start as that seemed to be the way to get the best grip on it. Need to take time and be aware of things even in the fast pace. Got a third rep securely but it was a bit more a fight to stabilize it. I felt I had one last rep in me with how the stone was feeling. Almost lost it picking it up as it wanted to slip on me. Got it lapped and went for it but I apparently was a bit too mobile in my lower back and it got me off balance and had to bail as I crashed into the backdrop. No injuries but I knew I didn’t have time to reattempt it. Still, credit for 3 reps which managed to tie me for second here.

Final event for the first day was the Hercules hold. Same rules and setup as last year’s show with it being 150lbs listed per hand and no hook grip. Including myself, about half the field had done this last year. I knew what to expect as far as how things would go and feel and of athletes there for the most part. The person that beat me last year wasn’t here and neither were the other grip monsters so I did feel confident that this could be an event win. But never know with things. Unlike last year where this was the last event, this was just the half way point and grip would be a factor later in the competition so have to see what I can muster and hopefully it doesn’t hamper things after that. Training for this was literally nothing to write home about. Similar to how arm over arm and Nationals went, it is almost infuriating how little effort was needed to train this. I had key information from last year to apply for this year. I had planned to do training on the Hercules hold setup at the gym 2-3 times but ended up being just once to test. I knew if I could improve my time without hook grip with 320lbs that I’d be in a good spot. My concern has that even though I had just done a training cycle with Hercules hold, it had been with hook grip and wasn’t working the hands as they would for this style. But it seems even that had a positive effect in the ability to handle time under tension in the forearms, shoulders and upper back muscles. Ended up adding like 13 seconds to my PR with that weight so I was convinced one touch at it was enough. So training had been alternating some rolling bar hangs and axle seated wrist curls while braced. As well as the training for all the other event work that required grip. Before this event, I did have some competitors ask me about tips for this as it seemed to be known I was good at this. It does always surprise me when I’m recognized or someone knows me. I don’t feel like I’m anybody or done anything. But there were people telling me not to hold it all night (reminiscent of some jokes from the r/strongman subreddit with Mark Felix and this event). I had joked with the promoter that if I got over 45 seconds he’d need to increase the weight next time (apparently the plan is to have this event at this show every year and keep a record for each class). I did end up going near the end here due to the second place tie. But it was a three way tie and since I was lowest on the first event, I was going first of that group. I was sweating a bit watching people go. While the same number of people got over 30 seconds compared to last year, there were about half the people this year so it felt like more people. Just have to do it and hold on. Did some doorway stretches to loosen up my shoulders and chest after the stones. As I got ready, I asked the judge if they could read of 10 second intervals. This had been something that I hadn’t been able to get last year as they said they’d read off if hit 40 seconds. Couldn’t hurt to ask and it would be helpful to me (and probably those that are to go). So this request was granted. I got set and knew the release would be uneven and kind of violent. And it was. Almost enough so that I considered dropping immediately to redo it. But I knew this would’ve been unfruitful and this was consistent to everyone describing how this felt upon release of the weight. And I can handle it. I knew I had it when I got to 20 seconds. I was going to break 40 seconds for sure. 42.11 seconds by the time it slipped out of my fingers on the left side. Not quite enough to beat last year’s best time but I did improve my time by almost 4 seconds. Ahead of second place by over 5 seconds. So first place here.

After the first day, I was in 3rd place overall. This was unexpected. I was feeling pretty darn good after this and joked around with some of the fellas. I apparently had chalk on my nose so looked like I had taken some “forbidden pre-workout” and didn’t realize what was being referenced until I got back to the hotel room. Also unexpected was being done at like 1pm competing. The show was still going on with the non-regional show starting in the early afternoon. My dad and I weren’t sure what to do with all this free-time. Stretched out back at the hotel room and cleaned up and went to see a movie. It has been a long time since I’ve gone to a movie theatre or felt the need to go to one to see a movie. There was still time to kill after that as the restaurant wouldn’t take anything earlier than 8pm reservation. Spoiler; it was worth the wait for that food. There was one of those grifter people that tell a sob story to get something outside the hotel and felt it was best to wait until they left but that meant about an hour or so in the city. And then it rained. I don’t think I’ve actually had the opportunity to really walk around the host city of a competition since 2015 in Davenport, IA. It felt very similar. I don’t count 2017 in Las Vegas because that was less a city and more a bunch of malls with no roof on it. Had a good day and hopefully I could ride that momentum into the next day. Iced my left knee and took some Motrin to help with the aches and such. While sleep wasn’t the best, again, I did seem to feel like it was the day before. And that had been a good day so maybe the same thing this time. Tried to keep things as similar to the first day as I could.

First event of the day was what was likely going to be my worst; viking press. Not too sure the weight in hand but it was going to be with 490lbs added to the apparatus. 60 seconds for maximum number of reps. Jerks were allowed if able (the foot print was small). Facing away with neutral grip. This was a piece of equipment that cost several thousand dollars so this wasn’t something that was going to be easy to get a hold of. I’ve done ok at viking press like one time out of the three times I’ve had this event in competition. Those had been facing the weight and sometime with neutral grip and other times with pronated grip. I did seem to figure out finally a good setup for that in training. It took a lot of time but it seemed to work and feel about right when it was time to compete. This was a bit different in that the setup I had been using wasn’t going to work for this facing away style. Not enough clearance for the important parts above the shoulders. So got a rough model made with my dad that I could setup in the backyard (much to the delight of my neighbors I’m sure). It did seem to hold up well with minor issues and adjustments. I actually like training with it and how it felt. But I couldn’t really tell if what I was doing was “good”. I had the calculations to determine what weight in hand was but I didn’t have anything to really compare it to. And I’ve been a bit down on myself when it comes to pressing as it feels like it has been in decline since about a year ago. There will be moments where I hit stuff that is good and like PRs but then it will feel heavy and crap. Changes had to be made with pressing frequency to get things on track as far as recover and this will be something for everything as I keep doing this and get older I’m sure. Alternating strict press weeks and push press weeks and different styles. Trying to work around knee stress and keep on point. I do feel like my pressing got stronger. But I wasn’t sure what I was working towards or if I was even close. Or if this was improving from where I was as this was all imaginary numbers to me. The heaviest I got up to was about 265lbs weight in hand for some reps. My hope was that this was 90% of contest and I could make up the difference in the implement being solid and not the janky thing I was using. I had the opportunity to test it out empty the day before the contest at weigh-ins. It felt a little snug to get into and maybe a little heavy even empty. Thankfully it felt lighter the day of. One of the things I was worried about was making sure I had enough clearance. I was apparently good on that part even at the highest setting. So I didn’t have to half squat the weight up to keep from bottoming out the lift. Last warm up was a single at 400lbs added. So 90lbs away. It felt heavy but not in a way that said I had no shot. Just that like 1-3 reps at most. My left knee wasn’t feeling 100%. This is something that has been popping up after doing the stone to shoulder stuff. Trained around it by not having push press the following week but can’t really mitigate or avoid when all in one show. Also not helpful seeing someone’s knee go and being in the front row. I was going to be the third to last to go and I just say press after to press. Every body besides one person ahead of me got double digits here. The other person got two reps. I felt that maybe I could try for three reps. I got set and went to unrack and it felt godawful heavy. Ok, change of plans, survive. No illusions of multiple reps here, it was going to be an effort to get a single rep. I regrouped and got it up and into position and it went up about halfway and I set it down. Damn it. Knee aching. One more shot. Got it higher but that was more knee flexion and no sir. I stopped there and walked off. It really sucks when you put in so much effort and get a big old goose egg and see every one of your peers just rep the crap out of it. A zero for ninth place.

Moving on to the next event, sandbag toss. 5 bags over 15’ bar from 10’. 40lbs to 60lbs in 5lbs jumps. 60 seconds time limit. This had been an event that gave me stress this prep. Initially thought this would be 30lbs to 50lbs and then come to find out it was 10lbs heavier. The same bag toss series as OSG in 2021 in the finals where only 4 of them finished it. Tosses can be one of those hit or miss deals where you have good days and bad days. And that can mean all the difference between not even getting close to just launching into low orbit. I panicked a bit to get myself feeling like I could do anything above 50lbs here and probably went too heavy with the plan of increased frequency. I didn’t start to feel like things were clicking really until I dropped the weight down considerably on the secondary day and really just try to get my form and triple extension on point. So I was feeling better about it by the end. But I knew that likely a fast 2-3 bags was realistically what I was looking at here. After being sequester inside the day before and for the beginning of today, it was blinding being outside. Thankfully there was a tent to get some shade as well. I had done some exercises to make sure my knee was ok to continue but I was feeling really stiff, even after trying to loosen up. Watching and trying to keep track of people here. My bomb on the viking press sunk me in the placings so I was going near the beginning. I took off my glasses as I knew they’d just get knocked off. My plan was to do a hop back and toss for the first bag and then a shuffle back on the second bag and go from there. First bag I felt slow and stiff but executed as planned. On to the second bag. Walk back and toss. But then I hear a sound and the crowd and see that the bag has gotten stuck on top of the apparatus. Which is ok if it stays there as per the rules. But that meant two things 1) that I wasn’t hitting my normal peaks in toss today and 2) that I likely had more time added since it had to settle before split time as given. I could hear people shouting to me to pick up the pace but I knew I needed to really get things on point to get 50lbs over the height. I’ve been able to get this over this height by itself consistently but not in a series ever. In an exercise in futility, I gave it three attempts whereas my first attempt was my closest and it was close there. After watching the video later on the drive home, I could see I was not getting any ankle extension. Possibly also from the sore left knee. I potentially gave my best effort with the stone event to the determent of this event and viking press. 10.77 seconds to get two bags. No one did end up finishing the series but 3 got 4 and another 3 got 3. Only me beating the athlete that wasn’t able to get one bag over. So eighth place here.

The final event was hopefully one I could make up points on redeem things; the bridge race. Essentially this was a frame carry with a drop and turn. The frames resembling the bridges in the Pittsburgh area with one being yellow and the other black. This was to be a head to head with 720lbs down 50’ and back. Unlimited drops allowed. The pick height on these was high so that was a blessing for me. With how things were, I had no shot of getting back on podium but could get fourth at best. Training for this had been good. For me. I have a high pick frame with thick handles that is 568lbs empty that used to be Mike Jenkins’. I’ve done more weight than competition but with straps for PA Dutch last year. The most I’d done for any distance was 620lbs so really anything above that was PR territory. There hadn’t been really any heavy moving events since October with the one leg of the farmer’s being 330lbs. So I wasn’t sure how quickly I could get this up to par after not doing more than 330lbs in any form of carrying and object, let alone going fast. Progress was good and some heavy unilateral work seemed to help a ton. Worked on transitions and did 700lbs for the contest run twice leading up to this. Goal was sub 25 seconds at contest and hopefully that would be a good time. I wasn’t expecting to win this mind you. I got good grip but I’m not the fastest mover. I try to make up for that with quick transitions. This I feel was the only event I didn’t really get to warm up how I wanted to. It didn’t seem like anyone was going to take the weight down from the group that had just finished and my back was feeling quite stiff. Did a turn around and pick and some steps in place and set it down. I had to see if the knee was going to be ok with this and it was. Turns out it was like 640lbs. I usually like to work up gradually but it was the last thing and I only had so much strikes left on this matchstick. I was in eighth place so I got to go with the guy in seventh. I got set and time started and we were off. Well, he was. I was still standing up with it as he shot off like a from a cannon. The pick up felt excruciatingly long and I felt like I was walking in slow motion. I had some concerns with the grip holding up from having to push things on the hercules hold. I did manage to catch up as he spent more time resecuring his grip after the transition but he was up and away before I was standing up with the weight again. This pick felt harder than the first. Legs were heavy, I wasn’t beating that guy. Pride told me to finish this out and don’t drop it. Started to list to the right side a bit. But I kept going and I went all the way across the line before setting down (only the front had to cross). The helpers were appreciative of me resetting the course for them. I felt like I was the slowest I’ve ever been on this and my time had to be over 30 seconds. My time ended up being 23.71 seconds which was a PR from my times in training and beat my goal. But this ended up not being that good with everyone else. I ended up in fifth as just about everyone else finished in a fast time. I was expecting more people to have issues with holding onto this weight for this distance. Winning time was over 10 seconds faster. The level continues to improve I see.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it stung to plummet from the high of third overall to eighth at the end of the day. To only earn a third of the points I had gotten the first day. I think the viking press most frustrating in that I don’t know if I improved in a reasonably way whereas the other things I can quantify and see that even if not the best performances I wanted, there was improvement. This was certainly up a level from last year. As in feeling like the Plat Plus shows of old where I got my rear handed to me on the regular. So I guess that hasn’t really changed. Despite my dour musing, I did enjoy this competition with how things were run and being able to hang out with people. I didn’t feel like I could do that at the last local show. I was genuinely happy with other people’s progress from last year on things as well as giving tips on things. I do wish this was closer to where I lived. The drive home was much smoother compared to the drive here making sure to not listen to the GPS and avoid Pittsburgh. I got a lot to think on and formulate going forward for Nationals. Sticking to the plan of taking the last week of June and month of July to do off-season training and come back refreshed and better. I seem to do best when I take this kind of break as opposed to just competition after competition. Especially how serious I take it. But for the moment, just got a sore knee and regretting not taking another day off from work.