22 Mar Brian Carroll: The Arnold XPC 2017 Part 5: The Bench, Dead and some strategy!
Part 5: The Dead, bench and strategy
After and during the squat, the tone is set for the day. If you squat well, it’s likely you’re in a good mood to bench and motivated. If you don’t squat well, you have to bench well, you are forced to in some cases. I was in the middle boat, I squatted just OK, so I wasn’t too excited or too pissed. I was very even keel. Like I try to be in every meet I do. This comes with experience as the meet cannot be won until the deadlift anyway.
I sit back and I watch to see who’s on and who’s off during each meet. Who’s having trouble, panicking, yelling or melting down.
After no time at all the bench flight was flying by so it was time to get ready to bench. I had been eating and drinking all day, as always, so I wasn’t very worried about fuel, so I got a quick warm-up going and got to work on the bench. I don’t take too many warm-ups on meet day. Especially after squats, I’m warm and wont’ benefit too much from a lot of warm-up sets.
225
315
405 – SDP shirt on
500 – 3bd
600 – 2bd
725- 1bd
Warm-ups went well but I don’t feel like I was locked in, and I wasn’t taking the handoff’s very well for a couple of reasons. Something was off, I felt flat. My weight was good, my strength was good but I had trouble getting my air and felt awful flat on the bench. Byrd was in front of me by about 3 lifters, so after I saw him struggle on the way down, then not touch his opener, I was worried. Neither of us had touched in our newest shirt. We did a half board and some ones, but never touch so this weighed on me a little and had me expecting the worst. We both had one hell of a bench training cycle thanks to the advice of course, Paul Key and then Dave Hoff had some great advice concerning the SDP.
775 Opener: Good. I’m glad I was ready because this took forever to touch. I mean forever, and then finally!! I touched it and got it going in a good groove to lockout. Good lift. Thank God I held on for a few more seconds and stayed awake.
I had Hoff and Frankl there to lend a hand on the bench. Hoff told me it was an impressive and easy bench for how long it took to touch and thought form looked better than it has in years. Frankl, he just does his own thing. “C’mon, we should be attempting much more than this. You’ve done this weight so many times, go out there and lift the stupid weight!”
810 second: No good. I had them picking numbers all day so the next one was probably around 800 in my mind. I never had this one in a good position to start. I was all over the place and just plain jacked up the attempt. I got a touch but then pressed it all over the place.
Paul Key coached the crap out of me all day and I still couldn’t quite get this one that counted right. Keith was amazing with adjusting my shirt and Channing gave great handoffs. I had the dream team there.
810 third: I was just out of gas at this point. Many lifters had passed thirds, since the pace of the meet was quite fast. Add in the fact more than a few had already bombed and you have a flight with just a few people, whirling around to you in no time. I took the handoff funky again, and dive bombed the weight to a pathetic tough and press attempt. I pretty much tapped due to fatigue.
At this point many more had shaken out of the meet. I was really pulling hard for Byrd to groove out his third bench at 800 which would have been a massive PR for him. It was so close and I even snuck to the side of the bench to yell for him. Those that are on my team, or are my friends outside of lifting, do not apply to my approach of wanting them to fail.
He will be back to chase a 2550 or better, watch.
A couple others shook out that I was upset to see. Derek Wilcox didn’t get a bench in even after his huge 1050 squat. Word was coming in that Matt Minuth was in the hospital so I thought about this guy, as I consider him a friend. Like I stated, I wish nothing bad upon anyone concerning injury, ever.
Byrd was a trooper and in my corner to help me, right away. To be honest, I expected him to take it way harder than he did but he took it like a man and shook it off. Or did I miss something Liz? He helped me ice my hands down and helped crunch some numbers along with Zane, Keith and Ria. I wasn’t “pulling for him” as I discussed in the last post (where I want others to fail), I really wanted him to grind it out. Byrd is a friend and a teammate, I want him to succeed especially since he represents our brand and I coach him. I always pull for this guy, like a brother.
A little brother sometimes. Sometimes just a brother. I probably know more about this guy than almost anyone on the planet. I’ve lived with him (err something like that) and seen him go through all sorts of ups and downs. Some self-inflicted, some not. I’ve seen him mature a lot as a lifter and coach over the last couple of years and as a person. I think this could be the reason he took his performance in stride. My guess is: “I’m healthy (relatively) I was close to a big PR and I live to fight another day.”
All of the people in our corner is always a huge help – we had a sea of white shirts that you could see from a mile away. And like I said in the first post, I wouldn’t have even tried to do it alone. Not again! Wouldn’t have even tried.
In the downtime at subtotal (after squat and bench), I was happy to see Lisa make it through the meet regardless of how she felt did. This isn’t an easy meet to make it through and only in her 3rd Multi-ply meet ever, she made it and still hit nice numbers, though not her best. She didn’t hit what she or we wanted but it’s all there and some. Some time off will help her fine-tune some things, and let her work on some weaknesses. I’m super proud of her for pushing till the end, no matter what. Again, if you have done this meet, you get it.
Daniel Dalenberg. Now, that guy had a day, and slipped under the radar. If he would have made (he missed) his last pull of 760, he would have ONLY needed a strict curl of 220lb (if there were a strict curl as a 4th lifting division) – to edge me out in the 242 class! Kidding aside, he almost hit a 2400 total (ended with 2370) by matter of a couple of inches. He went 8-9 and nearly had a perfect day. This is also one of the coolest videos I’ve ever seen. I’m super proud of Dan, I’ve helped him for the better part of 7 years and it’s cool to see him rise up in such a short time on multiple levels in multiple divisions. He’s doing super awesome!
Daniel is a huge help with PRS and is an adviser to me. We talk every Tuesday, so I had a few things I asked him just yesterday. One being “how did you like my part 4 or write-up.” He enjoyed it and agreed with me and likes battles but also would like crushing someone. He did disagree about having someone bomb out in his class, until I had him rethink this with context. I said, “I agree, having one of the best or a rival bomb is not best case but let me ask you this (you can’t have it both ways)– would you rather him stay in the meet and beat you brakes off of you as he lifts out of his mind?” This was answered with an abrupt, “NO” by Daniel and he saw my point. Sometimes it’s just better if they take care of themselves on certain days and not have to deal with them. I’m certainly not mad if someone makes it easier for me to win, or hard on themselves overall. I also clarified – again -that with teammates and friends, this isn’t the mindset I have.
After getting some fuel, crunching some numbers and resting a little bit, what was left of the morning session was coming to an end! And even before I knew it, first flight was done pulling and the second flight was up! DD was out there putting on a nice show, and I started getting ready.
Per tradition, I had Ria, my awesome Wife, help me put my 10/20/DL socks on. Ria doesn’t get enough credit for all she does for me, the brand, the team and literally anyone in her life. Once we got me ready and suited up, I went to get my mind right to pull. I can’t sing her praises enough. Anyone that knows her or has been around her at a meet, knows she’s an invaluable asset to have around.
She would literally do just about anything for us to succeed. She isn’t worried about how she looks during the meet, if she gets some sweat or blood on her and she gets in the middle of whatever is needed and gets it fucking done. If you have a problem with Ria or don’t like her, you have a bigger problem inside of yourself and if you cross her, you have me to deal with.
Back to the meet:
Time was flying by and they were MOVING during the deadlift.
400 – full gear, felt good
500 – full gear, fast!
620 – full gear and fast, time to go pull my opener!
By the time we made it to the stage, thanks to my team all the numbers were figured out and we knew where I needed to be to make sure I had the best coefficient of the meet.
I had no idea if they were doing best lifter for overall AND best lifter LW and best lifter HW? So, the heavyweight was already pretty much a done deal as long as I pulled my opener. But, I wanted to make sure I had the overall too just in-case there was a champion of champions. Plus, I wanted the best total either way. Regardless.
We figured up that Daniel Tinajero was the closest to me and so we kept an eye on him and his jumps. Dan had a good day, an almost great day when he missed some big benches and got stuck with his opener (like I did).
Opener 700: Good and fast. I told Zane, Paul, Keith, Byrd, Ria, Lisa, Channing and everyone else to make sure to establish the win overall, then worry about the total. I feel is super important to have multiple people doing your numbers to double check the math and have more people involved to play with different outcomes as well. I do this exact thing every single year. I don’t want to leave this job to one person.
Second 760: Good and easy. This is the difference at the end of the meet when you have competition in the meet and when you don’t. I would have loved to go bigger than 760 for total’s sake, but this isn’t smart or strategic in this situation. The easy 760 put me in a spot where Daniel needed to pull over 810 to beat me. I was going to just go to 780 for a sure addition to total but I decided on my first 800 dead instead.
The flight was only 6 of us, and as soon as I put down my 760 and walked to my corner, I was called “5 out”… Damn!
Part 6, the final part with video comes tomorrow.
Brian Carroll
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