Powerlifting...not that powerful!

A few weekends ago I went to a power-lifting contest. Its a contest of three different kinds of lifts. Squat, Bench and Dead-lift. It was very interesting what I saw. I only got pictures of the bench mainly. The reason I want to talk about this is because you may not know but I am studying exercise science with the idea to work within sports conditioning. Well anyway its a contest to see who is the strongest in all those lifts. The only thing is, competitors use everything they can to make the movement easier for themselves...not just wrist wraps, weight belts and compressed suits. Competitors try and do as little movement in the lifts as possible. I can only show you examples of the bench(because I only took photos of the bench) but I can tell you what they did for squat and dead-lift. For squat and deadlift (more deadlift) the competitor would use a largely wide stance. The stance would restrict how much movement they did making the lift as less taxing as they could. Here is some of the bench pictures that will help show you what I mean by how they make as little movement as possible.

 

You can see a heap of weight on the rack...impressive, maybe so however...

...however you will also note that how much the back is bent. He bends his back sticking his stomach up as much as he can. This means he doesn't have to bring the bar down as low restricting the movement of the lift. Here is a great example of this female competitor:

 

She looks like a pretzel!

You can see that her flexibility is helping her lift a lot more because she doesn't have to bring it down as much. Those are 100 pound plates on each side she is lifting at least 265 pounds. Its impressive but its not at all power. If you wanted to see real powerful lifting I would look at Olympic Lifting which movements are widely used among conditioning athletes. In the picture above you probably notice a denim jacket the spotter is wearing. That is another "cheat" that power-lifters use. It forces the arms to push inwards naturally. It basically gives you extra tension in the movement...its an extra strength. Here is a closer look:

You can see how tight it is and how it naturally forces your arms inwards which would definitely make the lift a whole lot easier. If that doesn't show how much of a cheat sport power-lifting is then you have lost me. Now I would mention some bodybuilders that attended the competition actually lifted with a modest technique. Word had it that those guys were juicing in some sort of way...I can't prove it but they were ridiculously large and toned.

Strong current flowing into my mind

Just had a week off school. To be honest it was a horrible week because I stayed in school and it was shite. But things are going to change.

Things that are good in my life right now:

• Ireland beat England thank fuck!
• I just did my laundry
• Fresh bed sheets is also included in my laundry
• I am hungry to strive in my endeavors
• Ireland beat England (goes twice)
• My girlfriend is back wink wink

Things that are bad in my life:

• Nothing because I have decided that you only create bad things in your mind therefore if you don't create them they don't exist or they were meant to be.
• excuses something I seem to create

I have been struggling to take photos lately but I think I am going to get back into it. I plan on keeping up with digital photography school forum and do the assignments. Lately I have been feeling lethargic and I have decided that I am going to accomplish a hefty conditioning routine for the remainder of school.

Here's a taste of something I have copped up

My main thoughts are "FUCK IT, AND GO"

Apologies!

Tis' been ages since I last wrote in my blog. Things have been shmad busy lately. I started back in college. I have been training in the gym/mountain. I have been taking my classes non stop. Yesterday I had 7 hours of classes. Scheduled like that just to free time on the mountain. However I have been managing to take some nice photers. I have decided to try and join the College Newspaper and submit some photography. I believe it will be a challenge. As I get fit and stronger I am starting to miss skateboarding. Its been a while and I jumped on my board the other day and well I really have lost all that I could do (not a whole lot). Well anyway I plan to get back on the blog-scene and tell you all about my recent endeavors.

First Race

First race of the season, I wouldn't say it went to much success. I skied quite timidly. It was miserably cold. It was a fast course with large ruts by the time I went through. My first run was atrocious I must say it but my second run was better. I was starting to link my turns together just got caught up in some large mistakes which pretty much made a similar run to the first. This isn't bad with four days training gates. The race itself was extremely packed with people with 60 odd points running from bib 90 and up which is quite unusual. I am pretty sure I scored very similar points to when I first raced FIS. That's not a good comparison at all. I am hoping that I start skiing to what I am really capable of tomorrow.

Swiveled Back On

I had a great day of slalom. It put my head in gear mentally. I don't ski slalom so well but I knew what I was doing. I had an aggressive line through the course my upper body was calm and my legs were linking the turns quite nicely. Its my last day of training for the week and I won't ski till Monday. I am racing Monday through Thursday, 2 Super-G's and 2 Giant Slaloms. My only fear right now is finding a coach to represent me at the meeting.
All and all this week I have brought out some good skiing and feel fully prepared for next weeks races. I have been to the gym everyday this week either conditioning or flushing lactic acid out of my legs. My body feels so good right now. My goal for the weekend is to relax, prepare my equipment and bring my current healthy mind to the race.

Current Developments

I just got back from the gym. Its been a long day skiing. I took the first few runs on my sUPer-G skis. I got some good technical parts to it and fortunately my lack of knowledge of Killington led me to this 2 mile traverse where I decided tucking on its flats was appropriate. By the end of it my legs were knackered, but I thought that this was great conditioning for next weeks races.
Well after all that I went from one extreme to another. I trained some sLAloM gates and got some good runs in and some bad ones. My main problem is taking my aggressive line that takes me the fastest root down the course, which is hard when some of the people I train with take a very wide approach to some turns leaving some unusual cross-ruts in my way. The good runs were when I thought ahead of the game and took a hesitant approach. The only reason they were good is because I could finish the course. Not really the best skiing to be honest. Still have to look positively though, Super-G skiing looks good right now and I am RariNG to go at it.

Dear Peak Performance your just a prick with man-boobs!

Started GS gates today. Something I have been dieing to do for a while now. It was a short but sweet day. I took on whatever disadvantages the coaches have on setting the course and maintaining it and got the most of my skiing. It felt good to rip it. I left pretty promptly because the early morning only promised a granola bar for breakfast so I headed back to my base camp ahead of the college team rather than spending the rip-off amount of money in Killington for lunch. Its nice being independent and being able to do everything on your own time.

Here's me racing last year for the college. After injury and missing a bunch of FIS races I have decided not to race with the team this year (Plus I didn't make the criteria academically for the division supposedly) but to put all my efforts into just plainly FIS races. 

I am heading to the gym now. I have to keep up my strength during the season. Probably work on some flexibility too.