Remembering My First Meet - September 8th 2018
“Are you allowed to take your shirt off?”, said the young, naive, but optimistic, former Olympic-style weightlifter.
In case you could not decipher who this could be, that lifter was me, way back in 2018 when the landscape of “modern” powerlifting, was just starting to take form.
In order for me to paint the picture of what this meet was like for me, we first have to revisit even further in the past.
I’m an Olympic Lifter
It was 2016 and I had just graduated high school. It was a liberating time for me, the first time in my life I felt like I had freedom to do the things that I wanted to do, when I wanted to do them. As a three-sport athlete, there is only a handful of time during the year that you could train and prepare, as you were always amidst pre-season for another sport. Over the span of my final 2 years in high school, I became obsessed with two things and really two things only. The first, was being strong, the second was being as “in-shape”, as possible. I very briefly considered doing Crossfit for this reason alone as I figured there is no better blend for those two goals than that! Then summer hit, and I realized gym memberships were $100 per month, money I did not have, and I instead scattered around for my own equipment, to train at my house. I remember feeling so proud of myself, and selfishly, better than some of my contemporaries because as we graduated and people were using their “last” summer to party, I was training maniacally every day. I would live stream workouts on Facebook, was making a ton of progress, and the most important part of it all, was having a hell of a time doing it, day in and day out. But as the summer started to fade, I kept drifting towards the barbell. I was planning to compete in track in college, and admittedly, had not been doing much sprinting, as it took away from my lifting. I thought, oh well, I am fine, I’'ll get that itch once I get to campus. It never came. I found myself hating sprinting, yearning for the 2 days a week we had strength work, and being highly dissatisfied with what we were actually doing in the weightroom.
So, I made the call, that I am not doing sprinting anymore, I am going to train for an iron sport. It was either powerlifting, bodybuilding, or Olympic-style lifting. I was naive remember, so I thought, powerlifting is out because I don’t bench. Bodybuilding is out because I don’t want to get even smaller. I have messed around with the Olympic lifts before, why not go with it? After all, it was a big part of Crossfit.
And so there, I went all in on being a competitive weightlifter. It was hell most times because most lifts you need to do in the sport, you can ONLY perform in a dedicated Olympic lifting gym or a Crossfit box, which are few and far between.
However, it was very fun to me to learn the lifts and learn on my own each day, each week. The snatch, truth be told, I never quite got down, I would throw my hips at the bar and just pray I did not drop the bar on my head. This is probably why 99.9% of the time I missed, it would be forward. The clean and jerk though, that was my bread and butter, and that is when I started to put two and two together as to what my strengths are.
I did two weightlifting meets, the first in Connecticut, the second in Massachusetts. I was very disappointed with the weightlifting community and the atmosphere around it. This is my own experience mind you, so do not take it as gospel, but I found even intermediate level weightlifters to be very snobby, looking down upon you sort of deal. I did not like this. I found at meets, it would be so quiet, a pin drop could be heard through the entire radius of the venue.
And truth be told as well, I really was not that good at weightlifting, and for the first time in my life, I was humbled by a sport I was not good at. Now, I wasn’t incoherent with the bar in hands, but I had severe restrictions mobility-wise that limited my technique, however my strength lifts would always be progressing at an almost linear rate. I did this for about a year and a half until I decided, you know, I really do not think this is going to happen.
As I was considering this, I had an epiphany, I am sort of strong, and there is a sport that rewards that. Much like any young lifter, I started looking around at records and stuff of the like and I came to notice my best squat was 40lbs above the Maine state record. I thought, hmm, maybe I will do this meet for fun, set a record, and then come back to weightlifting.
So I thought, I never went back.
Rekindling A Friendship with a Childhood Friend
Through this time, I was also intermittently messaging with a friend I had lost contact with over the years, current Team Hogan athlete, Michael Beaupre, who was not only killing it in powerlifting, but was quite literally from one town over, going to a gym that my dad had a membership at.
As my second year of college ended, we started training together, mixing our groups of friends which turned out to be one of the most fun stretches of time I have ever had, still till this day.
I was at a deficit, a severe one, and was very unsure of what to do, so I sought out solutions, literally daily. It was all that ever crossed my mind. There were certain things I did not want to give up: my flimsy tapered belt, my rehband knee sleeves, my high bar ass to grass speed squat, and deadlifting in heels. I spun my wheels with this for a long time, until I finally changed, some for necessity, others because it was quite literally against the rules.
Andrew’s First Meet
Before I committed to signing up for my first meet, Team Hogan OG, Andrew Graves, was in prep for his first meet. This honestly deserves a revisit in itself, because I think we’d both agree till this day, it was one of the most batshit insane meets, in a bad way, we have ever been associated with.
Down in New York, at the G Box, inside the Gorilla Room, I was taking best guesses as to what to do with him as I coached him in a sport I had never done. I am glad I did this, as without it, I probably would have never done a meet myself. This opened my eyes up to a ton of things, but mainly that:
There are some strong people out there.
Being prepared is better than being strong, if you had to choose one or the other.
Andrew had a good day here, that was huge too, if he bombed out, we might not even be in the position we are currently at.
Preparation and Commitment
So with all that in the past, I decided to commit to doing my first USA Powerlifting meet. There is an alternate universe in which I go with another federation, but honestly, that reality is a distant galaxy away because I was very adamant that I compete drug-tested and in the federation with the highest of standards. I had been in USA Weightlifting before and thought it was the spiritual twin in powerlifting form. There was also just a ton of “regular” people involved with USAPL at the time, it was less intimidating then the non-tested federations that housed the stereotypical juiced up, blood pressure 180/100 type people I did not want to bother with.
The Maine Summer Classic, directed by Mark Houdlette, was the meet I found, and so I began my preparations. I remember a lot of AMRAPs, a lot of bumper plates, and a lot of volume. I trained borderline too hard for this meet to be 100% honest. I would have totaled the exact same with maybe 50% of the work I was doing.
I also needed to find a weight class. This is where I am both happy and a bit disappointed in my approach. My USA Weightlifting class was 69kg/151lbs, the closest in powerlifting, at the time, was 66kg/145.5lbs and 74kg/163lbs. I thought, well, 66 is close and I already am a natural 148lbs, why should I not just go 66? You see, if this was my first weight class meet in general, I would not have cut for it, but it was really my third and I felt like I was mature enough to handle it. I actually reached out to someone who you might know in the sport now, this was before he was REALLY big and had a large following, Mr. Sean Noriega, who was kind enough to actually take me, literally day by day through a water manipulation process that caused me to weigh in almost bang on on the day. You could easily make the case, this was valuable for me as I learned how my body responded to a cut before I was really in need of doing one and it made me much more thoughtful of the process as a whole, cultivating my own approach along the way.
Well, the last piece to this, is I was moving into college, 3 hours away to Springfield, Mass, a week before the meet, which was in Augusta, Maine. So I drove the 3 hours down, moved in, and then on Friday, drove back.
The Day Was Euphoric
So we got to the day and I will spare you and in-depth breakdown and talk about the highlights and notables:
I had Michael Beaupre, Travis Sanborn, Joe Anderson, and Zach Hirst with me to help on the day.
I used a Virus singlet, the only time in my PL career I have used a singlet that was not SBD.
It was in Crossfit Undaunted, which is now Crossfit Undaunted-Casco Bay, a facility we ran the 2022 Maine State Championships at.
I squatted 180kg/396lbs with my ass literally inches from the floor and I was nervous about depth. This lift felt awful and solidified to me that I cannot keep squatting like this if I want to be a good lifter.
I benched 97.5kg/214lbs, lol. It should not have counted, there was obvious downward motion.
I deadlifted 205kg/452lbs and wrongly told I could not wear headtie headbands, which is not a rule. I pulled hookgrip here.
I totaled 1063lbs, which at the time was good enough to qualify me for Collegiate Nationals and Junior Nationals, for reference, I think that total is over 200lbs more these days.
I went 9/9 and had a truly incredible time and met some really cool people.
I remember distinctly, there was a young man who poured baby powder all over the platform and made it so slippery to the point that it was become a hazard. God rest his soul, as he would pass away at the age of 19 shortly after this, but for one reason or another, he was really impressed with me.
This meet was bizarre, in that they used a formula called, “Age-Adjusted Wilks”, which took your age into account for best lifter coefficients. A man that placed 16th outright, walked out of the meet winning best lifter because he was 66 years old. No hate by the way, just was odd.
Some notables who lifted at this meet: Jon Lavoie (who got hurt this meet), Evan Larsen (now a Team Hogan lifter), Nathan Kulas (who just made his comeback to the sport after injury)
There were only 24 lifters at this meet
Overall, it was awesome. My dad was there as well and he could tell that I was finally involved with something I had true passion for and was doing on my own terms.
In conclusion, this meet changed my life. It gave me direction, purpose, and desire towards intrinsic goals that I never knew would be possible just a year before it. I think I did it right and I cannot think of anything I would change, besides my rehydration strategy, Andrew, if you are reading this, you know what I mean by this.
To Utopia,
Erik