Kc Qualifier Ii

[bencrush]

• MMS GRIPPERS

I was glad that we had 4 attempts. I tend to be way too conservative on gripper openers so I ditched that in this contest and opened with Josh's 173.8lb Elite. Closed it - but it stalled about an 1/8" from closed and I had to grind it out. Whew! That would've sucked if I had missed my first attempt. Not a good way to start out a contest. This exact gripper is the one I've closed in 2 other contests and is my contest best.

2nd attempt was Scott Harris's 179lb Elite. I agonized over going up to a 175lb or 177lb gripper instead since the 173.8lb gripper was very hard. Decided to go for broke and walked around the room shaking my hands out to get them warmed up and loose. It was pretty cold out on contest day - at least in terms of what feels best on my hands when I want them to perform in a contest. I shouldn't have been concerned about going up a level on grippers because I SMASHED the 179lb Elite shut. Got a new contest PR. I was pretty startled at how quickly I crushed the handles on that gripper.

3rd attempt was Scott Harris's old 183lb Heavy Elite. This gripper used to be Dave Ostlund's. I think I psyched myself out somehow because I missed it by a significant margin. Must be the 180lb barrier that's messing with my head. Oh well.

4th attempt was Josh's 183lb #3.5 and I missed that just like the 183lb Heavy Elite.

Still feeling good about the start of the contest with a 179lb gripper close though!

• 2HP

Like I mentioned in the first part about grippers - it was pretty cold out in terms of hands not performing well at that temperature. Lesson learned here was that I should've brought gloves and those chemical or microwaveable hand warmers!

We used Josh's great adjustable pinch apparatus - what he dubbed "The Ameri-Pinch". We all used 48mm for the contest and the warmups. I opened at 151lbs because I was worried about bombing out on 161lbs - what was originally going to be my 2HP opener for this contest. Glad I did too because even that light weight felt pretty near my max.

2nd attempt was 161lbs and it went up easier than the 151lbs. Now I started questioning the logic of going up in such small increments. But conservative was the name of the game in my worst event and I stuck to my guns about the 10lb increases after each success.

3rd attempt was 171lbs and it felt pretty hard. Almost dropped it at the point when it touched the crossbar but held on.

4th attempt was 181lbs. Only moved it a few inches off the ground. Not surprised after how 171lbs felt though. Really wanted to hit 180lbs in a contest. Disappointed about my pinch - which is becoming a broken record at this point. I soon remembered that my best Euro Pinch was only 164lbs before this contest so that improved my spirits a little.

• 2" VBAR
  My meager 2HP really made me question whether or not my recent 2" vbar improvements were just a fluke and if I was about to get royally embarrassed by my performance at this contest.
  
  
  Not to worry though because my day was about to get much better. Josh and I opened at 251lbs. That felt ridiculously easy. I was going to go the conservative route and call for a 2nd attempt of 275lbs. Josh talked some sense into me by telling me that he planned on jumping to 301lbs and go for the 300lb club. I thought about it a little while and figured what the hell.
  
  
  2nd attempt was 301lbs then. Didn't even budge it! That made me think that I was an idiot for jumping so high.
  
  
  Walked around and kept my hands warm in my hoodie pockets. Re-chalked and psyched myself up. 3rd attempt I pulled it about 1" lefty. Rested 10 seconds and then pulled it to a legal minimum height (and possibly a tad above) righty!
  
  
  That lift put me on Cloud 9. My previous best contest performance was 276lbs. I pulled 270lbs at the MGC in 2008. So I've only gone up about 30lbs in 3 years if you look at it that way. I don't care how long it took me to get here. It's just nice to be part of the 300lb club now.
  
  

• AXLE
  By the time the Axle event started my back was warning me that it was getting fatigued quickly. I worried about injuring it again so I decided to be very safe on the Axle and just get a light opener and 325lbs as a token lift - 325lbs because it's the Nationals qualifying weight. I can't go to Nationals but it was a nice safe number for me.
  
  
  Opened with 300lbs and even that felt pretty disturbing to my back. Thought hard about just passing my next 3 attempts. But I went up to 325lbs on a 2nd attempt and got that with a lot of grip to spare. None to spare on the back though.
  
  

• WRIST DEVELOPER
  I'm still kicking myself a little for not continuing to train reverse bending before this contest. That would've probably helped me secure 2nd or even 1st place in this event. Oh well, another lesson learned.
  
  
  Opened with whatever the qualifying level was for Nationals. Missed it on my 1st attempt and then barely gutted it out on my 2nd attempt.
  
  
  
  Don't remember what I took for my 3rd and 4th attempts but I missed both of them by a large margin so it doesn't matter. Took 3rd in this event. I had forgotten how much the Wrist Developer hurts! Great implement though and if I had it to do all over again I would've never sold mine in the first place.
  
  

• MEDLEY

I have the medley events written out but there doesn't seem to be any interest in our contest for the most part so I'll just skip typing the entire list out. My pinch let me down YET AGAIN in the medley. Couldn't pick up my own blob. Or Scott's. Got the 3.5" dumbbell loaded - and that was a pretty hard item. 1HPed the Saxon Plank loaded with 68lbs easily. Closed the 3 grippers with a lot to spare. Missed 187lbs on the Rolling Thunder and that just blew my mind since I've pulled that pretty easily in training.

I have to be honest with myself and say that the "water trick" is something I need to cut out of my training from now on. I could've splashed some water on my hands and pulled that weight handily...but I think someone mentioned that it's specifically disallowed in the NAGS rules. Oh well. Another lesson learned. Train the hard way to make contests easy.

We also put 325lbs on the 1" vbar in the medley. Started my medley run off with that and had no trouble with that weight. Probably could've pulled 375lbs if I was motivated. Josh ripped up the same weight - which is mega impressive since he hasn't touched a 1" vbar since 2007!!!

Overall I think the medley items were too few and probably a bit on the easy side. We didn't put the 200lb 2" vbar in the medley because we didn't have enough weights to load everything up and because after lifting 300lbs on that event it would've seemed redundant.

• FAT BAR HANG
  I lucked out and got to be the timer so I didn't have to go first. Always helps to see what other guys learn from their mistakes or successes. It was already obvious to me that this was best done thumbless. It was a hang from a 2" PVC bar that was unsecured - it rolled a little bit when we put our bodyweight on it through our hands. This required even more static wrist flexion and cut the hang times down a bit.
  
  
  I was more worried about this event than any of the others because of my left shoulder. That's the one that is very unstable and it hurts a lot to hang from any bar. Even for a second. In training I had done about 3 training sessions of hangs on a thicker PVC setup. My best time was 20 seconds in training and that was mostly due to the hurt shoulder. After the previous contest events I figured I'd be good for 20 to 30 seconds at best. If I could shut out the pain and try to hang there loosely without unconsciously protectively flexing my left shoulder too hard.
  
  
  I held on for 41 seconds and that was a win in my book. Took 3rd in this event. I was the heaviest competitor (only by a few lbs on the next heavier guy) so I was prepared to get the very last place.
  
  
  
  I thought I had brought a folding chair with me and it turned out that I had forgotten it at the house. Not a great idea since it would've been better on my back to sit more often through the day.