Skip to main content

Becoming a powerlifter - New beginnings

So lately I've been starting out on a new fitness adventure, and I thought it would be fun to write about it and take you guys along with me.

Over the last few months I have been getting more focussed in my strength training towards a powerlifting model. When I noticed I wasn't really progressing as much as I would have liked, or with the balance between lifts I wanted, I decided to start a formal programme, and then it occurred to me that it would be fun to compete. So now we have this whole "starting out in competitive powerlifting" situation, which is both maddeningly confusing and very exciting.

So let's start from the beginning.

Starting out the heavy lifts.


Those who are familiar with my background will know that I am a dancer, perinatal exercise specialist and long time gym dodger.

While I had a history of strength training in my teens and early twenties, that was forsaken for martial arts, dancing, pilates, yoga and bodyweight training. As a result, it wasn't until I took my Level 3 personal training qualifications that I really started getting into lifting heavy, and lifting barbells (I've always been a dumbells kind of person).

When I decided to get certified as a personal trainer it was my plan to work with people who wanted to bring exercise into their lives, but didn't want to go anywhere near the gym - to develop the fitness scope of my dance and prenatal classes, and work more closely with individuals. This is what I do and I absolutely love doing so.

But in the course of learning how to be a "gym PT" (a necessary part of training) I rediscovered my interest in training in a gym environment - which is to say that I was lifting every lunch hour. So I'm in this interesting place where I am an old hand at fitness, but a newbie at heavy strength training. I love this, it reminds me of how as a dancer, walking into a class in a new style, or even just a new teacher, can send me flying out of my comfort zone and remind me exactly what it feels like to be a beginner again, frustrating, overwhelming, confusing and thrilling.

So what is powerlifting?

Powerlifting is a class of strength competition which is judged by the weight lifted for 3 movements: Bench press, squat and deadlift. These lifts between them represent whole body strength, and in competition are performed for single reps.


What's the difference between powerlifting and weightlifting?

Weightlifting usually refers to olympic weightlifting. In olympic weightlifting there are 2 competition lifts - the snatch and the clean and jerk. I quite enjoy the olympic lifts, the technique feels a lot like dancing to me - finding the flow of energy, the right boost, the right pathway to trick gravity and make that barbell weightless at the right point - but I am wary of the risk to my wobbly joints when throwing heavy barbells around.

Finding a place under the barbell


Back in May I started training at Train Station. Training in my studio is great, but they've got all the stuff I need to lift more weight than I ever physically could, plus the social support network of a bunch of other lifting enthusiasts. Plus it makes me actually leave my house!

When I started I was still trying to hit my bodyweight deadlift target (70kg). Within a month of joining I pulled a 105kg deadlift. It's clearly a good environment for me!

I decided to get serious on my programming. A while back on an episode of The Fitcast, I had heard Jen Sinkler and JVB talking about their powerlifting programme - Unapologetically Powerful. I'd heard it was a very well structured programme, and I like trying out good programmes, because that helps me to learn how to write really good programmes too. So this seemed like the time to give it a bash.

And it is a great programme. I'm down 2 weeks of preparation and 3 weeks of main programme now, and my weights are going up immensely - that's before I've even hit the short sets and heavy training.

It occurred to me that as Unapologetically Powerful is a meet prep programme, it might be fun to try competing, just to see what goes on; and it just so happened that there is a meet local to me, a week after I will have completed the first cycle of the programme.

And from there, I went off down the rabbithole of finding out about competitive powerlifting, which we shall look at in my next post....

The separation of work and play


There's a strange dissonance between being someone who loves training in a gym, but working with personal training clients who generally don't. I sometimes have to remind those who follow my training, that I don't expect them to do what I do, except that they too should find their own best way to make being fit a part of their life that they love and look forward to.

On the other hand, it no longer surprises, but still delights me, when I have a client who arrived with a dislike of "exercise" born from a bad experience with compulsory sports in school, who I am able to introduce to kettlebell training, or free weights and suddenly they realise that this is something that they can really get into, and get good at and find immense satisfaction in. They just needed to have the opportunity to try, in a non threatening space.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Managing Fibromyalgia flares

I've written before about living with EDS and Fibromyalgia ,  much of my personal fitness and health practices are geared around managing those conditions and keeping me as well as I can be. When managing a chronic health condition, particularly one that involves fatigue and potential flare ups, pacing, good nutrition, good sleep and generally taking care of yourself is always the first priority. Ideally we want to have as few flares as possible. But sometimes they still happen, and when they do, it's good to have a strategy in place. And I'm going to be talking in fairly general terms, because while EDS and Fibro are my personal experience, there is so little understanding of the mechanisms behind these conditions, that most strategies are going to be applicable to a number of conditions where crashes of exhaustion and pain are a feature. So what is a flare? A flare is a period where someone with chronic illness suffers increased symptoms for a short while. The

My top apps for supporting a healthy lifestyle.

The hardest part of making healthy choices and lifestyle changes is making it a habit. It's easy to make a decision to "eat better", "exercise more" or whatever your current plan is. It's a lot harder to stick to it on the rough days, for long enough that it becomes a habit and part of your life that you can't imagine being without. I love a bit of tech. I am a super geeky science nerd and finding ways to use technology to support my health and fitness makes me very happy. So with this in mind I thought I'd give a quick run down of my favourite smartphone apps for developing and maintaining healthy habits. Habitica I'm starting with this one because it's mad and I love it. Habitica is basically a to-do list app, but it's specially for the gamers among us. If you are familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, and all the games that grew out of that system and fantasy world, you will recognise Habitica. The app allows you to create 3 t

4 reasons why you should eat

I feel ridiculous writing this post. It should be excruciatingly obvious. But it's not. Everywhere I look I am seeing messages about not-eating. "don't eat these things" "don't eat very much" "don't eat at this time" And frankly, it's not very healthy. Physically or mentally. So what I'm going to talk about today is why it is important to focus on eating, rather than not-eating, when working towards your health-improving goals. And yes, even, no, especially, when one of those goals is fat loss. Fuel for your activities So food is fuel for your body. It provides the energy you need to function. Your body uses carbohydrates and fat as fuel. It can use protein, but only when under quite a lot of pressure. Your brain can only fuel itself on glucose (carbohydrate) and you can only metabolise fat in the presence of carbohydrate ("fat burns in a carbohydrate flame"). When your body runs low

Becoming a powerlifter - the aftermath.

The main event! It's been a couple of weeks now! So a bit of a delayed update because I have been up to all sorts of things. The news on powerlifting is that I did get to my meet! I made weight (hoorah!) by cutting a couple of kilos, then I did the competition, and because I knew that I would likely not be able to update my blog straight away, I made a little video to summarise how the competition went. [TLDW, I totalled 230kg, which is less than my gym PR, but I'm pretty happy considering. There were hiccups...] Here's a couple of quick videos (kindly recorded by Ryan from Kernow Gym ). My second squat, with extra angry lockout, and my third deadlift. The one that didn't get away. This is my second squat @ 72.5 after my first @ 70 was disqualified. I was pretty annoyed at that, which probably accounts for the fast lockout 😂😂 A post shared by Claire Salem (@firelotusfitness) on Oct 16, 2017 at 11:04am PDT I like deadlifts, de

Protein. Are you eating enough? Are you eating too much? Do you need a supplement?

Let's tackle a meaty topic. Meaty. Protein. Get it? Everyone seems to be going on about protein. Everyone in the gym is chugging shakes. People on the internet are claiming its the secret to weight loss and everything else. Other people on the internet are saying the first people's kidneys are going to fail. Someone else says there's really no need to worry as we don't actually need much protein after all. Some people have numbers, but those numbers are all different. Everyone is confused. Who is correct? Well, everyone is a little. Save that they are all only telling a very small part of a bigger story. So shall we break it down? WITH SCIENCE! The RDA OK, so a figure you will often see bounced around is 0.8g of protein per 1kg of bodyweight. This is the Recommended Daily Allowance. This figure is based on the idea of a "normal" person who is not particularly active, or growing and consuming an adequate amount of calories per