New Mexico weightlifting state records, diet, aand sleep

I just received an updated list of the New Mexico state weightlifting records. It was wonderful seeing my name on the list as a New Mexico weightlifting state record holder in the 105k+ 40-44 age group. 

I noticed that a couple of 105k state records in the 40-44 age group was broken late last year. The new clean and jerk state record is 135k & the new total is now 228k both set by Jeremy Hale. I had set a goal to lose weight and get down to the 105k 40-44 ag division and break those three records. I'm still hoping to do that, but it's going to take a little longer and a lot more work now. Those numbers are even bigger than what Barry Schroeder puts up!

Speaking of losing weight, I'm still doing well with my diet and weight loss. 25 days back on the diet wagon. Increasing the amount of calories i was eating while attempting to drop weight was the key. I'm not struggling with excessive hunger or extreme cravings anymore. I've lost 11 pound.

I've been eating healthy each and every meal & keeping my protein up. Unfortunately I've been working a lot of hours and not sleeping as much as an athlete should. My wife and i received her first student loan bill of $16,000. The same week my Chevy Suburban broke down costing just shy of $2,000 to fix. Most weeks I'm working 5 twelve hour and 1 sixteen hour shift a week. I'm tired. I've been the only income for our family of five since 2007.  I've been sleep deprived for a long time. It sucks. I'm really tired of being tired all the dang time. 8 years of this is to long.

cycling creatine monohydrate for olympic weightlifting

I've heard people are supposed to cycle creatine monohydrate rather than staying on it for long periods of time. I've been taking creatine for the last three months and have had amazing results. I'm going to cycle off of creatine for the next four weeks. I'm disappointed to have to stop taking it even if only temporarily. I just stopped taking it this weekend and am already looking forward to starting again.

next Olympic weightlifting goals/records

Now that the big weightlifting meet is over & i broke all three 105k+ 40-44 age group New Mexico state records it's time for me to set my eyes on my next big goal. I'm going to attempt to drop to the 105k weight class and break the 40-44 age group 105k state records. After the weights i lifted this weekend I've realized those records are well within my reach as long as i can lose 67 pounds. 67 pounds is a lot, but with coach Shane Miller's guidance I'm sure i can get there. 

Starting yesterday I plan on losing 1.5 pounds a week for 4 weeks, then 1 pound a week until the next weightlifting meet.

The 2015 John Davis memorial weightlifting meet report

Yesterday, January 24th 2015, I competed in the John Davis memorial weightlifting meet at The Miller gym in Santa Fe NM. I'd been training for this meet exclusively for over 13 months. I was on track to break the New Mexico weightlifting 40-44 age group super heavyweight division (105k+) state records held by Scott Carpenter since 2004. I took 2 days vacation from work before the meet to make sure I was fully rested.

I found out just before the meet started that Rise Miller wasn't going to be there at the meet to coach me. He'd been the guy who had ran me through warm ups and coached me at all three of my previous meets. I wasn't expecting that & I had a bit of a panic attack finding out that he wasn't going to be there to coach me as I had become accustomed. Another very knowledgeable and accomplished lifter, Dominic Farris, took Rise's spot and did so perfectly. Once I started warm ups I got really freakin nervous. This was the first meet I'd lifted for something other than just for fun. This meet meant something. I thought I'd be better about handling the pressure, but I was wrong. I was so anxious my hands were shaking.

As I was walking out for my opening lift I was so scared! I've walked into prison riots at work where I was less nervous than that. Somehow even through the massive adrenaline rush I still managed to make a good lift of a 75k snatch. That was NM state weightlufting record #1. The 2nd snatch was also successful and was NMW record #2 for the day. My third lift of 83k was going to be an all time personal best by over 4 kilos. It was also a good lift and was NMW record #3. My last snatch broke the old state record by 23 kilos!

My first two clean and jerks were 98k and 103k. Both were NMW records. State records #4 &5. By the time I was ready to take my third and final C&J I was so very fatigued! Not because of the lifting, but because of the extreme amounts of adrenaline my body had been dumping into my system all day. As coach Shane Miller was talking to me about my last lift I was feeling so fatigued I was wondering if I'd have the energy to walk up to the platform, much less lift another PR. Somehow I pulled off a successful 107k clean and jerk. The last C & J broke the old state record by 27 kilos, state record #6. Plus the the totals were all records, they were records 7, 8, & 9.

My ending total was 190 kilos, breaking the old state record by 50 kilos, 110 lbs.

Tomorrow is the big day

Tomorrow is the big day. Tomorrow is the John Davis memorial weightlifting meet. I've been training for this meet exclusively for the last 13 months.  If all goes as is expected I'll break all 3 of the New Mexico weightlifting state records for the 105k+ forty- fourty four age group division. I've taken a couple days of vacation time from work to taper & stay off my feet, and I've been eating extremely healthy the last couple weeks. Virtually no junk food or anything at all unhealthy. I've invited all of my friends, family, and co-workers to be there. I'll post how the meet goes. Wish me luck.

Lubbock Texas and Olympic weightlifting

While in Lubbock this weekend I attempted to find a gym with drop plates which are used for olympic style weightlifting. None of the normal gyms did. I know CrossFit gyms use drop plates. I called each and every CrossFit gym in Lubbock and left messages. Compass CrossFit and Flatland CrossFit were the only ones who called me back. Compass CrossFit doesn't allow anyone to use their gym unless they are doing the Workout Of the Day (WOD). Flatland CrossFit called me back on Monday after my family and I were already on our way home, but they said they'd allow me to use their facility anytime as long as I wasn't a distraction to their athletes performing the gym's WOD. Next time I'm visiting Lubbock TX I'm going to use the Flatland CF facilities to see if I like it there. I'm eligible to retire from the NM state penitentiary this May. Lubbock is one of the 4 places I'm thinking of moving after I retire. Where ever I go has GOT to have some sort of facilities available for me to weightlift olympic style. It's surprising how few cities has olympic style weightlifting gyms.
The cities I'm interested in moving to after i retire in order of favorites:
1) Santa  Fe New Mexico
2) Concord Metro New Hampshire
3) Lubbock Texas
4) Albuquerque New Mexico

traveling, illness, a dying family member, and Compass Crossfit

I still haven't healed up from my flue yet, and my big weightlifting meet is in 7 days. I'm starting to get nervous. I've never been sick this close to a meet before.  By the end of my workout on Thursday i was so fatigued from being ill i couldn't complete any of the repetitions of my three heaviest sets of jerks from the rack. 

In the morning my family and i will be leaving for Lubbock Texas to say goodbye to my favorite aunt. She has cancer and is in heart failure. The stress & emotions of traveling out of state & having a loved one leaving this life won't be good for my taper or help me heal up from my illness. 

My Aunt who we'll be visiting used to have me stay the summers with her and her husband. Those summers meant the world to me. It was one of the few times in my childhood i felt safe. She took care of me and loved me like one of her own children.  I've never had anyone who i love this much die. This is going to hurt. But i sure am glad for the time i had with her. She has been such an angel, and a source of hope and strength for me  my entire life. 

On Monday while in Lubbock I'm supposed to hit a small workout building up to the weight of my opening lifts of 78k & 98k. The last time i was in Lubbock Texas i trained at Compass CF. They were awesome about letting me use their facility. The trainer and the athletes were really friendly. I'm hoping they'll let me use their gym again while I'm there.

weight loss and olympic weightlifting part two: metabolism and olympic weightlifting

I've been trying unsuccessfully for over a year to lose weight while training olympic weightlifting. I was using the MyFitnessPal phone app. MyFitnessPal is great. It's easy to use and can be used anywhere. When using that app I assumed my metabolic rate was around 3000 calories a day. It was 3300 back when i was training triathlon 20+ hours a week. I assumed it would be slightly lower now that I was olympic weightlifting 4 times a week. I was wrong, and my assumption caused massive problems. I'd start dieting, I'd plan on losing 2 pounds a week. If my metabolic rate was 3000 calories a day and there's 3500 calories in a pound of fat, I'd have to cut out 7000 calories a week, which is 1000 calories a day. So I'd eat 2000 calories a day plus any calories I burned from workouts.

3000 (metabolic rate)
-1000 (calories per day for 2 pounds weight loss a week)
---------------------------
2000 (calories consumed per day)

Using this formula I'd get hungrier and hungrier everyday until I couldn't handle it anymore and I'd binge eat gaining more weight than I had lost. I decided to stop using MyFitnessPal and go back to using Dietpower. Dietpower is a program similar to MyFitnessPal, but the biggest differences is that Dietpower will figure out my metabolic rate, MyFitnessPal doesn't.

Now that I've been using DietPower, it's shown me my metabolic rate is much higher than 3000 calories a day. It's 4130 calories a day to be exact. That makes a lot sense as to why I was overly hungry and why I need more calories now. Muscle burns calories. I'm burning more calories now that I'm a weightlifter and have more muscle then I did as a triathlete.

Since starting to use dietpower I've dropped from 311 pounds to 299 pounds without being very hungry at all. So the good news is I'll be able to be more loyal to this diet because I'll be more comfortable. The bad news is I've decided to limit my weightloss to 1 pound a week and at that rate it will take me 68 weeks (May 2016) to get to my first goal of getting into the 105k weightclass. And it will take me 93 weeks (Oct 2016) to get to my 2nd goal of getting into the 94k weight class.

illness and an 81k /105k lifelong Olympic style weightlifting PR

A couple weeks ago i felt i was gaining strength in Olympic style weightlifting so quickly that the training program i was on wasn't keeping up with my gains. I wanted to do more but couldn't add more weight to the bar because my weightlifting coach watched everyone lift and he'd see if i veered from the training plan. So instead i threw in an extra day of training. I did 5 workouts in a week i was only supposed to do 4. By the end of the week my body was beat up, i felt unbelievably fatigued and i ended up showing the beginning stages of being sick. This was the 2nd time I've doubted my coach's programming, each time i did more than he prescribed, both times I've gotten sick. I've learned my lesson. My coach is extremely good at what he does. One of the best in the nation.  I need to learn to trust him. 

This morning i woke up feeling horrible.  I had a horrible cough, body aches, and the shivers. This morning was also the morning i was supposed to meet with coach Miller to do some heavy clean and jerks. It was also my last heavy day before starting to taper. I decided to gut check it, ignore the illness and lift. i felt like death warmed over. Even though i was slow, felt sluggish, and was getting fatigued very quickly i still lifted a life long clean and jerk PR of 105k. Last week i lifted a lifelong snatch PR of 81k. So at the John Davis memorial meet, the meet I've been training for the last 12 months, i should be able lift a minimum of an 81k /105k /186k, which will break the New Mexico weightlifting 105k+ 40-44ag state record by a hundred pounds!

weightlifting with a hangover

Today i learned two things:

1) new years day is really bad for weightlifting. I don't party much any more, so i was surprised by how much i was affected. I've had more than 24 hours to recover and i was still weak and felt incredibly sluggish. 

2) even though i had an off day lifting i was strong and made every lift. As long as my form and speed is half as good as my strength has become I'm going to crush the John Davis memorial weightlifting meet on January 24th, 2015. If my speed and form is half way decent i think i'll be able to put up an 81/107/188!!!! My old PR was set just 2 months ago,  in November 2014, it was a 79/103/182. The old New Mexico state record is a 60/80/140!!!!! I'm looking forward to crushing both my PR and the state record!!!!!

80k snatch

Today I set a new PR of a 80k snatch.

I wasn't lying if i really believed it was true

Today was the third day i was following a healthy eating plan. Between that and my new goals (see yesterdays blog post) i was pretty excited to go to Miller weightlifting to train and to share my new goals and motivations with my coach and fellow gym rats. The response was not what i was expecting. There was awkward glances at one another and a half hearted "sounds good." They might as well of laughed out loud and said, "bullshit". My feelings were hurt, but i shouldn't of expected anything different. I've announced hundreds of times that,

 "I'm going on a diet." 

"I've lost 5 pounds!"

"I'm going to do it this time! "

"One of my old t-shirts fit for the first time in weeks."

All of these grand announcements end up with the same results. Me falling off the wagon and gaining all of my weight back and more. This time is different. I know,  i always say that. But this time i believe it's true. Time to put mt words into action. 

2015 & 2016 Olympic weightlifting goals

When i first started weightlifting in December of 2013 my ultimate goal was to beat an amazing local weightlifter by the name of Barry Schroeder. After watching him lift at a couple meets and seeing him break every New Mexico weightlifting record in both the 94k & 105k thirty five to thirty nine age group i decided to change my goals to something more realistic. 

On August 1st 2014, only 8 months into the sport of weightlifting i was strong enough to break the 105k+ forty to forty four age group New Mexico weightlifting state records. At that time I also become motivated to lose weight and i decided I'd attempt to break the state records in the 105k & 94k forty to forty four age group New Mexico state weightlifting records as i lost weight. Shortly after setting those new goals i fell off the diet wagon and gave up on losing weight. Since then I've gained more weight, for the first time in my life I'm over 300 pounds and I've developed the beginning stages of sleep apnea. So here i am motivated once again to break state records as i lose weight and get to an ideal body weight.  

Barry Schroeder will age up and start lifting in my age group in 2017. So i have until early 2017 to break the old 105k & 94k records, after which its possible he'll crush any records i set between now and then. Or the other option is I gain enough strength to accomplish my original goal of beating Barry Schroeder so my records will stand regardless of what age group he's in. 


My current best lifts after 12 months of Olympic weightlifting are:
Snatch 79k 
Clean and jerk 103k 
Total 182


The records for the 105k 40-44AG are: 
95k snatch set by Doug Briggs in 1999 (I'm currently 16k away from this state record)
122k clean and jerk set by Doug Briggs in 2000 (19k away)
215k total set by Doug Briggs in 1999 (35k away)


The 94k weight class state records are:
100k Snatch set by Jim Snyder in 2005 (I'm currently 21k away from this state record)
117.5k clean and jerk set by Jim Snyder in 2005 (15.5k away)
217.5k total set in 2005 by a Jim Snyder (36.5k away)

fat gain and olympic weightlifting

First things first, The Miller gym has changed the date of the The John Davis memorial weightlifting meet. The John Davis memorial is the meet I've been training the last 12 months for. The date has changed from Jan 17th to Jan 24th. I'm glad, that will give me an extra week to prepare. My strength has been gaining faster the last month than I've ever had happen. My strength has gained so much the training program coach Shane Miller has me on has become ridiculously easy. I've been wanting to throw some extra weight on the bar during my training sessions. The only thing that has stopped me is that I don't want to end up screwing up something with such an important meet coming up in January.

I'm still struggling with my weight. Struggling horribly. I've always struggled with my weight, but since I've picked up weightlifting controlling my eating has seemed like an impossible task. Now that I'm an olympic weightlifter I'm constantly hungry. At this point even when I'm not struggling with emotional eating I'm still struggling to not shovel excessive amounts of food down my throat because of being hungry from lifting. I've gained 40 pounds in the last year of olympic weightlifting. I know some of it's muscle, but most of my weight gain is fat. I have no idea how to stop getting fatter. Yeah yeah, I know some of you people out there are saying to yourselves "the way to not get fatter is to not eat so much". If it was that easy for me I'd never have become obese to begin with. What I really want to do is go back to a 12 step for emotional eaters. The only time I was ever in control of my weight was when I went to and utilized the things from a 12 step program. My church is against any 12 step. I'm not sure what to do. Even if I ignored the teachings of my church and was willing to go to a 12 step I don't have the time. I wont have the time until my wife either graduates nursing school or quits school to go back to work.

42 days until my big weightlifting meet

It's 1 month 12 days until the John Davis memorial weightlifting meet. All of my weights are moving up and my form is getting better day by day. My ultimate goal would be to have a 186 total. At my last meet I totaled a 182. I'm relatively sure with my recent strength and form increases I should be able to accomplish my goal. I cant wait, I'm super excited.

I've been trained by coach Shane Miller for a little over 11 months and already I can front squat more than I could back squat before. This week I set a front squat pr of 118.5 kilos and a back squat PR of 137 kilos.

My wife failed a 2nd class this semester. The nursing school she is attending kicks out any students who fails 2 classes. She is appealing the decision in hopes that she can continue. If she wins her appeal the school wont let her continue if she fails a third class. If she fails her appeal she's going to attempt getting a nursing degree in a third school. If she fails a third semester at the school she's at or at another school we have agreed she'll go back to work. We're racking up so many school loans we never be able to recover. Pray for her please.

The upcoming John Davis memorial olympic weightlifting meet

The olympic weightlifting meet that I've been training for over a year, the meet that I'm hoping to break the New Mexico weightlifting state record by over a hundred pounds at, has a tentative name and date. As long as the name and date is approved by USA weightlifting it will be called the John Davis memorial and it will be held at The Miller gym here in Santa Fe. I'm excited that the meet I may be able to set the 105k+ 40-44 age group NM weightlifting record will be named after my favorite athlete, John Davis. John Davis died in Albuquerque NM on July 13, 1984 and is buried here in Santa Fe. He died alone and relatively forgotten. Weightlifters are the only family he has. He died without a spouse, children, or any living family at the time of his death.

Here's a little history on John Davis: John Davis was the most dominant weightlifter in history. He took 2nd place at nationals and competed in the world championships at only 16 years old. At that world championship, Davis literally shocked the weightlifting world by winning the 82.5 kg category in his first appearance on an international weightlifting platform. What amazed the world even more was that Davis won his championship at the tender age of 17. This win occurred in an era when there were no junior championships and when weightlifting was dominated by athletes in their 20s and 30s. John had made weightlifting history by becoming the youngest athlete ever to have won a world championship. It was a distinction he was to enjoy for nearly 50 years.

 Davis won the Nationals again in 1942 and 1943, but was prevented from competing in 1944 and 1945 by his war service. In 1946 he was back again to win the Nationals and to go on to win the first post-war World Championships in Paris. The following year, Davis won the Nationals and Worlds again (those World Championships were held in Philadelphia that year--the first time the US had hosted the Championships).  In 1948, he won the Olympic Games, and in 1949 and 1950 the World Championships. In 1951 he made his highest lifetime total of 1,063 lbs. at the inaugural Pan American Games. That same year, at the 1951 Nationals, he made weightlifting history once again by becoming the first lifter to C&J 400 pounds under official conditions (Charles Rigoulot, the great French professional strongman, had done this some years earlier but on a specially designed bar that would not have satisfied the rules that were in effect in Davis' day). Continuing his fantastic string, Davis went on to win the 1952 Olympics.  In 1953, John injured his leg, which hampered his training significantly. Although he won the Nationals, Davis was defeated at the World Championships by Doug Hepburn. The Canadian strongman had ended the longest undefeated streak in World Weightlifting history--a record that remains to this day.  All told, when his victory string ended in 1953, Davis had won 6 consecutive World Championships and 2 consecutive Olympic Games. Since that time, only two other weightlifters have ever duplicated Davis' achievement--Tommy Kono and Vasili Alexseev (Naim Sulemanaglou won more World Championships than this legendary trio and one more Olympic Games, but his victories were not consecutive, and Naim's record was set up 43 years after Davis'). One can on ly imagine how many championships Davis might have won had the war years not cut 7 years out of the prime of his career. He was undefeated for straight 16 years.

THE BIG MEET!

2 more months until my next weightlifting meet. This next competition is the one I've been training for for the last 11 months. It's the one I've been training my heart, body, and mind for. It's the goal that I think of when I'm feeling tired and beat down and need motivation. This next meet is the one I think of when I'm struggling to get another repetition. I haven't been this excited about something since my first Ironman triathlon way back in 2006. Shane Miller, the meet director hasn't named the meet yet, but as soon as he does I'll let you know what it's named.

A new olympic weightlifting program

Yesterday my Olympic weightlifting coach built me a new weightlifting training plan. I love getting a new training plan. Since it's something new my body isn't used to I'm fatigued beyond belief for at least a couple weeks. Today after my workout, the first one of the new plan, I was so tired the only thing I did all day was sit in my lazy boy chair. The new workout regime is a 5 day workout program. I'm excited about this. It looks tough, it looks like something that will be extremely challenging and take me to the next level.

self doubt in olympic weightlifting

After Sunday's weightlifting competition I was happy I'd made gains even though I'd struggled during training the last 4 months. But I still harbored a lot of self doubt. I've been afraid I should be at a much higher level than I am after doing this consistently for 11 straight months. I got tired of that fear hovering over me and my training and decided to ask a couple of really amazing local lifters, Will O'Connel out of Zia CrossFit and Randy Steward from Miller weightlifting, what their totals were after about a year, so that I could get a base line to compare. I was relieved to see I'm right there with their numbers.

Randy 12 months: 80/108/188
Me after 11 months: 79/103/183

Will 19 months: 75/100/175

Another outstanding lifter, Erik Hickey, told me recently ,"the most important thing to train in here (weightlifting gym) is our own self doubt." I am exactly where I should be after a year. I'm not falling behind at all. Now for the first time in this sport I believe in myself, I can put the fear and self doubt aside and throw myself into my training with full confidence.

"the Jody" invitational weightlifting meet Santa Fe NM November 9, 2014

Today I competed in "the Jody" weightlifting competition at The Miller gym in Santa Fe NM. This was my third weightlifting competition. My previous one was in July. Since the weightlifting tournament in July I've been struggling. My technical lifts hadn't gone up at all. Today I felt sure I wasn't going to be able to lift as much as I had at the last meet, which was a 76k snatch, 100k clean and jerk, a 176k total. My coach Shane Miller gave me a great motivational talk before my third and final snatch attempt. He told me to attempt a 79k snatch. 79k was higher than anything I'd accomplished in training, and MUCH greater than I felt I could make today. But if there's one thing I've learned in almost a year of Olympic weightlifting is ALWAYS trust Shane Miller. Shane is ALWAYS right. I nailed the 79k snatch which was a PR! After that I felt strong and confident and went 3 for 3 on my clean and jerks setting a lifetime personal best of 103k!

My next competition will be in January. If all continues to progress as it has been under Shane's tutelage I'll break the105k+ 40-44 age group New Mexico state record by over 100lbs.