Northern Weightlifting Open 26/11/2011 Mytholmroyd Community Centre
Apparently it's been two years since I last posted on LiveJournal and that entry was visible only to me. I know at least two people will be interested in my recent adventures in picking things up and putting them back down again, so I thought I'd write it up here because I'm lazy and it's easier than talking to people. :P
When I first moved to Newcastle I decided to join the local weightlifting* club, because I've been interested in strength sports for a while now and as far as I know this is the first time I've been in a place with any kind of lifting club that I was aware of, could join and whose training times suited my schedule. (Cambridge University had a powerlifting** club but I only found out about it after I graduated, I think their training times clashed with work and I couldn't have competed as a graduate anyway.)
Anyway, a few weeks back my coach told me there was a competition coming up in November and asked me if I wanted to compete. I said yes, because the thought of dressing up in a tight-fitting sleeveless leotard and picking up brightly coloured pieces of metal for the amusement of tens of people sounded fun. That competition turned out to be the open championships for the whole of the North of England. I wasn't aiming to win anything though as I'm simply not strong enough yet, I just wanted to go along for the experience and to get a total so I can improve on it next time.
Conveniently, I started coming down with a cold (sore throat, slight headache) on the night of the Wednesday before the competition. It was very mild but for some reason completely wrecked my ability to sleep peacefully and restfully (which isn't the best in the first place). Annoying. It was even worse the night before competition day due to the aforementioned cold and the fact that I'm always extremely restless with anticipation whenever I know I have to get up for something important. It was an early start too: I woke up at 6:30 to be driven down to Mytholmroyd at just gone seven to be there in time for weigh-ins, which were from 09:00 until 10:00. As a result I was very tired on the day of the competition, which probably didn't help. Luckily my cold symptoms decided to take the day off apart from a very slight headache that went away with a couple of paracetamol.
We got to the sports centre with twenty minutes to spare, in spite of being diverted off the A1 due to an accident, 50 mph speed limit stretches on both the A1 and the M62 and getting lost in Mytholmroyd due to crazy sat-navs and confusing directions from the locals. Lifting started at 11:00, but because of an unusually high turn-out of lifters (around 60 total) it carried on until about 20:00, with prize presentations taking a further half an hour. (Amusingly a lot of the prize-winners were absent at presentation time because they'd already gone home!) As I was in one of the heavier weight classes, I don't think I got to lift until around five or six. The rest of the time was spent sitting around watching the lighter lifters and the women lifters do their thing. Watching dozens of people do two variations of the same thing three times each for hours on end sounds like it would be hellaciously boring, but it was surprisingly enjoyable; certainly more so than, say, watching the equivalent amount of weightlifting on YouTube. Possibly it's different seeing it live in person because there's the uncertainty and the moment of tension when a lift looks like it's about to go wrong and the whole crowd gets behind the lifter encouraging them to fight for it and (often, but not always) make the lift. You also get a little bit of drama when you get lifters with similar strength levels in the same weight-class competing for a place or someone misses their first two lifts and needs to make the third to stay in the game.
Nevertheless, by the time the group before me were lifting and I was impatient to get warmed up and start lifting. That, combined with the coffee I drunk just as my warm-up time was approaching, (not to mention how sore my arse was from all the sitting!) meant I was all but bouncing off the walls with energy despite how sleepy I was. In retrospect I could've timed my caffeine consumption a little better as while I was all fired up for the snatches, I think it had started to wear off a little by the time I got around to my cleans. That and I could've used a nap in between weigh-in and warm-up.
I weighed in at 80.7, putting me squarely in the middle of the 85 kg weight class. I did consider cutting down to 77 kg when my coach first told me about the competition as it was just about doable within the timeframe, but she told me not to bother as it was my first competition, so I didn't. I opened with 45 kg in the Snatch and it went up ridiculously easy. I let adrenaline get the better of me and it was a bit hasty but I got away with it. I was a bit more composed for my next attempt of 50 kg, which was also easy. I tried for a personal best (PB) of 55 for my final attempt. I got it up, but I pressed it out (i.e. not locking out my elbows completely at the end of the third pull and using my arms to complete the lift) so it didn't count. Oh well.
Clean and Jerks didn't go so well, I just couldn't get in the groove for some reason. Lost my first attempt at 60 kg (which should've been as easy as the 45 kg snatch) because I didn't get my elbows up fast enough. Not sure what happened really. I had originally planned to go 60, 65, 70 (PB). However, if you miss all three attempts at a given lift you get a total of 0, so I decided to re-attempt 60 rather than going straight to 65 and risk missing that as well, even though I can usually get 65 quite happily on a normal day. As it happens I made my second attempt at 60 and 65 as well so in retrospect I could probably have stuck to my plan. Still, live and learn. At least I have a total now to improve on next time. :)
In terms of placing, I came last in my weight class. If I remember correctly I probably wouldn't have come last in the 77 kg weight class, which is probably the one I should've been in if I'd been giving it my absolute 100% commitment. I'm pretty sure I wasn't bottom overall in terms of Sinclair total (the Sinclair formula is a magical piece of mathematics that tries to work out what everyone would have lifted if they all weighed the same) but I'll have to wait until the full results get posted to be certain.
All in all, it was good fun, even if it was a very long day and I could've done better (I know could've: I've snatched 52.5 and cleaned & jerked 67.5 before in training). Nonetheless, I had a go, I know what it's like and I enjoyed myself. Now I just have to smash my total next time round. :D
*The term "weightlifting" properly (and whenever I use it) refers to the sport in which athletes compete to lift the highest total weight in the Snatch and Clean & Jerk***. However a lot of people aren't as pedantic as me and will use "weightlifting" to refer to any kind of exercise involving weights. If they talk about weightlifting at all they'll usually call it "Olympic weightlifting" or just "Olympic lifting" and refer to the snatch and clean & jerk collectively as the "Olympic lifts", because it's the style of lifting contested in the Olympics and that's probably where most people know of the sport from. It's not exclusive to the Olympics though, it has its own regional, national and international federations and competitions at all levels.
**Powerlifting is a more recent sport where athletes compete to lift the highest combined total weight in the Squat, Bench Press and Deadlift. It's not contested in the Olympics, although the Paralympics does contain a powerlifting event that consists of just the bench press.
***This is not, however, the original form of the sport. Before some time in the 70s there was a third lift called the Clean & Press that was dropped due to judging difficulties. Going further back in time still there were all sorts of different lifts contested.
When I first moved to Newcastle I decided to join the local weightlifting* club, because I've been interested in strength sports for a while now and as far as I know this is the first time I've been in a place with any kind of lifting club that I was aware of, could join and whose training times suited my schedule. (Cambridge University had a powerlifting** club but I only found out about it after I graduated, I think their training times clashed with work and I couldn't have competed as a graduate anyway.)
Anyway, a few weeks back my coach told me there was a competition coming up in November and asked me if I wanted to compete. I said yes, because the thought of dressing up in a tight-fitting sleeveless leotard and picking up brightly coloured pieces of metal for the amusement of tens of people sounded fun. That competition turned out to be the open championships for the whole of the North of England. I wasn't aiming to win anything though as I'm simply not strong enough yet, I just wanted to go along for the experience and to get a total so I can improve on it next time.
Conveniently, I started coming down with a cold (sore throat, slight headache) on the night of the Wednesday before the competition. It was very mild but for some reason completely wrecked my ability to sleep peacefully and restfully (which isn't the best in the first place). Annoying. It was even worse the night before competition day due to the aforementioned cold and the fact that I'm always extremely restless with anticipation whenever I know I have to get up for something important. It was an early start too: I woke up at 6:30 to be driven down to Mytholmroyd at just gone seven to be there in time for weigh-ins, which were from 09:00 until 10:00. As a result I was very tired on the day of the competition, which probably didn't help. Luckily my cold symptoms decided to take the day off apart from a very slight headache that went away with a couple of paracetamol.
We got to the sports centre with twenty minutes to spare, in spite of being diverted off the A1 due to an accident, 50 mph speed limit stretches on both the A1 and the M62 and getting lost in Mytholmroyd due to crazy sat-navs and confusing directions from the locals. Lifting started at 11:00, but because of an unusually high turn-out of lifters (around 60 total) it carried on until about 20:00, with prize presentations taking a further half an hour. (Amusingly a lot of the prize-winners were absent at presentation time because they'd already gone home!) As I was in one of the heavier weight classes, I don't think I got to lift until around five or six. The rest of the time was spent sitting around watching the lighter lifters and the women lifters do their thing. Watching dozens of people do two variations of the same thing three times each for hours on end sounds like it would be hellaciously boring, but it was surprisingly enjoyable; certainly more so than, say, watching the equivalent amount of weightlifting on YouTube. Possibly it's different seeing it live in person because there's the uncertainty and the moment of tension when a lift looks like it's about to go wrong and the whole crowd gets behind the lifter encouraging them to fight for it and (often, but not always) make the lift. You also get a little bit of drama when you get lifters with similar strength levels in the same weight-class competing for a place or someone misses their first two lifts and needs to make the third to stay in the game.
Nevertheless, by the time the group before me were lifting and I was impatient to get warmed up and start lifting. That, combined with the coffee I drunk just as my warm-up time was approaching, (not to mention how sore my arse was from all the sitting!) meant I was all but bouncing off the walls with energy despite how sleepy I was. In retrospect I could've timed my caffeine consumption a little better as while I was all fired up for the snatches, I think it had started to wear off a little by the time I got around to my cleans. That and I could've used a nap in between weigh-in and warm-up.
I weighed in at 80.7, putting me squarely in the middle of the 85 kg weight class. I did consider cutting down to 77 kg when my coach first told me about the competition as it was just about doable within the timeframe, but she told me not to bother as it was my first competition, so I didn't. I opened with 45 kg in the Snatch and it went up ridiculously easy. I let adrenaline get the better of me and it was a bit hasty but I got away with it. I was a bit more composed for my next attempt of 50 kg, which was also easy. I tried for a personal best (PB) of 55 for my final attempt. I got it up, but I pressed it out (i.e. not locking out my elbows completely at the end of the third pull and using my arms to complete the lift) so it didn't count. Oh well.
Clean and Jerks didn't go so well, I just couldn't get in the groove for some reason. Lost my first attempt at 60 kg (which should've been as easy as the 45 kg snatch) because I didn't get my elbows up fast enough. Not sure what happened really. I had originally planned to go 60, 65, 70 (PB). However, if you miss all three attempts at a given lift you get a total of 0, so I decided to re-attempt 60 rather than going straight to 65 and risk missing that as well, even though I can usually get 65 quite happily on a normal day. As it happens I made my second attempt at 60 and 65 as well so in retrospect I could probably have stuck to my plan. Still, live and learn. At least I have a total now to improve on next time. :)
In terms of placing, I came last in my weight class. If I remember correctly I probably wouldn't have come last in the 77 kg weight class, which is probably the one I should've been in if I'd been giving it my absolute 100% commitment. I'm pretty sure I wasn't bottom overall in terms of Sinclair total (the Sinclair formula is a magical piece of mathematics that tries to work out what everyone would have lifted if they all weighed the same) but I'll have to wait until the full results get posted to be certain.
All in all, it was good fun, even if it was a very long day and I could've done better (I know could've: I've snatched 52.5 and cleaned & jerked 67.5 before in training). Nonetheless, I had a go, I know what it's like and I enjoyed myself. Now I just have to smash my total next time round. :D
*The term "weightlifting" properly (and whenever I use it) refers to the sport in which athletes compete to lift the highest total weight in the Snatch and Clean & Jerk***. However a lot of people aren't as pedantic as me and will use "weightlifting" to refer to any kind of exercise involving weights. If they talk about weightlifting at all they'll usually call it "Olympic weightlifting" or just "Olympic lifting" and refer to the snatch and clean & jerk collectively as the "Olympic lifts", because it's the style of lifting contested in the Olympics and that's probably where most people know of the sport from. It's not exclusive to the Olympics though, it has its own regional, national and international federations and competitions at all levels.
**Powerlifting is a more recent sport where athletes compete to lift the highest combined total weight in the Squat, Bench Press and Deadlift. It's not contested in the Olympics, although the Paralympics does contain a powerlifting event that consists of just the bench press.
***This is not, however, the original form of the sport. Before some time in the 70s there was a third lift called the Clean & Press that was dropped due to judging difficulties. Going further back in time still there were all sorts of different lifts contested.