A new state record!

I haven’t written much the past month because there hasn’t been much to report. I’ve been battling tendinitis in my right elbow and borderline tendinitis in my left elbow, which means I haven’t been able to weave. I’ve spent some time working out the details of the AI tiger project, but I’m now at the sampling stage, and since I can’t weave, the project has more or less screeched to a halt. I’m hoping that in another month or so the elbow will be fully healed and I can get back to weaving.

However, that does not mean I have been inactive! I have been continuing my powerlifting training, with some adjustments to work around the tendinitis. (Straps, spotters, and acute attention to anything that might cause re-injury.) I’m training pretty seriously – workouts are about two hours, and if you include warmups, rehab, and driving time, I’m spending at least three hours a day on training, four days a week. So it’s like having a part-time job – but one that I really love.

I never expected to enjoy strength sports as much as this – I was the classic geek in high school, uninterested in any sports (well, except math team). And – not coincidentally – I was always the small, scrawny kid picked last in gym class, all through school. Being an athlete was the last thing on my mind.

I also never expected to be good enough at any sport to set records. But last Saturday I broke the USPA California state record (again!) for squat, with a lift of 135 kg, 297 pounds.

(Note the fashionable wrestling singlet – I got a semi-customized one that was as close to tie-dye as I could get. I got lots of compliments on it, especially since everyone else was wearing black!)

I also set a new PR (personal record) for deadlift – 145 kg or 319 pounds.

I’m pretty sure I can actually do more than I did in Saturday’s meet (the 2024 USPA Kanemoto Classic) – I was being very conservative with my numbers because of the tendinitis. If you look at the videos, both weights came up super easily. I think I could do another 10-20 more pounds in squat and another 5-10 pounds in deadlift, so hopefully some more records (personal and state) will be broken soon!

Here I am under the USPA banner. (Yes, the shoes that don’t match my socks are a fashion crime. Clearly I’m going to have to shop for more color-coordinated gear soon!)

I totaled 763 pounds between squat, bench press, and deadlift, also a new personal record. (For those who have been following the blog for a while, that’s over THREE THOUSAND weasels! 3,052 to be exact.)

One of the things I love about powerlifting is that you don’t have to be skinny or ripped to compete effectively. While I’ve dropped a lot of fat (and gained a lot of muscle!) over the six years I’ve been powerlifting, nobody is ever going to mistake me for thin. But for powerlifting, unless you’re a really elite athlete, that doesn’t matter much. Lucy Underdown, who recently became the first woman to deadlift 700+ pounds (!!), isn’t lean. She’s strong. I think it’s really cool that at 5’0” and not-at-all-thin, I can still be a good enough athlete to set records for my age and weight class.

I have to decide in the next few days whether to compete at USPA Nationals in June. It’s only 7 weeks away, in Las Vegas, so I really have to decide now. But I might want to do Worlds in November, instead. It would be really cool to see the international, elite lifters, and most of the other lifters in my gym are competing at Worlds, not Nationals.

Of course, I could always do both!

Stay tuned…