Marilia’s Powerlifting Blog

The troubling thing of competing in these light weight categories is watching your weight so closely. Last year I kept just a little bit above 56kg, just to go crazy on the week before any meet to lose the extra weight. I was quite happy now to see I was being able to keep the opposite situation: always around 55kg. Now I climbed the scale, before my bath, and it was 55,9kg. Ohh:.. Why? Yesterday it was 55,3kg! And this is my third creatine week, so the weight gain from that should have stabilized. Ah, well: Back to holding back on food. I really don’t want to go crazy on dieting and getting all anxious on the week before this year’s contests because they are quite important. Hummm: 

This is Summer Vacations down here in Brazil. I’m working on my computer and training for the new competition calendar, but my daughter is away having fun in the Mountains. Therefore: there is no HUMAN food in the house! What we have now is: 

1. dog food … very important: Rita and Akela are central members of the family and won’t negotiate busy times; 

2. Rabbit food … really important: our white rabbit (name = “little rabbit, pretty huge actually) eats twice his weight in a day I think: 

3. Athlete food … that’s me: pots of whey (Dymatize Elite, rich chocolate), some caseine suppls, eggs, frozen light turkey breast burger, light turkey breast frankfurters, a lot (really an obscene amount) of cheese, many liters of non-fat milk, non-fat milk powder and, in the yard, a cabbage garden (and some other vegetables). 

There is some fiber extract around I got for other occasions. When I think there’s too little of that in the diet I take some. Besides, I have something we call “canjica here in Brazil with milk in place of granola everyday … it is actually corn, white corn, whole corn. Pretty low glycemic index (under 40, no exact measurement … have less than 30g of that, really low carb load:). 

I am sick of light canned tuna and I am too lazy to take the trouble to cook chicken breast. Besides I’m also sick of it. 

Basically, I’m living off supplements (and cabbage). I take a lot (a lot) of whey during the day. And, of course, a bunch of pills (vitamins, C, B complex, E, etc.), chondroitin, bla, bla, bla, the usual plus something extra. 

And you know what? I don’t miss proper food: I think I like this eternal breakfast thing. No real “lunch or “dinner … didn’t have that before, but when Mel (daughter) was around, I kind of made her company. Now I just eat when my stomach says so, which usually hits the 3 hour interval. Except after workout when I really get hungry before that. 

You know how I came into powerlifting? Weird story, but it all started with my hand issue. Long, long ago I used to be a fencing athlete. Close to the National Champs I was the natural candidate to win (and I did), some strange hand injury kept making my hand lose control and drop the weapon. Everyone got really scared and I saw a couple of hand specialists. The first one declared I was never going to practice my sport again and I might have some sort of muscle tumor. I wanted to die. Then a second one dismissed this DX but wasn’t positive as to what as the problem. He just gave me a magic (cortisone) shot in the muscle and the pain disappeared. However, never again I was able to hold the weapon for a long time. I wore a wrist leather band that held it to my arm and, obviously, lost some range of mobility.  

Years passed and I was convinced my strength would never return … I knew I had this chronic hand weakness.  

At a certain point while into more bodybuilding-style training, I wanted to improve my deadlift technique. Which was impossible, due to my hand weakness. I was very disappointed: Then some wise people at forums all over the world suggested GRIP TRAINING and it was magical: my strength returned! And I was finally able to do a decent deadlift! Meanwhile, I met Vitor Barreto, a physiotherapist and athlete who became a real close friend. Not by chance, his nickname here is “Gripmaster … he knows everything there is to know about grip training.  

There was a problem with my skin: there was a general inflammation around the calluses, which was extremely painful. A friend of mine who is a dermatologist suggested I use cortisone ointment and it did help a lot.  

Everything seemed to be going fine. I won the National Open and Master deadlift championship (although with a poor mark, since I passed out in my third attempt because the suit was squeezing my femoral vein: very embarrassing) and my target mark was 140kg for December.  

Until last week. I decided to go back to the basics and do some half-deadlift, or a modified version of “walk the rack: lift the loaded bar only for a couple of inches, just to practice the grip itself (the purpose of the exercise is another, but it helped me with the grip in the past). I just couldn’t. When I got to 100kg, my hand hurt SO much that I quit. I didn’t even feel the weight on the bar … just the pain in the palm of my hands. And then I saw the red aura around the calluses forming again, just like last year. But now it hurts so much I can’t even close my hand today (I did half-deadlift three days ago and deadlift proper yesterday).  

I used the cortisone ointment. I still feel the pain.  

Vitor tells me I have to practice more grip training in order to place the bar exactly on the palm-fingers joint, and not a little above it as everybody does. In my case, this squeezes the calluses and develops this inflammatory reaction.  

I think my hands are still too weak. I regret having stopped grip training for all these months … now I’m convinced I will never have a proper deadlift without it.  

So: back to basics: grip training to death!!  

This is quite a controversial topic. This is why I chose to post it here, and not elsewhere, where it may cause undesired aggressive response. I have searched, and not found in my first efforts, detailed statistics by country or sport on positive anti-doping results by WADA. However, it is no secret that today, positives are restricted to those who have no access to designer performance enhancing drugs. Such designer drugs are delivered by the pharmaceutical industries directly to target athletes, and this is an arrangement that obviously takes place in economically central countries. Pfiezer, Merck or SmithKline Glaxo Wellcome will not run the risk of testing their baby unpatented material on any institutional context. There must be trust for such enterprises and this won’t happen in Africa, Asia or South America.  

It doesn’t happen here, where I live, in Brazil.  

And it is no secret that elite athletes from all sports are supplied by a large array of technological performance enhancing resources, INCLUDING pharmacological ones. Yes, steroids, why not?  

The witch-hunt promoted by WADA, with out of season testing in smaller sports or those applying for Olympic status, is discriminatory to say the least. They will always catch Oriental European hardly-surviving athletes, struggling to hold on through the greatness of their past. Or Greek, or Latin American. Those, as I said, with no access to “out of the banned list steroids.  

To my understanding, this is a not-so-subtle form of maintaining the political dominance of the economically central countries in sports.  

There are many other complicating issues hooked to the anti-doping strategy. One that particularly concerns me is the fact that it is being increasingly recognized that steroids in particular are highly beneficial to many chronic conditions and even should be standard treatment in certain stages of life. I will be 44 years old in two months. If I follow my family’s genetic profile, in about 6 years I will enter menopause. What then? Will the IOC or the IPF make me choose between my personal well-being (which implicates hormone replacement WITH testosterone) and quality of life and my athletic career? Does this sound remotely fair to anyone with neurons?  

What about the anti-depressant success androgens are showing in different patient populations? If competing athletes, will they have to choose between the stupefying present day psychotropic drugs (yeach:) and continue their athletic career (barely) or achieving true control over their disorder and quitting their sport? Again, does this make any sense?  

I think not.  

I’m sort of laughing with an otherwise very interesting read: a paper called “Social Involvement and the Sport of Weightlifting: a Microethnography (R.R. Ittenbach & B.S. Chissom, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 1993, 7(1):55-61). The paper is not bad … it is just written by someone from so outside the culture that the adverbs and adjectives used to qualify actions or behaviors sound funny. There is a point where the authors point out that the lifters are willing and even eager to help one another in the weight room, or another where they are very precise to describe how the lifter ONLY listens to the spotter, since it could be “very dangerous to lose focus and concentration. It’s ok … pretty good read for academics in general, generous … important to emphasize that, since most academic work done on sports and specially strength sports are really critical or even denigrating -, and honest.  

We all know it is impossible to train any lifting (power or Olympic) without the aid of someone else. Not only dangerous or unwise … impossible, simple as that. Any lifter knows it.  

What I did not know was how good it is to have a fixed workout buddy. My workout buddy is Renatinho, a male lifter from the lighter categories (competed and won a couple of regional and national champs at the 56kg category, I think he might be going up to 60kg, but that is not a given). Apart from the fact that he is sweet, smart and a great company, he is a very technical lifter. Strong and technical.  

The fact that he is from the lighter categories makes it possible for me to be his buddy, in spite of the fact that he is male and strong. Sure we have to change disks a lot, but there is a good supply at the gym and we have become quite automatic on the task.  

This all came to be because my good friend, project partner and coach Gilson has decided for good to treat his chronic back injury. We then decided that all athletes in the team (we are about 30 people) should get organized in finding buddies to train the present schedule. It is not difficult, since we are all following the same periodization. The only “challenge is getting used to changing disks and support heights.  

Before that, Gilson was always around. He was not satisfied with watching and giving commands … he would pass the bar, wrap knees, spot and very frequently change disks. Over! For at least two months, nothing except what the physiotherapist tells him to do!  

It was then that Renatinho and I hooked up in this arrangement. I have never had such productive training: first, I am committed to arriving always at the same time, which never happened. Second, we measure time in a very disciplined manner, since he must get to work as soon as we’re done. Third, we watch every movement each of us is doing … we’re fully concentrated in one another’s training. No talking with other people (or very little talking).  

Funny thing I noticed is that I am developing a different style: My bench press is becoming more tryceptal, like his: We laugh at this, saying people will think we are brothers in our next Meet. We discuss technique while training and apply at the moment, so: Also, we do the same auxiliaries … the ones we were not supposed to be doing. Therefore, even our bodies are developing somewhat on the same form. He is really cut … I’ve got much more BF than him, obviously. But we are on the “lean side of powerlifting.  

Hope Renatinho stays around forever … we really teamed up well.  

Thanks, Renatinho, I’ll dedicate my next trophy to you!  

There’s a movie called "sleepless in Chicago" or "sleepless in wherever" and sleeplessness has its glamour in movies. Not for athletes: I feel like s**. But in this periodization, missing one day spoils the whole program so I decided to… Yes! Go and train! A high volume (like BP 8 sets -> squat 12 sets -> BP again another 7) very specific training for the lifts. Of course I needed some "stimulation" and took some fat burner to help, which held me exactly up to the moment I finished the las "good morning". When I was ready to do a little cardio, got my ipod and climbed the treadmill, I felt it: dizzy, sick (like puking) and confused.

Now I’m home, have lot’s of work (I’m a consultant), but my brain has stopped working.

However, I feel great for having done it - NOT MISSED my Monday training. Now I can rest… Tomorrow will be another day - leg day!

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Today is Sunday - the only "non-workout" day of the week. I should be resting and eating a lot. I’m actually working and worrying. Not good - too catabolic.
Our workout is new - Gilson (my coach and friend) has periodized our training aiming the National Meet in June. Before that, there will be about 4 or 5 specific and regional meets. The volume is pretty heavy, based on Sheiko’s routine. I’m the only athlete actually  ADDING auxiliaries to the main routine, plus cardio. Long workout.
Up to now, I feel great and the loads feel really light. Gilson says he prefers that way, since we will build the percentages. We want to reach the State Champs on the 82,5kg for Bench Press, so if we go too heavy now, I’ll probably overtrain until March…
Time to hit the sac.