97,5kg bench press in Rio
Last weekend I went to Rio for a local federation (CONBRAFA) national powerlifting championship. It was legal to register as single lift, so I went for Bench Press only lifting, with my velcro cast on the leg.
We went, Thiaguinho, Renato and I, plus Fernanda, on a São Paulo-Rio interstate bus. We had to laugh at the people who looked at us as if we were a freak show: a tiny muscular woman on a cast, a huge 350lbs lifter and two “average” people. Probably the managers, human.
The best things about this meet were being away from baby-sitting a broken leg at home the whole day, doing a pretty good lift, considering and having fun with the team, in this order. You, unbroken people, have no idea what it feels like to be a month and a half on a cast – everything you had to “discover” about the limits of your self-sufficiency, you already did; all your patience with mobility restrictions, you overused, and all your anxiety about going back to heavy training and real life, including sex in the first place, is at a super-compensation climax. You get the picture…
I was very satisfied with the lift itself (take a look at my videos). Actually, I believe it is one of my best. First, I employed the “zen-focused” approach I’ve been studying and practicing more successfully than I thought I could. Second, I believe I did technically ok, under the circumstances. The limit was the leg, and I failed the third attempt precisely after feeling the shock wave through my fracture. This is what I call “learning”: it is the nice beginning of a long and exciting journey.
