Alright lifting pretty babes. I'm officially 4 weeks out from my next meet, which means I am in full meet-prep mode. Started cutting weight 2 weeks ago but had some complications which I'll get to later. I'm also in my last cycle of my program, which will peak me for the competition. I am SO EXCITED to get back on the platform! I love competing, if I could do it once a month I would!
This will be my 6th meet. I can't even believe I just wrote that. I've competed in full-power meets 5 times already! If you told high-school Chrissy that present-day Chrissy would be a competitive powerlifter, she would have laughed in your face and called you crazy. Yet here I am! This will be the first meet where I'll actually have my coach there with me, so I'm excited to see how it will be different from the meets I've done in the past. I'm also planning on writing a post about what I do to prepare for meets so be on the lookout for that in the next few weeks!
My training has been improving a lot in the past 2 weeks. Even my deadlift feels a million times better, and I'm attributing that to the chiropractor I went to last week. I've had chronic back pain for YEARS-it started my sophomore year of high school so almost 10 years (wow I feel old!). I've been to my PCP and a back specialist and no one has been able to give me a straight answer about why I have the pain. When I was 15 I was "diagnosed" with arthritis and scoliosis in my spine. I use that word lightly because I'm pretty sure this was a false diagnoses. While I know it's possible to have arthritis at a young age, that just didn't make sense to me. I've had MRIs, CT Scans, and X-Rays on my back and they all show a normal, healthy spine, except for the slight curve due to scoliosis. So I was kind of at my wit's end. No one could tell me what was wrong and I didn't know how to fix it. I started focusing on strengthening my back and core muscles and that did help a little bit. I've toyed with the idea of seeing a chiro for about a year now, but I was always too scared to go. I finally bit the bullet and OH MY GOD I AM SO GLAD I DID. It was seriously LIFE-CHANGING. My co-worker recommended Dr. Morrissey of Khalsa Chiropractic. She's not the typical "crack your back" chiro, which is what I liked about her. She specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of soft tissue injuries, and utilizes various manual therapies to help enhance joint mobility. She used Graston Technique and Active Release Techniques on me. It was INCREDIBLE. I felt so great after! I'll be going to her once a week until the meet! What she found was a lot of tension in my lower and upper back. She also worked on my glutes and hamstrings. When I deadlifted the next day, for the first time EVER, I felt what a painless deadlift was like. I was so happy! I can't wait to see how this impacts me and hopefully I'll go into this meet feeling healthy and strong!
So other than the chiro, I mentioned above that I had some complications. 2 weeks ago I woke up with this sharp pain in my stomach on the right side. Being the hypochondriac that I am, I immediately freaked out because I thought my appendix was bursting. I ended up going to my PCP, and I'm glad I did. She didn't think it was my appendix, but that it was an ovarian cyst that had burst. That day I had a CT Scan on my stomach area, which showed a healthy appendix (thank god!), enlarged lymph nodes, and a cyst on my left kidney. My ovaries looked normal, but my doctor still thinks that's what happened. I was on a "bland foods" diet (read: all carbs, and bad ones) for the next few days until my bloating went down and I felt normal again. I didn't lift for a few days but then got back into it the next week. This messed up my weight cut a little bit. I'm hoping I can still get down to 114, I have about 8 pounds to go. If not, I'll just move up a weight class. No biggie. The cut is mostly mental for me, and I've seriously been slacking on my nutrition since I moved into Boston, so I really want to try to get back on the right track. That's why I'm actually doing a weight cut. It would be easy to say screw it and just compete at 123, but I need to do this. After this meet I'll indulge a little over the holidays but I feel so much better when I eat clean. And I'm convinced my lifts go up too! I fell off the clean eating bandwagon over the summer, and I'm paying for it now. I don't want that to happen again!! Mind over matter! Veggies over pizza! (jk, pizza over everything)
Other than that, things are going well! I hit a squat rep PR last week, 175x2. Will this be the meet I finally hit that 200lb squat?? I HOPE SO!! Bench is staying pretty consistent as well, hit 90x2 last week. Bench is like my powerlifting great white buffalo. I've never hit anything above 88 in competition, but this time I am fully confident than I will. I feel like I need to prove myself on bench, and I can't wait to do that. I'm still a little worried about my deadlift but I'm not going to let that get to me too much. It is feeling a lot better, just not where it needs to be, Just gotta keep moving forward and working hard these next 4 weeks. Now I'm gonna go heat up some chicken and veggies before my chiro appointment today! Can't wait!!
Stay STRONG and Stay FIERCE!!
