The Member Minutes section is the place to let us tell the world about how AWESOME TPS members are. I can’t do this unless you tell me about your accomplishments. When TPS first started, I knew EVERY member and I knew what was going on. We have GROWN and, sadly, I don’t know every member. The interweb can fix this. Shoot me an email and let me know about your latest event, whether it is an upcoming event or something you have completed—5K’s, triathlons, powerlifting, or anything sports-related. We want to let the world know. Now, on to this month’s accomplishments :
Pan-American Powerlifting Championships
TeamELiteFTS and Team TPS Lifter Mikelina Belaineh just took second place in the Open 72kg. class at the Pan American World Championships in Brazil and also smashed a Pan Am Record in the Deadlift at 200.5 kg, or 441 pounds!
I really don’t have much to say beyond WOW.
Boss of Bosses 2 Powerlifting-Carlos Moran
TeamTPS Lifter, Carlos Moran just competed at Boss of Bosses 2.
TPS lifter Mark Carleo went with him to handle him at the meet and was awesome enough to write a review of Carlos’s performance and the meet itself.
From Mark:
I’m writing this while on a red eye back to Boston from San Jose (written 9/1/2015). I don’t even know what day it is at this point.
Carlos’s weights at the meet were in kilos but I plan to use freedom units, not these commie kilo numbers… Sorry not sorry Rosti.
So this story started for Carlos Moran about 20 weeks ago when he started his training cycle for the Boss of Bosses meet held on August 28th in Mountain View California. This was an invitational meet that he was initially unsure of being invited to.
Eventually the invite came through for him.
For me it started one morning in July when he shot me a text asking if I would be willing to handle him at BoB2.
My initial reply was “are you f#@$ing with me”?
From time to time some trolling is not below him.
Apparently he was serious, thirty seconds later my flight was booked.
This was a privilege and I couldn’t be happier that he asked. He has been a huge help to me in the gym and this was a great opportunity to pay him back for it.
On to the meet.
The event itself was run incredibly poorly. I won’t give all the details here because this is about Carlos and not the incompetence shown in what should have been a meet for the ages.
Suffice it to say Gene and Ame Rychlak have spoiled us with their Revolution Powerlifting (RPS) meets that run like clockwork. They are true professionals. I owe them a big hug, if only I could get my arms around Gene.
Carlos’ flight was given 15 minutes to warm up for opening squats, but we got it done. He opened at 650 with his last warm up at 585 while he was 4th out. He just sucked it up and went out there and hit his opener.
Hydration was a challenge. I went over how things were going with Carlos’ coach Thomas on the phone and we both agreed on a 50/50 water Gatorade mix and keep him eating, but it was like we were always one step behind.
On his second attempt squat he went conservative at 667. Unfortunately on his descent he had a cramp fire up in his left adductor and he missed the lift.
We agreed to skip his third attempt.
I had him sit down and keep hydrating and eating. We applied compression for 2 minutes every so often to keep fluid from accumulating.
This was tough for me personally to see happen. Carlos had really gotten a handle on his prehab work in and out of the gym. I had spent a lot of time working on him and suggesting some movements, distraction and strengthening of some areas to keep him moving. His warm up squats were the best I have ever seen.
He didn’t let this get him down for a second though. He simply prepared himself to bench.
Somewhere around this point I got to watch Andrey Melanichev absolutely crush a squat of 1037.2. Mind blowing to see. I also got to see a chair get absolutely crushed beneath him for some lulz. (Editor’s note: I do not know what this means)
Carlos warmed his bench up to 390lbs which flew off his chest. He opened at 420lbs with no challenge. So we went with a moderate but not conservative jump to 441lbs which he hit without breaking technique. Again I chose the moderate jump for his next attempt of 457lbs. He brought the bar down beautifully but as he dug his feet in his spinal erectors cramped up causing a missed lift.
Hydration continued to be an issue.
I worked his back and it settled down enough for him to deadlift.
He warmed up his deadlift to 570lbs for an opener of 639. First deadlift was good as was his second attempt of 672. It wasn’t a grinder but it moved a little slowly.
It wasn’t until after the meet that he informed me he pulled those both with one leg as his adductor was quite painful by this point.
Third attempt was a miss.
At the end I think Carlos briefly felt like he fell short of his own expectations.
I can objectively state that he did not.
He performed optimally given the challenges he was working through such as the cramps or the incompetence of the meet staff who were at all times unable to offer any sort of estimate as to when his flight should warm up.
His total of 1763 was a PR. He made progress since RUM. He and his Coach have a winning formula that brings Carlos into a meet in the best possible condition.
He will be back to TPS soon enough so when you see him give him a congratulations.
Hopefully he will get a chance to sit on the casting couch with Russ and give everyone some of his perspective on the meet.
By Mark Carleo
