Bench Nationals was a very different experience from NAPF. I had much clearer benchmarks for my abilities, and I was already shifting my focus to Raw Nationals in October. “I want to train through this,” I told Sam.

“Yeah, but you want to at least be a little rested for the meet, right?”

“Well, sure, but I just don’t want to lay off on the training.”

Bouncing back from NAPF was a bit of a shocker — the first week sucked. Although powerlifting is different from track, I found myself recalling just how awful even running 200m repeats felt after a break. It was the kind of awful that made you sure you’d never again last through 400m repeats (how the hell had I ever done that?). Sam and I suffered together the first week back, in that weights that should have been a piece of cake felt super heavy. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem because after a competition he would have programmed a recovery or hypertrophy block, which is a much nicer transition. But because we had this screwy, less-than-ideal competition schedule, I had to get right back into a strength block to prep for Nationals.

Everything came back quickly — week two felt completely different from week one, save for one issue: I periodically suffer from pain during the eccentric phase of a bench press. So on the bar’s way down, I get this nasty aching misery. It usually takes a few weeks of hard training to show up, but it’s a little miserable. It came back before Bench Nationals, which was annoying, but I wasn’t going concerned. I had done a careful study of the women who had registered for nationals and determined that my mutant bench press put me way way out in first place. In fact, my opener was likely to take the prize, so the pressure was off to perform. That also meant there was no reason not to take some risks. This was a very different perspective from NAPF, where I had been worried about my aches, pains, and discomforts. If anything was really off at Bench Nationals, I could really pull back on the weight and still snag my spot on the national team.

Sioux-z Hartwig-Gary was going to the meet, and with delight I signed her up to be my gameday coach. Now I wasn’t even going to have to worry about trying to plan my own warm-ups! Wooo! Another goal checked off -- no thinking, problem-solving, or management duties while powerlifting! Sioux-z, Sam, and I all agreed that I’d try for a personal record of 237lbs. on my third attempt. There was just no reason not to.

The flight to Sioux Falls was easy, and I was enjoying my introvert time on my solo trip. Sam had headed to New England for a weekend with family — something I was very sorry to miss despite being a crazy introvert. The last time we were together with his family, I learned that Sam is an exceedingly good foam-lightsaber warrior who could take on both a 5- and 8-year-old at the same time, deflecting their blows and landing swats on their behinds while cackling like a drunk Sith Lord, much to the squealing delight of our energetic nephews. I was bummed to miss the repeat of this, and to see how our mini-Sith Lords had improved their lightsaber skills.

I cut off food and water at about 6 p.m. the night before the competition, and at 7:30 a.m. on meet day I was at 158lbs. (For easy reference, 72kg is 158.7lbs.) This was on my own scale, so I headed down to the weigh-in area to double check my weight on the weigh-in scale. Everything looked good. Sioux-z was already there with another lifter who would be competing in the first session. We had a good time catching up and sharing stories of decision-making around weigh-ins. One great piece of advice from Sioux-z: If you are going to be in a close competition for a championship, you don’t want to lose because you were too shy to ditch your undies in weigh-ins. Jog bras are heavy! Your weight will be taken into consideration if there is a tie, so that extra ounce of panty might be the thing that puts you in second place.

At her recommendation, I stripped down and hopped on the real scale to see where I was at: 71.6kg. “Go eat something,” she told me. “Don’t go crazy, but go eat.” As I’ve mentioned, one of my favorite things about powerlifting is not having to make decisions. This is my venue to just do as I’m told. I went in search of coffee and a Powerbar. I also found that I was very anxious about eating said Powerbar and coffee. Standing on a scale with both items in my hands and seeing that the scale stayed below 72kg did not reassure me. This was my first lesson of the meet: I was so used to not eating or drinking before a weigh-in that trying to fuel up early was a stressor. I was going to have to get some coaching from Kristin before Raw Nationals on this point.

Bench Press Nationals was run extremely well. The warm-up area was large, with plenty of racks, and everything was running smoothly. The only downside was that my flight was very large (17 people). I wondered how I would respond to having that long between lifts. This was not anxiety producing, though, because of my mutant bench. I did my best to stay warm — for example, I kept my warm-up clothes on until I was third up for the platform — but I wondered if there were other things I should have done. Given the length of my wait, maybe a few between-lift push-ups might have been a good idea.

Before I headed out to the platform, Sioux-z told me that the gentleman doing the lift-offs, Eric Curry, gave the best lift-offs in the history of powerlifting. Cool! He came over before my first lift while the bar was being loaded to find out what my “I’m ready signal” was, and his positive spirit and energy just radiated. 

My first lift, 209lbs, was totally solid. Sioux-z nodded and said, “We stick with the plan.”

During my second lift, 225lbs, the eccentric discomfort was definitely present. It still moved really well.

The weight for my third lift felt interminable. I wanted to get back out there and could feel some of my energy waning, and a little concern settled in. I tried to keep moving to keep my blood flowing, and in retrospect with that long of a weight, I really do think some push-ups would have been smart.

I headed out for the third lift, and Eric said a few positive words. I got the start command, brought the bar down somewhat awkwardly to my chest, and upon getting the press command, I chicken-winged my elbows out and barely moved the bar off my chest. The judge yelled, “Take it!” before I was totally pinned. Later Sam would tell me that it almost looked like I was unbalanced on the descent. Sioux-z also said that the bar looked weird on the descent, and she was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make the lift when she saw that.

I was marginally disappointed, but mostly because I had expected to fail much farther off my chest, at my normal sticking point. I knew I really must have done something wacky, but at the time, I couldn’t have told you that I suck my elbows out like a startled hen to initiate the movement.

After the competition, I saw Eric, who was chatting with someone, and I interrupted briefly to thank him for such good lift offs. He cut his conversation short and told his companion that he’d catch him later.

“Can I show you something?” he asked.

“Absolutely!” I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I over the years I had occasionally had interactions with coaches out of the blue that had delivered game-changing technique advice.

“Ok, let’s do bench press 101.” He walked me over to a wall and had me stand up against it. “Now set up like you are going to bench press.” He pressed his hands against mine, walked his feet back, and said, “Now bench press me.”

Part of my brain was saying, “This is and odd interaction,” I thought, but the Empress kicked Miss Uptight Social Norms in the shin and hissed, “You are about to learn something important so zip it, Miss Priss!”

I bench pressed Eric a few times.

“Ok, now we’re going to do this my way.” He repositioned my elbows dramatically closer to my sides and put his palms against mine. “Now bench press me.”

It felt like he had suddenly lost 50 pounds. I felt my lats engage in a way that they never had before.

“That’s bench pressing 101,” Eric grinned at me. “Your shoulder muscles really aren’t designed to lift as much as we do, which is why benching your way isn’t going to work.,” he explained.

I was blown away. Plenty of people, Sam included, had told me to try to tuck my elbows in while benching, but it always felt horrible. The problem was that I was trying to twist my elbows in rather than engage my lower lats and draw the bar down into my chest. Thanks to Paulie Steinman, I had learned at NAPF that I did need to retract my shoulder blades, and I had been doing that leading up to and at Bench Nationals, which made benching hurt less. But I hadn’t yet made the link to retracting and engaging my lower lats as a way to keep my elbows closer to my body so that I could use them to steady the bar on the way down and use their help to push the bar off my body.

Having Eric give me these cues kinesthetically rather than just using words, like “tuck your elbows in,” finally helped me feel what I was missing. It was a total game-changer.

When I got back to Pittsburgh I was extremely excited to start practicing this new form. And wouldn’t you know — bench press stopped hurting. Holy game-changing-amazing cues!!! I’m still working on executing this form well on every lift, but that’s part of the learning process: When you add a new movement to your process you have to practice practice practice to turn it into muscle memory. It takes more focus and concentration, but that is making bench press more fun right now. I get to learn!

There’s one final observation from this experience that is worth spending a few more words on. I was lucky in this competition to have an opportunity to go for a heavy lift knowing it wouldn’t put my standing in jeopardy. But there are other reasons I might not have done that — if I felt embarrassed about failing a lift in front of a crowd, I might have been more conservative in my lift selection, and I might have made the lift. If I hadn’t failed so dramatically, I never would have had that conversation with Eric. My bench press would still be painful, I would have continued to increase my risk of getting injured before Raw Nationals, and I might not have made any progress.

Now my bench doesn’t hurt, it feels more powerful, and I feel both my lats and my legs contributing in a way they weren’t before. We’ll see how things go — sometimes form changes take longer than we would like to translate into more weight — but I am excited to see what comes of this.

Failure was a requirement for improvement. Imperfection was needed for growth. Failure is not to be feared. Instead we need to look at it as a vector for change, growth, and giant gainz!