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| Dave with a warm up set on the bench |
On Saturday 31st March 2012 the CrossFit Connect crew headed along to the new-ish lifting gym in Hove called '
Max Strength' for an Open Powerlifting competition.
It was a bit of a last minute thing as Ash, a Connect regular and editor of
Brighton Active magazine mentioned it to us on the Thursday beforehand. Always being up for a bit of a challenge, myself, Ash and Lina went along to see what we could score on the combined powerlifting exercises; The Squat, The Deadlift and the Bench Press. You were given three attempts to reach your single rep max lift in each of the exercises. The ladies competed in a max rep push up competition rather than the Bench Press. This was then calculated as a ratio of your bodyweight to give you a final score and standing. So this meant your power to weight ratio was the all important factor!
The Squat:
A single lift with a barbell across your shoulders. You lowered down to a parallel thigh position, resting on a box for a brief pause before driving back up to standing. These are considerably harder than a regular 'non-box' squat!
The Deadlift:
Lifting a bar from the floor to a fully upright, open hip standing position
The Bench Press:
Taking the bar down to the chest, pausing for a brief second before driving back up and locking the elbows out.
Max Rep Press Ups:
These were CrossFit Games rules press ups, or hand-release press ups, where upon lowering fully to the floor you lifted both hands up off the floor (to ensure everybody works to the same level) and then pushed yourself back upwards keeping the hips and shoulders level. As soon as the hips followed behind the shoulders the test was over.
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| Ash getting spicy with the deadlifts! |
It was a great event and thank you to
Sergei and
Matt for hosting it and welcoming us to their gym. They have a great set up and with their great coaching there will be some serious lifting going on over the summer! Its always nice to meet fellow local business's who are into the same sorts as thing as us and I'm sure we'll get together to arrange some events in due course.
When the results were published today it was a real buzz to see that myself and Lina topped the mens and womens tables with Ash coming in a very healthy 3rd place too! What a result! None of us have ever done anything like this before and it was actually a really nice change of pace to the usual brutal CrossFit WODs and competitions!! I could see myself getting into it a bit more and joining my friend James Leaver who is the current British Powerlifting champion for the 85kg division! However, i think i may have to brush up on my squat a bit more first! haha!
Here are the final standings:
Guys:
1st place - David Draper - Cross Fit Connect
2nd place - Tom Michell - Max Strength
3rd place - Ash Phelps - Brighton Active
4th place - Doug Klein - Max Strength
5th place - Terence Hoad - Max Strength
6th place - Nick Browse - Max Strength
7th place - Dave Hill - Max Strength
Girls:
1st place - Lina Duseviciene - Cross Fit Connect
2nd place - Tegan Simmonds - Max Strength
3rd place - Julie Pope - Cross Fit Hove
4th place - Katja Harjanne - Cross Fit Hove
5th place - Louise Richardson - Max Strength
6th place - Sarah Chappell - Max Strength
7th place - Claudia Grillo - Max Strength
8th place - Tabetha Michell - Max Strength
9th place - Roberta Di Biagi - Max Strength
10th place - Tricia Bryant - Max Strength
11th place - Despina Christofis
12th/13th place - Becca Fenton / Claire Lawler
Girls - Queen of press ups
Winner - Lina Duseviciene - Cross Fit Connect - 28 reps
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| Lina getting ready to drive back up to standing. |
Our Lifts:
Dave (80kg bodyweight) - 120kg Box Squat
- 190kg Deadlift
- 125kg Bench Press
Ash (81kg bodyweight) - 110kg Box Squat
- 185kg Deadlift
- 100kg Bench Press
Lina (71kg bodyweight) - 97.5kg Box Squat
- 130kg Deadlift
- 28 reps - Hand Release Press Ups
In a similar vein we have the first
BWLA lift competition coming up soon. This is free to enter and will again be a 1 rep max lift based on bodyweight. You will then be ranked nationally amongst people from all over the country. They will be doing the main lifts throughout the year and first up is the Bench Press. You need to register your lift
here by the end of April. Ask us for more details...and get benching!
For more information on CrossFit Connect, our facilities and to see why so many people are flocking to CrossFit give us a call on the numbers to the right or see our
website for more details.
(All photos by Nerijus Dusevicius - get in touch with us if you have a sports event you would like photographed.)
