Flip flopped results

Oh my! The day couldn't have turned out on a more opposite end of the spectrum than I had planned!
My bench press was not at all good yesterday - I'll get to the reasons (ok, excuses, but there are some valid) that possibly may have shot it all to heck in a bit.
I opened with 250 (RAW, of course - ). I actually backed that number down from the 275 I was going to open with. I did get it, no problems.
Next -280 miss
Next -305 -miss.
Now mind you, I've been benching a good 315 for one or two good pause reps for a couple of months now...so what happened???? I was good for a double body weight a couple of weeks ago....so what in the heck happened????? WTF???

My nerves eat up part of my energy, for sure, and boy, did I over analyze this one from the get go, and they had those damned weights that are rubber with three large holes in them. Not good for foot plates, let me tell you! Broderick and I talked on the way home. If you have ever read my training blog you have read my mentioning about it -I've suffered what I thought were primarily back problems for a long time, several years. I go to the chiropractor a minimum of once every three weeks, sometimes every week, sometimes more than once a week. But about a month or more ago Broderick, who you might know has a degree in biology, poked around on me, after I have whined so heavily about my back and hip being non-stop sore and sometimes downright painful or the past 3 months. He said I know what your problem is. It's your hip, not your back, not your spine. So he has been yanking on my leg about once a week, trying to unjam my hip. This past week, lo and behold, I think it was Wednesday, he finally popped that thing out. I stood up straight, really straight for the first time in several years, probably. The pain has been incredibly lessend, I have been so thankful and happy. Anyway, where I'm taking you with this, is that we both think that it took my body into a whole different line than I am used to, hence the groove that I am used to, is no more. I have to find a new groove again. Sounds quirky, but most likely true. That's a 70 pound dropon my bench. I was on line to set a world record. I was not pleased with my performance. It baffled me much, but as I kept going back and reliving it in my head, there is nothing that I can pick out that I did wrong. It just didn't work right....I have to go back and relearn a groove again on the bench. I guess life could be worse, but this was not what any of us had envisioned!

HOWEVER...and thank goodness there is a however...I decided at the very last minute to deadlift. I mean about 15 minutes prior to deadlift warmups. The meet director let me go in as the "guest deadlifter", and he should have, because I brought the bench bar, I brought my lightbox, and I brought some other things he used. (Thank goodness for me, huh? )I had no expectations, especially since my deadlift has been quite depressing lately in the gym. I didn't sign up to deadlift initially because my deadlift has just plain SUCKED since November. My best on the competition platform until yesterday had been 400 (raw). Yesterday I started light, and didn't really plan on doing much in the way of numbers, because of how it has been going in the gym lately. I wasn't even thinking of deadlifting until the very moment I decided to. I went 335 - 385 - 410. I went ahead and took a fourth attempt, for a PR and a state record and I pulled an easy 430. I should have and could have done a 450, anybody who saw it will tell you that, but who woulda thunk after that terrible bench performance? Who woulda thunk after months of wrestling with my deadlift in the gym???

The now aligned hip probably helped my deadlift as much as it hindered my bench.

After I decided to deadlift, I realized that I had no flat shoes to deadlift in, I looked around the gym, to see if I could find somebody with about my size feet in a flat pair of shoes. This pretty woman, who had come up to me and admired me earlier, was watching, and she had on flat shoes, actually short flat boots, cool ones too, that laced up. I asked her what size her shoes were, and she let me try on the shoes. They fit and she let me wear them. After the deadlifting I ran over to her and told her there must have been magic in her shoes, and thanked her. Can you believe that she actually GAVE me her shoes? So I came home with these really cool shoe-boots that I just love!

All in all - 2 good points over one bad. I guess I win.