2010 DE Summer Special Olympics

I was honored once again to partake in the Special Olympics this year, acting as judge for the powerlifting as I have done for the past 3 years. This year was extra special as I took on the task of coaching one of the athletes. Robert Smith is his name, he is from Oceanview, Delaware, and he had a great day on the platform. Robert hit PR's in both the bench, by 15 lbs. and the deadlift, by 5 lbs. He benched 115 and deadlifted 205! Congratulations Robert - you worked hard and your medals were well earned.

Me, Robert with his 2 bronze medals, Mike - director of the SODE Powerlifting, and Ann Smith (Robert's mom).

Here I am spraying my friend Jon Stoklosa's mohawk purple for him! He sprays it a different color each time he competes.

Jon after completeing a big 370 bench. Jon is going to the National Special Olympics next month, as well as my friend David Hill, also a powerlifter, and Forrie Brown - basketball.

Bring home the medals fellas!!!

I weighed in at 164.6 the other day. I'm told I look bigger than that, but no, that's all. I attribute it to all the different techniques I've used over the past year, both in training and diet. I imagine my diet, should I continue on to the Nationals (remember, for the record - I have NOT commited yet) would begin sometime next month - YIKES!!! Though with about 25 lbs to lose I am wayyyyyyyyyy ahead of where I was last year, when I lost a total of 41.

My arm is doing quite well after training last week. I will add a little bit more weight each workout, but no huge weights for me for a while to come. :( I was doing some cardio over the weeks that I could not train, but now that I am training again with weights, I must stop the cardio, as it is causing me to become terribly overtrained. My legs hurt so much I couldn't squat the other night and had to train them extremely light. Hah! Most people pick up thier cardio on contest prep - I have to curtail it...lol...whatever!!!

Update

Update on the bicep tear: I fiinally went back to training my upper body last night. 10 whole weeks of curbside...it was tough on the old mindset, but I made it through. I only benched 135 last night, 20 to 15 rep sets on those and everything else, nothing to failure. Now comes the really hard part - reigning myself in each and every workout for awhile to come. Obviously I won't be hoisting anything substantial for awhile, so the plan is to resume training in a full bodybuilding type mode. Sets of reps, and volume, pumping blood through the tissues.

Gary feels that I can be ready for the Nationals should I choose to compete, but as I was off for so long and didn't gain the size like I had wanted, the most rational way to go about it would be to come in as a lightheavyweight, on the very upper end of the scale. I haven't withered, miraculously, but most of the heavies are taller, or structured to appear larger, so I think that he may be right. I am very much leaning toward doing just this, but I shall keep you posted. The next few weeks will tell the tale so long as my arm holds up and I take it slow and easy.

Here is a photo from last year's Masters Nationals that shows how incredibly dry and hard I was!