Meet Recap – Socal Barbell Virus Competition
This past Saturday, April 29, the Invictus Weightlifting Team traveled up to Costa Mesa and competed at Socal Barbell’s Virus-sponsored Olympic Weightlifting competition. They kept space limited because all entrants were given a Virus singlet with their entry!
Invictus Athletes Competing
Leslie Pester
Katie Ditomasso
Brie Blackstock
Ashlie Pankonin
Jason Scoville
Nairobi Romero
Leslie Pester
Leslie wasn’t feeling great, but she showed up and did well. She ended up hitting 1 kg below her competition PR. On her 3rd (and final) clean & jerk attempt, she successfully cleaned and jerked the weight, but the judges red-lighted her, and the lift didn’t count. If that lift had counted, she would have qualified for Master’s World Championships! Total bummer for many reasons, one of them being that this was Leslie’s last competition as an in-house Invictus member. She is moving next month and will be greatly missed.
Katie Ditomasso
It was Katie’s first competition. My goal for an athlete’s first competition is to get them a total. A total is one successful snatch + one successful clean and jerk. Athletes get three attempts at each. Three snatches, and then three clean and jerks. Katie when 2 out of 3 on snatch, tying her gym PR, and went 1 for 3 on clean and jerk. She made all three clean and jerks but was red-lighted for elbow bends. Overall, I am proud of her performance. I think she had fun and wants to compete again.
Brie Blackstock
This was Brie’s second competition. Last year, in August, was her first competition. She totaled 95 kg. Fast forward to today, 8 months later, and Brie was set at this competition to achieve a 115 kg total, which would qualify her for the American Open, an international competition held twice a year, usually in Canada or the United States. Brie hit her snatch opener at 50 kg, missed her next lift at 54 kg, and we went up to 55 kg and she hit her third attempt for a PR! For clean and jerk, she needed 60 kg to achieve 115 kg. First attempt at 60 kg, was a miss. Second attempt, a make! This qualified her!! Third attempt, 62 kg, a PR, made the lift but was red-lighted for elbow bend. Overall a very successful day for Brie. In December of 2021 when she began attending OLY class, very early on she set her goal to qualify for the American Open. here we are a year and a half later, and she finally reached her goal. She also improved her total by 20 kg (44 lbs) in the last 8 months. That’s an improvement of 5.5 pounds a month across two lifts, so 2 lbs/month for snatch and 3.5 lbs/month for clean and jerk. She is a fan of the 1 lb plates. Don’t be scared of the 1 lb plates.
Ashlie Pankonin
Ashlie Pankonin has been healing from a nagging knee injury that has plagued her for many years. We had reduced her training volume and intensity considerably over the past year and a half while giving her rehab exercises to mitigate the pain, and it worked slowly until she teamed up with Rehab United. Over the past few months, she has made rapid progress and now has almost no knee pain. Going into this competition, Ashlie had already qualified for the American Open Finals, the top athletes from the American Open, and she had a goal of hitting 185 kg, the qualifying total for the US National Championships. She has only been in Olympic Weightlifting for a little over three years, so to accomplish this feat would be amazing on such a short time scale. During the competition, she opened at 80 kg and blew it away, tying her old PR. Next, 82 kg, missed behind. That’s always a sign to a coach to add another kilo or two, and we went up to 83 kg. A make! But red-lighted for elbow bend. Ahh, those darned judges. That was a lifetime best snatch for her, and it looked easy. Damn, elbow. For the clean and jerk, we put 105 kg on the bar, 5 kg heavier than she had ever lifted before (and she had only hit 100 kg once in her life, previous PR was 98 kg), and she was all out of adrenaline. Missed all three lifts. That’s ok, though. I’m proud of her effort, as always. We now have five straight months to train before the next round of the American Open. In that time, I plan to steadily build back up her training volume and intensity. She will lift more than ever before! Also, a special thank you to rehab united Physical Therapists, Alexis Valle, and Alex Gibson, who traveled all the way up to Costa Mesa and spent half their Saturday helping prepare Ashlie for this competition!
Jason Scoville
Jason Scoville’s first competition was also last August in the Pacific Barbell Summer Classic. This was his second competition. His current gym PRs are way above his competition PRs, so today’s goal was to go out and set some new competition PRs. He hit 59 kg on his first attempt, missed 63 kg on his second lift, and made his third attempt at 65 kg! That was a massive competition PR. Next, he opened at 79 kg for his clean & jerk. Nailed the first lift, and missed his next two. Overall, a new competition PR! And a great showing for him. I’m excited for his future in this sport.
Nairobi Romero
Nairobi had an amazing competition! She took first place with a 3 kg increase on her all-time competition total. She hit an 82 kg (180 lb) snatch and a 109 kg (240 lb) clean and jerk. Moving forward Nairobi is continuing to prep for Nationals with the support of her Invictus family.
Final Takeaways
Afterthoughts. We got called for many elbow misses. There are a few reasons for this. One, the athletes need to learn how to push under their jerks. It’s not a “throw bar up with the hips/legs and then catch with the arms”. It’s more like a push press – constant upwards tension on the barbell while pushing DOWNWARDS as the legs move into the split receiving position. I plan to program more lock-out specific strength tasks in the upcoming cycle, as well as tricep strengthening. Thoracic extension, scapular rotation, and shoulder mobility/stability also play a crucial role here, so more drills challenge those joints and tissues. And of course, all of those joints are connected to the hips, so if an athlete’s hips don’t move well, then those restrictions travel up the kinetic chain of bones, tissues, and joints to the upper back and shoulders, restricting the requisite range of motion and stability. So add that to the list, too. Just like CrossFit, Olympic Weightlifting is “shoulders and hips day” every damn day. Buckle up. We have work to do.