Today it’s just four weeks to the British Para-powerlifting Championships, and I’m getting to that point where I veer between terror and delight. Both come with a helping of butterflies. I love competing, even when it twists me inside out. It will be my fourth British, but this is the first time I need to aim for more that “just doing better than last time” in order to qualify.
My training has been through a huge upheaval this spring, because of work and family circumstances. I’m still playing catch up on two months of lost training, lost sleep, and the huge surges of stress and grief, so I’ve got more thinking going on that I should by now. Going into this final block I should be locking in the confidence of the strength that I’ve built, rather than playing catch up.
Instead, my training is going through an almost inevitable stupid patch, as I make an almost endless series of mistakes: forgetting how to breathe, losing tightness, lifting my bum, failing to fire my lats… The works. Including the worst mistake of then beating myself up about it. Which is why this 71kg double is slow, soggy, and uneven. And followed by grimacing and grumbling.
This is not the first time this has happened–when I hit a “whoops, I forgot how to bench” patch a few weeks out.
Time to turn off the over-thinking brain, and kick start the technique machine again. Looking forward to the next cycle of work to get back to smooth automatic flow, and the straight up joy of shifting weight.
Because the strength is there–if I can press out doubles at 71kg with all those mistakes going on at once, I can turn that fretting off, and get back to working with more confidence. Next week has a couple of all-tech-all-the-time sessions, which are probably just what I need to lock it back down.