Meet Recap - Claire Wardlaw, USAPL Massachusetts Ladies of Iron 5/4/2024

Eric Andrews
May 16, 2024
7 min read

Weigh-In, Goals and Performance

This meet was special for Claire. Her last sanctioned meet was almost a year and a half ago, and she was a bit sick at the time and didn’t have her best performance. Claire and I started working together in the fall and after a pretty short 7 week prep competed at a fun meet held at our gym (LFOD shoutout!) to get an idea of where she was at and to see what we needed to work on going forward. We switched to heels to help work on squat depth, we continued to build on bench, and we did our best to work through some chronic back pain issues - and I think we made a lot of great progress during the prep leading up to Ladies of Iron.

Prepping for this meet, our main goal was to hit some PRs on at least squat and bench - like I said on squat I think we found a pretty solid cycle that led to consistent chips being added. And likewise on the bench, Claire was thriving with high rep bench work and we pretty much ran 6s-8s right up until the meet. So we were confident we would be taking PRs on those lifts at least. On deadlift we knew we would take what was there on the day, but really give it our all on the last pull to end on a high note. Overall we just wanted to beat her last sanctioned meet total and again, baseline training and keep building! Weighing in went great - Claire is diligent about tracking and knowing what fuel works best for her body and training. She weighed in at 67.2kg coming just in under the 67.5kg class, also her lowest body weight at any meet so far.

Squat

Going into squat, I will not lie - Claire and I had a chat about being so nervous about depth, about squats in general. My words of wisdom in this moment was, I have done 10 (full power) meets and I still get nervous about my first squat! It’s a normal thing to be excited & a little anxious about things we put a lot of time and effort into, it means you care. What you have to do in the warm up room and as you get ready to go out there for your opener is - remember all the squats you’ve done in training. Trust yourself and all the hard work that you’ve done to get to this point. Meets are, in my opinion, not just a time to test your PRs but also train your confidence & train your mentality. You don’t get the opportunity to do meets every weekend, so it’s important to use meets as a critical point to learn more about yourself, and also to hone your mental skills as well.

So gameplan for squats, open heavy enough to take a PR on the second attempt and then swing for the fences on the third for a big PR and build momentum for the day. We opened at 110kg which is a comfortable weight for Claire, hitting this several times in training for warmups and we were confident about this attempt. Gameplan is a go - we jump 5kg to 115kg on the second attempt. This attempt actually flew! I think once the jitters were out after the first attempt, Claire was ready to go. This attempt was a 2.5kg meet PR for her, so we decided to play it smart and just go for another 5kg jump to the third for 120kg. Claire goes out there, the breakdown to “Counting Worms” plays at the perfect time on the start command - and she smashes it. Squat was 3 white lights and she probably had another 2.5kg in the tank. However, locking in a 7.5kg meet PR at an all time low bodyweight, going 3/3, are all big time goals that we were pumped about. Day is off to a hot start!

Bench

Onto bench, we were riding high! Here our plan was to go for a PR on the third attempt, but just how much we would determine based on the competition pauses and how things were moving. Warmups were looking good overall and we had our last warmup at 55kg. Opening at 60kg, no concerns with this weight, Claire has hit this in training many times and is confident with it. Pause was solid, press was fast - we elected to go up 5kg to 65kg which would set us up to either tie or beat her meet PR on her third. On this attempt, Claire let me know the bench was a little slippery and getting a handoff would probably help her. I said go for it, just tell the spotter exactly what you need. Definitely some pros and cons of getting a handoff, I think it helped though in this scenario but did make getting the start command just a little bit longer. However she hit her second attempt with little issue, the pause was pretty long but speed off her chest was great and lockout was solid. We decided to make another 5kg jump based off how fast the actual press was. 70kg would be a 2.5kg meet PR, so we were excited about taking another PR for the day. Same deal as the second attempt, goes out, gets the handoff, takes it down, gets the press command and the bar doesn’t budge off her chest. She got up and we both kind of looked at each other and just laughed. I think we both said “hahah uhm what happened?” After giggling for a bit, we went and watched a video of the attempt and could see that pretty much immediately on her press she flared her elbows and just lost positioning. (Don’t come for me in the comments, flaring IS GOOD on bench, but the timing has to be correct, and at maximal weights, if you mistime it you get to be at a huge disadvantage.) Although a little disappointing to miss the PR, Claire said that the weight felt great in her hands, she was confident about it but just missed on a technical error. We know what we’ll be doing for training going forward, hitting more lats and more importantly moving her grip in just a little bit. Still 2/3 on bench, and we took a swing at the PR, more to come!

Deadlift

Finally onto deadlifts. Just three lifts to go to wrap up Claire’s first meet in over a year. She let me know she was running out of gas a bit, so we made sure to stay hydrated, drink some more Celsius, have a little snack and go out and finish strong. As mentioned, Claire’s deadlift training has definitely been tricky. She’s had back pain for a long time - since she played sports growing up basically. So our challenge was to balance squat training which was going very well, and push intensity for deadlift at the same time. Claire has pretty long legs and a shorter torso, making her leverages for deadlift a bit difficult considering how far she has to pull (trust me on this one, short arm and long leg lifter here, deadlift is a challenge). To be transparent, I had issues trying to find the right balance of volume and intensity needed to push deadlift forward. I was hoping that squat would help push deadlift forward, but that didn’t really pan out. Going into our next prep and off-season, we’ll work through different strategies to see what kind of deadlift split is needed to get this lift some momentum and moving forward.

All that to say - deadlifts at the meet did actually go pretty well! We didn’t hit a PR, but we did go 3/3. 115kg opener, 120kg second attempt, and a small jump to 122.5kg third attempt to secure the 8/9 day and to finish on a high note. The last deadlift was definitely tough - not an all out grinder but I don’t think we had another 5kg, so I am pleased with the overall attempt selection.

Closing Thoughts & The Future

I mentioned at the start that this was a special meet for Claire because this was her first meet back in over a year. But it was also a special meet for some personal reasons as well. Claire got engaged on April 8th - the eclipse day! If you have lifted in the New England area you know her fiance, Steven, (Stev, Shmevron) and surprised her on the eclipse day with a beautiful engagement. Then the next bit is heart wrenching and tragic…and hard to put into words. I cannot express fully in this post so I would encourage you to read Stev’s own post on this but, the day after they got back from Vermont and their engagement trip they learned that Stev’s mother was not doing well. It goes without saying that training during this period is challenging to say the least. Balancing trips to the hospital, work, eating and sleeping enough, just 4 weeks out from the meet is a lot for anyone to take on. Five days later, Stev’s mother had passed. Needless to say, training was not the primary focus at this time - supporting Stev and the family was all that mattered. To bring this full circle, to say that Claire held strong, supported her new fiance through a very difficult time, still got in training days when we could and peaked for the meet, is an incredible accomplishment. Just being at the meet, being present and focused, competing to the highest standard, was amazing. To say I am proud of Claire and her resolve would be an understatement. Claire is a wonderful teammate & friend and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for her. We are still just getting started with training together and we are both fired up about changes we are going to make and moving forward. Until next time…#TheRisingTide