Meet Recap - Hannah Mclachlin, Powerlifting America Cooperative New England State Champs 7/18/2024

Weigh-In, Goals and Performance

This is Hannah and I’s first competition together and safe to say…we had a blast! Hannah started with me in December of 2023, so about 6 months of training together under our belt. This is also her second meet overall, her first being an unsanctioned club meet at our gym. So a big focus on our training was the basics, hitting depth, good pauses on bench, learning the different commands, and adapting to the Ohio power bar on all three lifts. So goals for the meet were really leaning into that - having fun at her first big meet, following the commands, and we were also looking at some solid PR attempts on squat and bench, so I knew it was going to be a fun day. Hannah weighed in at 67kg on the dot, slightly under the 69kg weight class in IPF, so no issues there. With the background out of the way, let’s jump into the action!

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Squat ( 2/3 - 122.5kg 8lb PR)

For squat, I think this was the lift I was most excited about and I think maybe the one Hannah was most nervous about! Training had been going extremely well for squat, in May taking 115kg for a double at about an RPE9. This was 10lbs over her current ATPR for a single so…things were definitely looking great. We then transitioned to singles and focused on making sure depth is solid and building the confidence for meet day. I think we could have pushed doubles a bit longer though, as singles performance wasn’t quite what I expected. I think squat could have benefited a bit more from keeping the doubles and adding in a fatigue single afterwards to still get that practice, so noting that down for next meet prep!

In terms of attempt selection - keeping things pretty standard here. Warmups were moving great, knee sleeves are on, (even with the humidity which we were a little worried about) so we are off to the races. Opening with 110kg/242lbs which is just shy of her current PR, and as expected this moved great. Took our middle jump of 5kg to 115kg/253lbs to secure a solid PR and see what would be there on the day. This was a good attempt and it moved better than the first (we’ve all been there, meet day jitters, you get the first squat out of the way and you suddenly feel 10x better!) We had a quick chat and decided to take the bigger jump on the 3rd based on how the second moved and taking as much as we could on the day. Going up to 122.5kg/270lbs on her third attempt, which is 10lbs more than anything she has even attempted in training so this is where things get real. She quite literally RUNS out to the bar as soon as she hears “bar is loaded”, she’s hyped up, crowd quiets down a bit as she’s unracking and walking out, I’m shouting “LISTEN!!!!!!!!” in the background…and Hannah lights up this squat attempt. It moved so well I frankly couldn’t believe there was 122.5kg on the bar. However unfortunately the call was 1-2 due to her excitement and jumping the rack command. The rack command claims another…but I am still pumped with this attempt and selection. This would have been a 25lb meet PR but it’s all good, still walking away with a PR and we know even more will be there at the next one!

Bench ( 2/3 - 65kg 8lb PR)

Onto bench, we had a little wind taken out of our sails with the unfortunate miss on the last squat but that has never stopped us before. Hannah’s bench has stayed loyal during training and she hit 145lbs in June so I was confident at least that would be there for the day, which would be another PR on the belt. So our goal was somewhere in the 65-70kg range for the day. Our biggest hurdle in training was confidence at 135 - I think Hannah is certainly not alone in this, when you see the big plate on the bar, immediate anxiousness kicks in. 130, 132.5, would be flying, but as soon as we hit 135 things would go a little sideways with pauses and singles would be inconsistent. So we decided to take a little break from pushing singles in April/May but then coming back in June she was primed and ready to tackle these weights again with new confidence that she had spent time getting stronger and it paid off in training.

So as far as meet day goes with attempts, we made sure to keep things easy on the opener so she could hear all three commands, we didn’t want a repeat of squats! 60kg/132lbs moved great, pause was a little longer than we typically practice with but 3 whites here. Coming back from the attempt, I told Hannah that we need to make sure the bar is completely still to get the press command. She is definitely a fidgety lifter, and has a little bit of the wobble on the bottom of the bench, so something we will be looking at in future blocks. But for now, we went up 5kg to 65kg/143lbs to match just about what she hit in training. This was definitely a bit of a fight, press command was faster this time (but had a different issue) and we had a little flare through the middle but got the lift regardless. On this attempt her descent was way better except for the last inch or so, in an effort to stop the bar better the last inch was very slow compared to the rest of the lift. Another thing we’ll work on in training! So with this being difficult we elected to still take a 3rd but just going with the 2.5kg jump to 67.5kg/148lbs. This was a valiant effort, and I respect the confidence and taking this one in stride, she fought for it, cleaned up the technical things from before but just wasn’t there on the day. Still walking away with a PR and onto deadlifts to wrap up the day.

Deadlift ( 3/3 - 125kg PR tie)

Oh deadlifts…a love hate relationship recently. Getting started with Hannah, I think a lot of our focus went into squat and bench, as I feel like those are the more complicated lifts and require the most thinking when it comes to programming, technique, and the commands for meet day to train to competition standard. Obviously deadlift has it’s own quirks too, and coming from a Kabuki deadlift bar, it poses it’s own challenges in programming. Just a quick view into my philosophy, with conventional pullers I don’t think you need a ton of volume on deadlift specifically, you need strong quads, a strong posterior chain, and a strong upper back. A lot of these things can come from programming accessories correctly and keeping deadlift volume/intensity a bit lower…for most people. I think I’ve mentioned this before on past meet recaps but deadlift programming is my weak point as a coach. I’ve read and watched lots of videos and am still learning and I think that shows with Hannah’s deadlift the most. However I would also say not all hope is lost! As mentioned before, Hannah competed in a non-sanctioned gym meet where they trained on various deadlift bars which all have considerably more flex than the stiff bars. So in our training, moving to the stiff bar was definitely an obstacle but also proved to be a good milestone. Her meet PR was 275lbs on the Kabuki bar so my goal for deadlift at this meet was to match that on a stiff bar. If that happened and with the PRs on squat and bench, it would still be a great total PR on the day.

And that is exactly what we did! Attempts were opener at 115kg, 3 whites, 120kg second attempt, 3 whites and to top it off, 125kg 3 whites and the fastest this has ever moved. After her second attempt I wanted to confirm, “do you want to take the safe call or go for the PR match?” and she said “I can do 10lbs.” and locked in. I want to say adrenaline played a big part in this today and I knew that Hannah wanted this lift more than anything else. I told her she needs to just keep on pulling, it’s going to slow down at your knees but keep going and she has the speed to lock it out. We had made a small technique adjustment a couple weeks out to keep her head a bit more neutral and this actually paid off wonderfully. Hitting your 3rd deadlift is the best feeling especially after missing your last squat and bench so Hannah was ecstatic. This also meant that the pressure was on one of our competitors to hit their third deadlift as well, we were in a pretty close battle for second! We waited to see what the outcome would be, and they put up a fight! They got it up, hitched a bit but locked it out and my eyes were on the screen…1-2 red lights and second place was ours, what a fantastic way to end the day.

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Closing Thoughts & The Future

In summary, we definitely had plenty of ups and downs as we learned what worked and didn’t for training, and we certainly still have a lot to uncover, but I am excited to keep things rolling. I think we’re on the right track for squats, and I have some ideas on what to incorporate like a tempo bench and new accessories to try for deadlift to get things moving. Overall I am incredibly proud to have Hannah on the team and her performance on a real meet stage was excellent. If you know Hannah, you know she works hard in and out of the gym, most days getting over 20k steps through her job. We’ve already been discussing future meet plans and I can safely say this is far from the last meet for Hannah, she’s got big goals and I’m excited to get after them. Until next time…#TheRisingTide