Congrats to IFAST Client, Charles Beasley!

A couple of weeks ago, IFAST client and overall guy-o-awesomeness, Charles Beasley traveled to Texas and competed like a BOSS and broke THREE National Records!

Way to go, Charles; we couldn’t be more proud!

Here are Charles’ notes on his training and experience:

My training for the 2013 NASA (sanctioning federation) Submasters-Masters (lifters 30 years old and older) Nationals Meet began July 5^th following my last competition on June 29^th. My squat-deadlift training is fairly close to conventional Westside training (conjugate or concurrent) with a few slight differences I’ll detail below but as I am dealing with a significant right rotator cuff partial tear sustained in November 2012 my bench press training is significantly different from Westside. This is combined with Bill’s great prehabilitative-rehabilitative program intended to correct postural imbalances, specific muscle weaknesses, and minimize / prevent injuries. There is cardio work twice a weak (not helpful for my lifting but good for my health at 63).

Two major differences in my training from conventional Westside are that, given my level, I believe that I can both perform a squatting exercise and a pulling exercise (very low volume for the pulls) on my heavy squat-deadlift day and I train goodmornings as an assistance exercise. Additionally, I think I benefit from heavy triples and fives. So, my first 7 weeks were squats and deadlifts on Tuesdays and Fridays working up to a maximum for 3 sets of 3 in the squat and up to a submaximal single set of 3 in the deadlift on Tuesday. On Fridays deadlifts were first up to the maximal 3 sets of 3 and up to a single submaximal set of 3 in the squat. Poundages were pushed up about 10 pounds per week. Squats-deadlifts were followed by 2 assistance exercises – leg presses in sets of 10 both days and reverse hyperextensions on 1 day and ham-glute raises on the other, reverse-hypers in sets of 10 and ham-glute raises in maximum reps to failure in each set until I exceeded 50 reps. I finished with heavy abdominal work.

Twelve weeks out, I moved to more conventional Westside for squats-deadlifts except for retaining both squatting and pulling on my heavy day. I rotated 4 squat movements (box squat, safety bar squat to a low box, lightened squat [bands reversed], partial squats to a thick pad on a box [about 1-2 inches above parallel with maximal weight]) and rotated 4 pulling movements (sumo deadlift [I pull conventional], deficit deadlift [2 ¼”], deadlift, deadlift off elevated blocks [2 ¼”]). Poundages went up 5-15 pounds every 4 weeks (each time I performed an exercise). There was a fair volume with the squats: 2×8 with the bar, 1×6-8 with about 25% of intended max, 2×3 with 40% and 50% intended max, and then 5×1 with 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, and 100%. Pulls were all singles, starting at 135 lb, with 2 jumps of 75 lb, and then only 2-3 more sets of singles to the max for day. Early on, I was doing 2 assistance exercises in sets of 8, belt squats and ham-glute raises but midway through these 12 weeks I dropped the belt squats as I was feeling some patellar tendon inflammation. I finished with abdominal work.

Fridays were dynamic box squats with bands, 10×2 after warm-ups, dynamic deadlifts with bands, 10×1. These were followed by a goodmorning exercise in sets of 5 and finished with abdominal work. I switched goodmornings out to reverse hyperextensions when I began to go stale on the movement.

Bench press training stayed the same throughout the 19 weeks. On Mondays, I worked up to 1 single that was 80% of my contest best for my first workout in the training cycle with little rest between sets (<1 min). On Fridays, I worked up to about 90% of the one single on Monday for 5 singles with only about 30 sec rest. I increased the weights 2 ½ lb every 2 weeks. This was not stressful on the rotator cuff. I then did a lat exercise, a triceps exercise, a leveraged (so nothing really heavy to stress the rotor cuff) lateral or anterior deltoid exercise, a posterior deltoid exercise, and then several exercises specifically for the external rotators. The lat and shoulder exercises were in sets of 8-12, the triceps exercise was in sets of 6, the rotator cuff exercises were in sets of 15-20.

Bill kept my prehabilitative-rehabilitative-corrective exercises to a very effective minimum: nightly balloon inflation with legs in 90-90 elevation and calves-feet supported to teach proper lung inflation and use of abdominal muscle tension to forces inferior-posterior lung expansion and as part of my warm ups and during bench pressing, goblet squats to condition me to NOT overly hyperextend my lumbar spine in my squat and pulling. I developed some left groin discomfort and hip joint pain on internal rotation and Bill added another exercise. This worked well as the problem did not progress and did not interfere with my training / lifting. Also, I felt like I was able to maintain much tighter core in this meet thanks to the balloon exercise compared to my last meet.

The meet was held November 16^th and 17^th in Dallas, TX. It was held in conjunction with the Texas Regional Meet so the combined meet was large and something of a marathon. Women and men up through the 181 pound class lifted on Saturday, the rest on Sunday. There were about 115 lifters on Saturday and about 75 lifters on Sunday. There were 25 men lifting in the Submasters-Masters. The submasters (30-39) and masters 1 (40-49) were competing as a group for a best lifter award and the 50+ were competing as a group for a best lifter award along with competition for places in weight classes and age categories (each 10 year age bracket). There was some incredible lifting among the 50-59 year olds, a 181 pounder totaled 1587 and another 181 pounder totaled 1416. These were the 2 best lifters from among all 25 lifters. I was best lifter among the 60-69 year olds (only 2 of us) and best lifter among all 165 lb class lifters (3 of us, 2 in the 60-69 group and 1 in the 50-59 group). Over the 11 total lifters 50+, I placed 6^th. My squat was 358, exceeded my NASA National Record of 347lb but might not be recorded as a record because my equipment was not checked (waiting to see), bench press was 231 lb, total was 970 lb (new NASA National Record), deadlift 402 on 4^th attempt (new NASA National Record). The Records are still pending ratification.