[Meet Report] OPF Open - Edmonton, AB, Canada (258 @ 84.31 | 309 - Sr)

**Background and Training**

I've been training at Power Plus gym in Edmonton for the past several months leading up to this competition under Coach Larry Mather. Prior to that I was just training on my own for the most part at a local gym near my condo. Larry's programming for me was quite a change from the "programs" I've been writing for myself beforehand... I basically did the same 4-week block 3 times in a row because it seemed to be effective. It was based on Russian style programming with 999 reps/month over 4-5 workouts per week. The interesting thing was there was no front squats in the program other than occasional complexes of clean + fsq + jerk, and so I never front squatted anything over 92.5% of my clean and jerk. I did, however, put 1kg on my snatch and 2.5kg on my clean and jerk on the max out workouts at the end of each month, and also made PRs in the back squat for 5RM (160) and 3RM (165) so I felt the program clearly worked for me.

**Meet Prep**

I basically ran the same program on repeat until I was 2-weeks out from the meet and hopped on to the final 2-weeks of my coach's most commonly used taper prescription. My recovery was good, pretty much the same as during the past few months of training. I lost around 4kg in the 6 weeks leading up to the meet, with the last 1kg being from water load (6L * 3 days, 4L * 2 days, 2L * 1 day).

**The Lifts**

[I went 5/6, here's the video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBKPkU0V2_s)

***Snatch***

108KG, make: 2kg under my PR double.

113KG, make: +3kg competition PR.

118KG, make: +8kg competition PR. Got 2 white lights, right hand judge gave me a red light. I felt like it was a pressout, but I presume the judges white lighted me for elbow rebend.

***Clean and Jerk***

135KG, make: +3kg competition PR.

140KG, make: +8kg competition PR.

145KG, miss: +2.5kg clean PR attempt. I racked the bar poorly and failed the recovery.

**Results**

Total 258kg (+16kg competition PR) and 309 Sinclair. I Placed 1st in snatch, clean and jerk, and total. My new total classifies me as "International Category Class 4" in my country.

**Final thoughts**

This was the most fun competition I have ever done. I was in the first session of the day, so being able to enjoy the rest of the day of lifting without any stress was nice! I don't know when I plan to compete again, so I'll probably transition back into a strength phase for the time being.