12/13/07 - Thursday

I haven't used any gear since the AWPC World's on August 4th. We decided to break it out to see where we were. my first bench with the shirt was 385, and my second was 405. i decided to leave it at that. considering this time last year i went into a meet and only did 385. this entire year i've used that as my opener (4 meets 12/2/06 - 8/4/07) i may start opening up around 395-400.

12/15/07 - Saturday

Again, no gear from 8/4/07 thru now. No belt, no hips. the only thing we used as "gear" were wrist wraps. i've had a slight strained groin for the past few weeks. wasn't sure as to how heavy i was going to go. hips and belt from 415 up. 415 felt nice. 465 felt good. i went to 505 with the hips, belt and a light... light knee wrap. i haven't done 505 without at least having the lower half of my suit on. 505 felt like nothing and i squatted it smooth and with a good turn-around on the bottom. i want to see how i do with the suit now. we just got a frantz deadlift bar, so we decided to check that out today as well. hips and belt. i haven't sumo deadlifted much at all since august... mainly i've only done grueling sets of 5 conventional. i pulled 405 easy. did 455 easy, but kept it there. because of my groin there was more stress on it picking up the dead weight than there was squatting. too much of a twinge for me to want to go higher. we'll see how it goes from here.. i don't know how much gear we will be using or how often. hasn't been determined yet.