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I just wanted to say good luck to all the lifters who are competing at the American Open in Mobile, Alabama tomorrow! It goes on all weekend and I believe most of the guys compete on saturday or sunday. I will for surely be watching everyone on the live feed. If anyone is interested in the live feed just let me know and I can post it!

whos competing???

Donny Shankle, Jon North, Rob Blackwell, along with the rest of the California Strength Team.
the best Olympic lifters all over the country should be there. this is one of the 3 biggest national meets of the year. 

wow!! cant wait to se results.. who is on top of their game for this meet?

Donny took his weight class.
Jon finished 3rd.
Rob hyper extended his elbow and had to drop out.
our 105+ lifter set a national amateur record with a 204 kilo clean & jerk, breaking our other lifter, Caleb Ward’s old record. it was beastly! it was his last chance to break the record so it was super clutch. 

it wasn’t quite what we were hoping for, but all in all it was still a very successful meet.

thanks for the update! that is still great!!! when is the next meet?

It was an exciting meet with alot of good lifting, spencer broke the junior american record which was really exciting.

next big meet is Nationals in March. there are a few smaller meets before then, but that is the next big one that the guys will be training for.

good luck to all the guys pete.

Thanks for the update Pete! I was watching the live feed when it all happened. So, is this how it went down?
 
Rob - injury
Jon - 158, 181
Kevin - 140, 166
Donny - 162, 203
Spencer - 152, 204
 
Are those all correct? How did Lindsay do ?

So, this years American Open is taking place in Palm Springs, California! How cool is that? Finally an event that is on the west coast. I am excited for that. It seems most national meets have recently been in the midwest (and a few in Alabama). Finally California grabbed one of them. Of course the Arnold is always going to be in Ohio, but, Nationals has been in Illinois and Iowa the last two years (and Chicago the year before that I think). So, it will be interesting to hear where Nationals will be in 2013.

thats great!! how far away from you??
les travel which is awesome and more support from freinds

It is only about 4 hours from where I am I believe. At most 5 hours. Which, is pretty awesome. I mean things may change, but, for now that is what it is! yahhoooo.. Either way, I have some family out in that area that I can stay with, so, no worrie whatsoever. For me it is my next competition, which, feels like 376 months away hha. I know it is only like 7, but, it feels like way more. I will have to find some smaller ones to do for sure before then.

hahah thanks awesome! and great way to spend time with family and save money!
 
i would only imagine how ampted you are for 7 months to fly!.. at least you have more time to train!!
 
what are your goals for this show??

Go kick some butt! I hope you can stay injury free and have some very good training leading up to it. I surely hope the meet is as exciting as it was last year to watch.

 
It will be awesome to say the least! True, the more time I Get to prepare the better I suppose. My goals : Pain. Haha kidding kidding. Had to make some sort of ROCKY statement. Umm, realistically my goals are 160/200 at the meet. We shall see though. I need to stay focused and not have any interruptions!

how do you stay focused?? what do you change in your life style in orfer to be prepared??  

I do the exact same things I would do during a normal week…Well, most of them. Usually I am dieting a bit harder and sleep a bit more. But other than that I try to do the exact same things in terms of relaxing at night. The training is less intense and less frequently, but I tend to sleep amazingly as my body gets its first bit of rest in a long time.

that does not sound to bad to me lol .. more sleep! i would love to stay focused all the time..
 

What are your current personal bests? How has training been recently? I know a lot of people are taking this month to sort of take a stpe back and rest and take it easy as the next meet is so far away. Have you done that? Do you believe in that?

 
My current bests are a 155 snatch, and, a 195kg clean and jerk. However, those were done at a bodyweight of about 99kg. The snatch was done at 97kgs. My best competition lifts are 147/168 HAHA. The clean and jerk competition PR is awful. I have been forced to take it easy because of my knee, but, I don’t really ever do any planned rest like that (at least not for a year or so). I know a lot of international guys will do taht directly after the olympics for 1 month, but, that is IT. They won’t do it again before the next quad…It takes too long for me to get back into shape, so I would never want to lose a full month of training.