Step 1 - Acceptance

It's been a long time coming. I've made several half-hearted attempts, but the temptation always took over. This time it's for real. It's time to finally say goodbye to the bench press. Well... almost!

I had my first Olympic Weightlifting competition in March of '08 (The Irish Seniors). I've been lifting close to 2 years now it might appear, I've surely built up some reasonably impressive numbers in the various lifts involved. Unfortunately this is not the case (as you can see from my pbs below). The list of excuses is endless, I won't bore you. A quick summation would read- laziness, shoulder issues, laziness!

For now I'll use the second excuse. Even though by right, laziness was the reason I didn't sort it out! See I've been lifting weights from the tender age of 15. I was the best at the bench press and bicep curls for miles! This however, rightly fecked up me shoulders.

For my first competition I was self trained. My technique simply involved muscling the bar overhead, it wasn't pretty (I lifted 45/62 in the 62s). It wasn't until October of the same year, that the excellent Harry Leech took me under his wing.

With my shoulders almost melding with my chest Harry realised he'd have his work cut out! It took about 3 months until I could overhead squat correctly. Even when I got that far, it became obvious, that without serious shoulder rehab; they would impede on most other parts of both lifts. And they did.

However I still managed to make the Irish Seniors again, and with some coaching under my belt, I made a slight improvement. 49/70 @ ~63. It was still pretty bad, and I soon started finding my motivation declining.

I was in the middle of my 1st year in DCU. So when summer hit I moved back home to the mighty Monaghan. Training took a standstill for 4 months. The most I did was squat occasionally.

Returning to college in October, I figured I could really start making the change, and I did to a degree. I became involved with starting of a DCU weightlifting club (I'll have more on that soon), and upped my training. This went on for 2/3 months, I had the World Drug Powerlifting Championships in November, so it was disturbed.

After the competition the shit hit the pan. Too many late nights, to much drinking, to much not going to gym, etc etc. And now I'm here...

A New Year, a New Beginning -
1) Fix the bleedin' shoulders once and for all.
I've seen a physio twice over xmas, I have the rehabbing solution, I just have to follow it.
2) Train four times a week.
Not difficult. Harry has a program laid out for me, and I used to train 6 times a week for powerlifting. Four's nothing.
3) Get the weightlifting club sorted.
We really need to step up the fight, and get the funds needed. Then we can really get the ball rolling.

So there you have it. The blog is going to act as record for me, a motivator(through you the reader hopefully), and a guide (if you're all generous enough to give constructive criticism and pointers!)

Cheers,
Shane

ps. I'm sure there's much I've forgotten to include. I will make sure to mention them in the coming days.