Virtualmeet.net

All discussion and questions on the 19-21 March 2010 Military Bench meet are welcome here.

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Kristoffer, you write in the invitation mail: "Note that this is currently the ONLY max rep Military Bench meet of the year."

I suppose you mean "One rep max" as opposed to "max number of reps" on a certain weight. Just wanna be sure, since I´m new here.

Judging by last year's military bench meet, I'm pretty sure it's just 1-rep max.  I had to watch the videos because I didn't know what a military bench is.

Hi guys, sorry for the slow reply. I totally missed the notification e-mail on any changes to this thread. :(

You're correct, that sentence was indeed totally mixed up. This is a one-rep max meet. The rep max meet will be held on 17-19 September. Tomas, tack så mycket for bringing this up! I had not noticed the mistake and this is sure to be helpful for anyone else wondering about this.

Have a great meet both of you! :)

Kristoffer, another question which I did not find mentioned in the rules.

Can I have my feet on the floor while I take the bar off the rack and bring it into the start position and lift them just before I start lowering the bar, or do I need to have them up from the moment I grab the bar?

Sorry Tomas, I didn't even know about the max reps meet, only the 1-rep max event.  I should've kept my mouth shut.

Good question. I just re-read the rules and indeed, you're right. This is not mentioned in the rules at all, but definitively should be.

The answer is yes though. You need to have the feet in place when the bar starts to descend for your attempt, but until then you are free to keep the feet on the floor, i.e. when unracking and getting the bar positioned above you. Good of you to check and thanks for pointing out the lack of clarity on this in the rules. Another todo note for the upcoming rule update. :)

All lifters should now have received an e-mail with instructions on how to upload the video etc. If you haven't and it's not in your spam folder, please let me know.

The judges will receive their instructions as soon as the meet is ready for judging.

Have a great meet everyone!

Well, it´s done and uploaded. This was not my day today , but I got the opener and I hope to finally get some white lights. Good luck to all of you!

Hello! I managed yesterday to load all clips to the server with the help and patience of Kris! What an interesting way to take part to a competition in the "comfort" of your own gym. Wish good luck everyone with their lifts! Juha

Ok folks, the last upload just made it to the server. I will now start to push the meet to the judges. I'll update once there. Since nobody has signed up for the outstanding judge slot I will man it. :)

All right! The meet is now with the judges. As usual, they can take up to one week to finish their judging if needed. You can follow the progress in real time in the box above this forum.

Please excuse me, I will now go and enjoy judging it. :)

Being a first timer in Virtualmeet competition I anxiously wait for the results of referees for The Military Bench Press meet. Without the "Start", "Press" and "Rack" commands given in a "conventional" competition it is always hard for the lifter do decide whether the "marks" are sufficient. Holding the weights against yours chest in bench press the time seems to run very slowly.

Hello all!

To the best of my knowledge, the military bench press is a Finnish invention and so it is no surprise that most of the world has no idea what that is.

Second, as a tip for training for any bench press:
me and Kris had this really anal way of training for the pause for the first Virtualmeet:
Lower the weight onto the chest, have your training partner count "one! two!" out loud, then lift. Yes, it seems like an eternity, but then come meet time, you only have to go "one!" at bottom to push it, and the bar has most definitely stood still for long enough for any judge (even someone as strict as me) to appreciate.  ::)

The meet has been judged. I will release it sometime before midnight GMT tonight. Thanks to Marc and Måns (and myself  ;D) for the prompt judging. Always a pleasure to be able to release early, thanks!

THE MEET HAS BEEN RELEASED! (http://virtualmeet.net/meets/201003mb/)

As usual, it has the usual ups and downs. Special thanks to Duncan Henry and Juha Koivisto for joining us. Juha made quite the first splash by moving up first on the military bench ranking (http://virtualmeet.net/rankings/) with some exemplary lifting to boot.

Discussion/questions warmly welcome. :)

Great lifts you guys!  And many thanks to our judges and to Kris for putting this together.

That pause at the bottom is crazy--I was telling myself all the time to pause, and it felt like I did.  But when I watched the video before submitting I saw that there was no pause.  I'm going to try the "one, two" count next time. 

This was a great experience for me, time to go sign up for the weightlifting competition...

Congrats Juha! You nailed the best military bench ever in Virtual Meet!

Myself I´m a little ashamed coming in second with such lousy lifting. At least I got some white lights this time.

Ahh that pause. Thanks for the strict judging and I will be working on it for the next time. I was more focused on not racking the bar right away after the attempt.

Stong lifting from Juha, Tomas and Duncan.
Extremely strong finish on the third attemt from Juha. Right passed any sticking point.
Tomas, your second attempt was quite close. In my view you only needed a bit more speed to lock it out.
Duncan what happened to your other attempts?

Thank you for the kind words and for taking part. And good luck in the weightlifting meet!


Another way of looking at it is that you came in last since the two other gentlemen bombed out. ;) Personally, I think the rankings is the best indicator of how one did in the big scope of things as the actual meet placement is just relative to who happened to take part.

The Virtualmeet format is also interesting from a competition standpoint since you cannot adjust your attempts knowing what you'd need to beat the bench a fellow competitor just nailed. So this kind of underscores competing against what you think is your best form for the day. A great meet for me is to at least nail whatever I saw in my head before the meet, even if that means way less than I may have been able to do when in better shape. But of course, the motivation for taking part in a meet are as varied as are the lifters. For many first timers, it's just about actually pushing yourself over the threshold and to take part. Passing is a bonus. And this is what I love; there's something for everyone here whether you are pushing against the top of the rankings or yourself.

I want to thank the judges for their fast decisions and Kris for the efforts in releasing the results and clips very quickly. Judging a competition is always a difficult job. Especially the time of the marks easily arises some discussion. I have tried to use the method Måns described for sufficient stop i.e. counting 1 and 2 while resting the bar on the chest. Propably the best Military  Virtualmeet Bench Press "marks" I have seen are by Walter Kurda. They make a good example for everyone! Thanks once more to everyone and good training and meets in the future.

Juha, that was some incredible benching!  Congratulations. 

Thank you for congratulations. I am pleased to the result as I had my right shoulder operated summer 2008. Rotary cuff tendons broke totally in warming up of a team repetition competition. Also my bicep tendon was misplaced. With the broken tendons I did 12 rep's with 100kg as did not want betray the team. Summer 2008 I thought that I will never lift again because I could not even lift the bar. This was extremely bad setback to me after 36 years of training. I then made a promise to myself that if I ever can lift again I will train more than ever. 2009 I benched 1.062.000 kg's altogether. Hard training seem to bring good results. I encourage my fellow competitors to make the preparation to competitions with proper stops. You may have to reduce weight in the beginning but after a while you can lift the same weights with stops! 

Juha.

Christian, we ran out of memory on the camera after the first attempt.  I barely made 195, but missed 205.  It's ok, I still didn't have enough pause on the bottom, though I wish I could have submitted video of all the attempts.  Your lifts were solid, I was disappointed you got the red lights.  Next time will be better!

Juha, that's an incredible come-back--an injury like that can really ruin your game.  That must have required strong determination and a lot of perseverance. 

--Duncan