Virtualmeet.net

(MODERATOR'S NOTE: As part of a general reorganization of the boards, this thread was moved from the discontinued After Meet Talk board.)

http://www.gordongridley.us/2007/02/bad-luck.html (http://www.gordongridley.us/2007/02/bad-luck.html)


Better luck to those of you left.  I'll be there next time.

Sorry to hear that  :( Gords.

I already sent my condolances to Gords via PM, but honestly this is about the worst thing that could happen next to something really serious (like an injury); bombing out is one thing, but not being able to complete the meet due to technical issues... just nothing you could have done about it, and that is not a nice feeling. Gords, after this meet, I'll put up a thread for voting on when the next meet should be and what kind of meet it should be; your time will come!  ;D

As an update: Helgi has completed his meet as have Måns and I. My sore hips hadn't quite healed up and had a bout of back pain which grew decently bad towards the deadlift due to first not sleeping much at all (10 hours spread over three nights I gather) while finishing everything for the meet and then overcompensating by doing 9 hours. Given that my meet prep went down the drain for this one, I will be content if my lifts get passed well enough to grant me a Class IV classification. This is far from certain naturally... I'm actually quite eagerly awaiting the ruling on these and looking forward to learning a bit about possible problems I have in terms of passing my lifts. But what can I say; this was an AWESOME EXPERIENCE! Knowing that our attempts where part of a bigger whole and that I had spent quite some time preparing for this (among which was dropping weight from 104.5 kg/230 lbs to a weigh-in weight of 96.5 kg/213 lbs on the cyclical ketogenic diet) made this much more special than just doing it for our own pleasure. I actually felt a bit nervous about a few of my attempts, so the virtual stare of all of you definitively is doing something right.  ;D Much looking forward to the next meet already!

Kris,

Have you sent me more clips? Based on your last post it sounds like you had but ????

I'm hoping you're catching up on your sleep.
I'll be looking forward to viewing clips tomorrow.

Clips a coming in 15 minutes your way for Måns and I. After the post-meet DVD burning fiasco I mentioned in a PM, I had to wait for Måns to get off work today to get another copy of our lifts. If everything goes according to plan, Alberto's clips should be in sometime tonight and Brent's sometime on Monday the latest. And that's it. The dropout rate for this meet has been quite astounding due to either injuries, a real world meet coming in the way or just failure to sign up after pre-registering (still not sure about two lifters who still have a few hours to sign-up if they want to be in) with the number of lifters down from 11 to 5... provided Alberto and Brent make it. Here's to hoping they do!  ;D

I still feel so sorry for Gords, he didn't deserve his dropout, new camera and all. Life sucks sometimes.  :P

Alberto's clips have been passed on for judging, now only Brent left since he is the only lifter yet to lift (11th). The meet sign-up is now also closed for pre-registered lifters, so Jamie, Erick and Chris were a no-shows for this one.

Oh man, that has to suck!
Have you figured out what the problem was? Is the camera itself broken (did it destroy the card) or is just the card shot?

About my own meet experience; it was actually a whole lot of fun.
There's no way I would do it alone, but like this with Kris and me, it was great.

We had a bit of a scheduling problem though, and had to start warming up to the deadlifts between benching sets. Does anyone else do this? Does it happen in "real"/live meets?

I set my attempts so that if I lifted my second attempts, I'd have class III in the bag. I think I pretty much nailed the squats.
I'm pretty confident about having lifted to Class III, although I'm aware of a few bungled lifts, like a double bounce on the benching.  8)

All in all, a very positive experience.

Actually, I will be very interested in seeing whether the judges will fail that as a double bounce or not. That said, better not give them too many good ideas, hehe. ;) Your lifts were judged yesterday, but I have asked the judges to keep the scoresheet to themselves until the meet is wrapped up.

am uploading score sheet and vids within the hour... sorry for the delay, some camera trouble

This meet was a real eye opener for me.  For one, it showed me just how demanding one of these things are.  I should have worn a sweatshirt to squat in: I haven't held a bar on my bare back in a while and it burned using a tank top.  Benching after squats really is hard, and throw in a pause makes it more so.  Surprisingly, the deads were better than expected probably owed to the fact that I do alot of support work and deadlift twice a week.   Had I trained the bench heavier and with more powerlifting emphasis I might have squeezed out better numbers.  But now I know, for the next meet ;)

Seeing them stream unto the server now, looking good.  ;D

i know how you feel

all clips are uploaded! again apologies for the lateness of the hour, some bad scheduling and planning on my part

so what's the edited meet video going to be like? will there be a soundtrack?

Don't mind the bench, but the deadlift just kills me after the squats. That's probably what I deserve for using pretty much the same stance on both (i.e. squatting wide and pulling sumo). I would love to go back to pulling conventional, which I actually think I'm decently well built for, but alas, the lower back can't take that no more.


Actually, you were quick since you uploaded them the night after your lifting.


I want to ask all of you lifters for your thoughts on how video should be handled. The project has grown massively from its conception as an ad-hoc thing for a few bloggers into a framework for regular meets open to a large public. The edited video was originally planned as the only video, but yesterday I came to the conclusion that I would also like to have all lifts up there with links from the meet results. This would serve the purpose of making it easier for lifters to review their own lifts and to introduce needed transparency for judging that allows anyone to review the rulings. Needless to say, it would also be way cool to be able to freely browse around in a meet and watch what causes one's fancy.

In addition to the raw and trimmed footage available for each attempt, the edited meet video would consist of the best bits and pieces of the meet wrapped into an enjoyable package. Unlike the attempt videos, the edited video would give much freedom to the video editor to create something unique as long as it is done in a positive spirit; an edited meet video is not just some selected clips run together, but something a bit more. The clips selected should run the gamut of the meet by focusing on effort (both successful and failed) rather than weight on the bar with the purpose of showing that these meets are for everyone with a desire to improve. Someone benching 80 kg with a PR of 75 kg is my definition of hardcore lifting. So the edited meet video will not just be about the biggest lifts but aims at presenting the meet in a condensed format with its ups and downs.

The idea is thus to have two kinds of video: each attempt on its own and a meet video. The attempt footage could be downsized and compressed a bit more, while the meet video would be reasonably high-quality. This would also prevent the situation where the results are delayed due to the edited video not yet being done. Results would be punched out together with the attempt video ASAP, and the edited video could come a week or two later (depending on the number of lifters). How does this sound? Any other ideas, any objections, any...?

As far as soundtrack is concerned: yes, most definitively. The only crux is that I believe I will not be able to use commerical music and am thus relegated to things I can get permission to use. I know people abuse music and copyright in general these days, but regardless of my own view of how benign it would be for something like this, I rather not have the videos in violation of much anything on principle. This might be enthusiastically skipping a few pages, but these videos could turn into good places for garage bands to get their music out (to an admittedly niche audience, but nevertheless). I know of a few metal bands that have released copyright-free/open source music, but if anyone is associated with a band or would like to pull a few riffs for these videos, let me know.

The judging is now almost complete and I shall begin compiling the meet results later tonight. I will keep you posted.  :D

i have no objections, sounds very cool

Sounds great to me too..!  8)

Also, did you think the meet-video would be downloadable? You know, so one might burn it and keep as a hardcopy memento of one's own participation?

You know, the classic:
"Oh look! Har har, there I go ripping my glutes apart...That hurt, lemme tell ya."  ;D

But of course. Leave it multisession so you can get in your future meets on the same disc.  ;D

The judging has been completed. All three judges (Theresa, Stinn and Mike) did an excellent job. A few lifts in there were extremely borderline, but all in all, I echo what Mike said on his blog (http://anvilorhammer.us/?p=378): for the most part, good clean lifts! Personally, I love having been proved wrong that depth might be a common reason for bombing out. Quite the contrary, most attempts were nice and deep. Some clips were not optimal from a technical standpoint (too dark, whole lifter not visible, moving camera), but the judges did see what they needed and no clip was failed for these reasons except where whole clips were missing or cut short due to technical failure (feeling sorry for Brent here, he would have had some good benches in him).

It's also nice to see a common feeling that most of us could have done better and are hungry for more. Like I said, I'll put up a poll on what people want to do next, but I have a feeling those of us who left lots of kilograms (or pounds as it may be) on the platform in this one will eagerly be voting for another full meet... The judges also appeared to have a fun time doing their bit, but I hope someone else will step up (no, not pointing my finger at anyone here) so they can go ahead and lift in the next one if they want.

So... I have collated the scoresheets, created a table with the final meet results and put together our very first ranking tables for totals, squat, bench and deadlift. I will keep you in suspense a bit longer; tomorrow I begin preparing the attempt videos and as soon as they are done, the full results will go up with linked video. Now, THAT'S going to be something, eh?

Going to bed like a good boy now.

Quick update: the videos are coming along nicely, but took yesterday off in honor of St. Valentine. The editing would normally be going faster, but since this is the first time there are some templating stuff to do also. Expect the full meet results with video within 2 days. Thanks for your patience!  ;D

sweet, thanks for the update

Note to self: never commit to any deadline involving computers, should know better by now. Spent another 5 hours on preparing the results today and am happy to say that I have now done 90% of them. I estimate that I need another 3 hours to finish the last few plus format the results. Tomorrow is my son's birthday party (he turns 2 on Monday) and the first training session after the meet, so I may or may not finish it then. Hopefully I will. As usual, sorry for the delay!  :-[

Here are some teasers to get you all into the right mood for the final results, i.e. the opening squat attempts for all lifters in alphabetical order. Note that this is the clip where the newspaper is shown, so they are slightly longer than the rest. Enjoy!

[ MOD: teasers removed as the full results are out. ]

so much hard work, the formatting with the videos is excellent

is Helgi using Nike Frees?

and i like your squatting Kris, dive-bomb and strong drive out of the hole

Me like..!

It's great, not in the least since you get to see the people involved in more than "oh, he uses that nickname on his blog"-kinda way. Awesome.
Nice lifting guys, and my hat's off for Kris.
That's one huge amount of video to edit.

I read Kris's comment about the lifts and what he said is true. I'm curious though. For those of you who competed, did you feel compelled to pause longer on bench or drop lower on squat, knowing you didn't have a visual cue and that once the tape was in that was the only shot you got?

Good question. Måns and I were very anal about both the pause and the depth during the whole nine week peaking cycle with a two count on the bench and a penalty of 50 cents for each high squat done in training (we videotaped most of our heavier sets to avoid having to rely solely on eye) to be given to a charity of our choice. So for our part no, we just continued doing what we had been doing in training, BUT I do admit to still silently wondering whether I would get the depth... especially since I do have some money to donate from my share of high squats... Måns did most of his reps close to rock-bottom anyway, so he was definitively clear (not so in early meet prep though, he has really improved his depth tremendously while also increasing his squat PR with 15 kg  :o). Off to the gym to do some low box squats, depth won't be an issue there.  ;)

Ummm, I don't know what they're called.  They're from Nike and I picked them because they had the thinnest, hardest sole I could find in the store.  They're ugly as a baboon's butt, but comfortable enough for lifting.

I used running shoes before and they were awful as soon as the weight approached BW, wobbly and squishy. 

I always warm up with a 13 in box, touch and go, so I'm always sure about my squat depth.  With my bench, I've read so much negative crap on other people's benches on the internet that I was almost too careful to pause for a good second.