I tried powerlifting for 100 days

I joined a professional powerlifting competition with only 100 days to prepare. The only problem? I've never powerlifted before, I have no technical training, and I kind of don't even know what it is. But that's not going to stop me. Okay, maybe it will. So I set out to learn everything I could about becoming an elite powerlifter. From the mechanics of lifting, to diving into strength training science, and perfecting my nutrition plan. I'm dedicating the next three months to becoming a professional powerlifter. This is crazy. A bit more, bit more, bit more. Okay. Nice. Will I be able to compete at the highest level or injure myself and jeopardize the entire process? So he said it's like a, it's probably a first or second degree tear. Oh my God. This video is sponsored by Squarespace. First things first, what is powerlifting? In its simplest terms, powerlifting is a sport designed to find the strongest person in the room. Its origins date all the way back to ancient Greece, when men would lift stones to demonstrate their strength and prove their manlyhood. It wasn't until the 1960s that the first official competitions were held, and powerlifting started to look a bit closer to what it resembles today. There are hundreds of different lifts you could do to prove how strong you are, but for a powerlifting competition, there are just three that are performed. The squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. Each of these lifts require a different set of skills, technique, muscle, and strength. Competitors, who are divided into different weight classes, get three attempts to perform their one rep max. That's lifting the heaviest weight you possibly can just one time. And the person who lifts the most combined across their squat, bench press, and deadlift is deemed the strongest, and the winner of a lovely dinner plate. When you put yourself under this kind of weight, there's the potential for dangerous outcomes. Torn muscles, serious injury, and even death have resulted from powerlifting. So let's sign up for a competition. All right, so I'm preparing to sign up for my very first powerlifting competition. Like a legitimate competition where you wear a leotard, you get up on a platform, and you lift the heaviest weight you've ever lifted in your life. I have to declare my weight class 75 kg. Equipment, there's only one choice, it's raw. And that's it. I just signed up for my first powerlifting competition. What the fuck? Before I start training, I want to weigh in and get my body measurements. I want to get an accurate look at what I look like before and after powerlifting, so I'm not gonna flex. This is me not flexing. And I know that there are gonna be some people that are saying I'm only doing this video so I can take my shirt off. Yeah, I don't have a response to that. I'm currently 5'8 and weigh 158 pounds. And here's the full rundown of all my body measurements. I'll be doing a comparison at the end of the experiment to see how big I actually get. If you're wondering, my biceps measure in at 15 inches. While I have zero experience powerlifting, I have been going to the gym since college and I'm pretty confident in my bench press. The two exercises that intimidate me the most at the gym though are the deadlift and the squat, which is why I almost always avoid them. I want to safely test my strength on day one, so I did my best 5 rep set of each lift. Then I threw that number into a 1 rep max calculator to determine what I could hypothetically lift in a competition if I had to do it today. Here's what I got. My squat was 185 pounds. My bench was 200 pounds. And my deadlift was 256 pounds. This is a far from perfect way to calculate your strength, but it'll have to do. So this is the official USA powerlifting rulebook. It includes hundreds of rules and guidelines for performing each lift. Disqualifications can come from dozens of different technicalities, a double bounce at the bottom of a squat, failing to hold the bar still at the top of a bench press, not locking your knees at the top of a deadlift, and so on. The more I look into it, the more I realize I am completely out of my depth. So I want to talk with an expert who can help give me some guidance about how to best get started with training. So I reached out to someone who goes by the Australian strength coach online. His real name is Sebastian Oreb. I gave him the spiel. I told him about what I was trying to do and he agreed to train me for a day. So I guess we're doing this. Sebastian's resume is impressive to say the least. As an elite power lifter, he's held several national records and can lift some serious weight. This is him squatting 881 pounds. Sebastian, thanks so much for joining me today. You're one of the best strength coaches in the world. So question number one, can you actually help me open this jar of pickles? Oh, okay. I've got just three hours with Sebastian, who goes by Bass, to learn everything I can about powerlifting. Most importantly, I want to walk out of here with the proper lifting technique that I'll be using in my competition. Shoes off? Shoes off, yeah. No shoes is the best footwear for a deadlift. Okay. Right now I've got you some knee sleeves as well, but instead of putting them on your knees, I'm going to put them on your shins. Because a good strong deadlift needs to be in contact with your shins from start to finish. And without those, you get pretty bruised up shins and bleed on my barbell. Okay, yeah, don't want to do that. Okay, so first things first, I'm just going to ask you to show me how you deadlift. If it's perfect, I don't change a thing. Let's do it. Okay, you want to place bets? I like this because we're going to see a really great before and after. Good. In general, that was pretty good. So a lot of people look at back position. That's probably the highest priority, that you have a really nice strong brace to protect your back. Okay, but now I want to consider efficiency of movement. Walk up to the bar so the barbell is in line with the center of your foot. Your stance should be hip width and the barbell should be about one inch away from your shins. Now what I want you to do is grab the bar on the outside of your legs. Perfect. Now sitting into position, I want you to push your knees gently outwards against the inside of your arms. Now I want you to pull the barbell into your shins. Reach the crown of your head towards the ceiling. Take a big breath. Okay, you jumped the gun a little bit. Yes, I did. So don't lift it yet. Just a few minutes into my coaching session with Bass, two things were clear. He's a stickler for technique and I have a lot to learn. I'm excited about bench. I think this is where I'm most confident. but I'm sure you're gonna have a lot of ways to improve my form. I'm pretty sure I will. So it's not that I think you're doing it wrong before, it's just powerlifting technique is pretty unique. So I'm gonna put you in a position you might look at and go, whoa, what are you doing here? So it's an arch back. Oh, okay, yeah. Push the world away. Excellent! Excellent! Take a big breath. Control. Knees out. Up fast. Two. That's easy. Hold the weight. Hold the weight. Let's go. Heels down. Heels down. One. Yeah, you got three. Two. One more. One more. Easy peasy, man. Easy peasy. That was better than the set before. Yeah. You were a lot tighter. A lot more stable. And therefore, that weight was easy. To be honest with you, I don't really care how strong anyone is. I've trained very, very strong people. My highest priority is movement, and I did not think I'd get someone to be able to move that well. So that makes my job so much easier. So training with Bass for the day was overwhelming, but I learned so much. And the best part is that after he finished filming, he pulled me to the side and offered to train me for the entire... 100 days. And when I asked him what that meant, he's like, literally come into my gym whenever you want. I'll train you as much and as often as you'd like, which is as exciting as it is terrifying. He scares me a little bit. He's an intimidating guy. There were a couple of things I needed to get as I started powerlifting. For squats, knee sleeves provide comfort and can be a good cue to let you know when you've reached the right depth. Flat sole shoes for gyms that don't let you go barefoot, which is most of them. You don't want to squat in running shoes for the same reason you don't want to squat on your bed. And for deadlifts, long socks help protect your shins from getting cut up on the barbell. What do you think? Are they your weightlifting shoes? You got converse? And the socks too. No, you're not. Yeah. No, you're not. Yeah, yeah. No, you're not. Yeah. No, you look particular. It turns out that these socks aren't long enough or thick enough, so Nat's going to be happy when she hears about that. Instead, I'm just going to reuse my knee sleeves like Bass recommended. I also got some lifting chalk. This helps improve grip for deadlifts. Pro tip, don't apply chalk in your office. And last and most importantly, a lifting belt. These belts help support your form. They make lifting a little bit safer and they even allow you to lift a little bit more weight than you otherwise could have. Okay, now for the fun part, I need to get my program and get started with training. Okay, so my ideal split is four days per week, mainly because More days than that, you need recovery. So more days isn't necessarily better. I think four days is a sweet spot if you have the time for that. And this is how I like to set it up. Two days upper body, two days lower body. We have a squat day, a bench press day, a deadlift day, and then another accessory day. The sport of powerlifting, I do need to teach you how to do a really heavy weight for one rep. It is a skill. So a lot of people love to do their standard three sets of 10 for any exercise. And that's a really nice approach to training. But you can't just do lots of sets of 10 and then come into a powerlifting movement and expect to be really good at a heavy one rep max. We need to gradually get you prepared for the weight. Coming under a barbell in a squat of your absolute max can really shock your body. This program is designed for a beginner, so the first priorities are the squat, bench press, and deadlift. After that, each day includes accessory lifts that target muscles more specifically, including one arm rows and hamstring curls. Every week I add more weight to the bar and every four weeks my program changes to include new lifts, each targeting different muscles and different movement patterns. This will go on until my competition date which is over 100 days away. Technically 117 days away from my very first training session because that's the soonest competition I could find. The goal in my first phase of training is to start with a comfortable weight and focus on my technique instead of going closer to failure. That means five sets of three reps for each of the competition lifts. So this is all about skill acquisition. Okay, so it's three reps of these really complex powerlifting movements. Okay, so the reason for this if we do high reps for these squats and bench press and deadlift while you're learning them The risk of technical breakdown is high as you get further into this if you do a high rep set if you do set a 10 Yeah, what I know from experience is when we're working with people that are learning the movement They'll get the first few reps really nicely and then the form will start breaking down and just you know It's a domino effect. It just gets worse and worse as we get Later on in the in the set so the first exercise of the day when you're the freshest you have the most energy It's about really mastering that skill. There are a dozen things you need to think about for each lift take squats You need to place your hands on the bar as close as comfortably possible place the bar on the delts So it has a shelf of muscle to lie on take one step back and two steps to the side elbows and shoulders back and down head slightly down But looking straight ahead big breath in Controlled rep down, slight spring at the bottom of the rep exploding with force, breathe out and repeat. So a lot of the times when we're lifting a very heavy weight, it can be a very daunting task. But if you stop thinking about the weight that's on the bar and start thinking about hand here, hand here, back here, foot position, go. It's that same routine. that makes lifting heavy weights a lot easier. If you want the exact program that I'm doing in this video, then go to strengthsystem.com slash Matt. That's where Bass is gonna be selling the program. You'll get... every phase of the program, you'll get walkthroughs of every exercise, and you'll get the full interviews and full training that I did with Bass myself that goes into so much more detail than I could possibly get into in this video. Full transparency, we're going to be splitting the revenue as a way to hopefully recoup some of the costs of the nearly six months this project is probably going to take from start to finish, but it's a genuinely amazing program and I think you'll love it. If you have any doubts about whether the program is actually good or not, keep watching. What kind of results do you think somebody like myself could see over the course of 100 days of powerlifting? I can make a prediction now. Okay, so I think we could probably get you to 160 kilo squat. Wow, really? Yeah, yeah. I think after 100 days, I think we can get you to 120 kilogram bench press. Yeah. And then with your deadlift, I'd say we can get you to about 180 kilograms. Wow. Yeah, so I love saying these these numbers and then I love, you know, putting it to the test. So one week into my program, how have things been going? I mean, honestly, it's almost too easy. Like this is just it's a breeze, you know, cakewalk. Yeah, I'd say that. Okay, yeah, no, this routine has absolutely destroyed me. I think the reason that I'm so sore is because these are mostly lifts that I've never done before and I'm also putting in so much more effort than I otherwise would because I'm working towards a goal. One of the reasons why I'm doing this to begin with is because I'm a new dad. Oh, am I boring you? And I have so many more obligations and commitments and I have so much less time than I normally would that I felt like I needed to create an even bigger goal to stay committed. to my fitness routine. I find that I respond really well to big goals. I need to find something that's going to be big enough to motivate me into action, but not be so big that it overwhelms me into inaction. And I think I found it. I think, I don't know. This might be a little crazy. A month into training, I was feeling stronger than I've ever felt before. I was lifting more weight than I'd ever lifted, and I was getting more confident that I could show up and give a great performance in my competition. Then, this happened. That might not have looked like much, probably because my big dumb face was smiling, but here's what it felt like inside my peck. It didn't hurt necessarily, but I knew something was wrong, and that this could potentially jeopardize my entire competition. I think it's fair to say that I'm pretty much a fitness influencer now, which means that I need to start promoting performance enhancing products. That's why I'm really excited to share my sponsor for this week's video, All Natural Squarespace. Squarespace isn't your typical product. It's a comprehensive platform designed to boost your performance both online and off. With Squarespace, you can create a stunning website to showcase your journey, share valuable advice with your audience, and even sell your own branded merch. But Squarespace isn't just about aesthetics. It's packed with powerful tools to optimize your online presence, from SEO features that help you rank higher on search engines, to integrated analytics that provide valuable insights into your audience's behavior. And the best part, Squarespace is all natural, meaning no shady ingredients or cheap shortcuts. Just... So he said it's like a, it's probably a first or second degree tear. Oh my God. Which is not good. What does that mean? He said probably four to six weeks before I can bench press again. Get out. Yeah. Yeah, it sucks. I can't believe it's long. I know, I'm like crushed. I think you should see another physio. Until you get the only one. Yeah, exactly. This was a huge setback for me, but it's just one of the risks of powerlifting, especially when you're training at a very high level with high weights trying to maximize every single workout. I can't do basically any chest stuff, but he's like you can do other upper body like you can do shoulders You can do back you can do your deadlifts and squats and lower body So it doesn't completely halt all of my training, which is good That's like the silver lining to it But it still sucks to have to be out of like my full program for this long Training is only one part of the puzzle if I want to build strength and muscle I need to get serious about what I'm eating So from day one, I've been counting every calorie and tracking all my macros. This will help me stay more accountable and it'll also ensure that I'm getting enough of the right foods. Specifically, I need to hit about one gram of protein per pound. And I've had to start eating more, a lot more. So I signed up for a meal delivery service here in Sydney called Bondi Meal Prep to make sure I never fall short on my calories. Would it be better to eat nothing but freshly prepared organic food from a professional chef? Yeah, sure. But with the demands of my work, the amount of time I spent training, and the new commitments that I have as a parent, this service has become essential for me at this point in my life. Despite my injury, I got back to training. And eating. And training. And eating. I was putting everything I had into each session, and it was starting to pay off. I'm going for three plates on deadlift, which means that there's going to be three 20-kilogram weights on both sides of the barbell. It's a lot of weight. I have never lifted this much before. I am feeling so much more confident in my squat deadlift and bench press. My pec has fully recovered. I've seen some really incredible strength gains. But the one thing that I haven't even had a chance to think about yet is the competition itself. So I'm heading back to base gym. one more time to train with Bass. This will be my one and only competition training. So preparing for being under a one rep max, something by the way, which I have yet to do. Okay, so we're a few weeks out from competition and we haven't done a single one rep max and competition is all about one rep max. So there's two things we need to learn. One, what a heavy one rep max feels like and two, what it's like to lift in front of somebody who's giving you competition commands. There's two types of lifters in my experience One that gets really nervous and messes up their performance and two there's people that rise to the occasion and can actually lift more on competition day because of that competition pressure either way we don't know what you're gonna be like up until today but the biggest problem that people have on their first competition is understanding they can't just squat when they're ready or bench press when they're ready or perform the lift when they're ready like they would in training they have to wait for the ref to give them the specific command and if you jump the gun and you don't wait for the ref's call, it's a no lift. Let's start with the squat. The first thing that's gonna happen is you have to unrack that weight. Once you've unracked that weight and walked back into the position, you're gonna wait for the ref to say start. And then you have to squat to full depth which is crease of the hip needs to be below the top of the knee. And then you wait for the ref to say rack. That was me not waiting for my command. When you're lifting the most weight you ever have in your life, it's kind of hard to focus on anything else. At the end of my session, I failed four out of nine lifts. Not the best way to build my confidence. But I did finish the day with a few of my PBs. That's personal bests. Wrapping up my last session with Bass, there was just one more thing I needed to prepare me for the day. I think I'm ready. Let me take my shirt off one more time. Here's day one of powerlifting and here's day 108. To be fair, the lighting is a bit more favorable on the final day, but honestly, even for me, it's kind of hard to spot the difference. The big reason is because I bulked for a large part of this transformation, so you're not going to see as much of a difference as you would if I cut the entire time. Also, it's just 100 days, so this is what change realistically looks like over that time. When it comes to my body measurements, though, there was a noticeable difference from day one. Most importantly, my bicep increased by a half an inch. The final test and most important for a power lifter strength gains and there's only one true way to test that. It's 5 16 the day of the competition has finally arrived I'm a little bit nervous, but I'm excited. Zoom in on the weight. Okay, the weight. Yeah, I weighed myself this morning and I probably cut a little bit too much. Better dots man. Okay. Yeah, right in there. Okay, cool. Thanks. Awesome. Yeah, thank you. It's gonna make this whole place smell. Yeah, I'm gonna eat this outside. Is that weird? There's a lot that can go wrong in this competition. I might have an off day. I might have cut too much weight. I might mistime my warm-ups or screw up the judge's commands. Now, in order to receive that squat command, your knees have to be completely locked and you must be standing straight. And to make it even more difficult, if I miss an attempt, I'm stuck at that weight. I'm not allowed to lower my weight once I submit it to the judges. Because of this, there's a lot of strategy that goes into each attempt. My first attempt should be easy and get me on the board. My second attempt should be a stretch. And my third attempt, well, that's when I'm going for broke and lifting way more weight than I've ever attempted before, aiming for 110% effort. So Zach, how far out are we? Probably say about 20-ish minutes here. Yeah, about 20 minutes from my first attempt in my first ever powerlifting competition. Right now I'm just getting warmed up and trying to make sure we time it perfectly so that way I'd finish my warm-ups, get in line, and then do my first attempt. I nailed my first two squats and then something clicked. I didn't want to go out there without pushing myself to my true limit. I was inspired seeing so many other athletes competing. attempting their best and failing. I didn't want fear to hold me back from truly going for it. So I decided instead of playing it safe, I changed my original plan and increased my attempt to 353 pounds. This would smash my previous best in training and it would be two times the weight I started with over three months ago. Nailed it. 160. Next up, bench press. And last but not least, probably one of the most intense lifts of all, the deadlift. So the results are in, and I finished in third place. Or, depending how you look at it, second to last. There were only four people in my weight class that competed. But honestly, this was never about winning for me. I truly didn't expect to win a powerlifting competition after only training for three months. For me, this is really about pushing myself, getting out of my comfort zone, trying something new. And I'm just proud of what I accomplished and blown away by the progress I've made over the past few months. Using my rough one rep max calculator from a few months ago, I increased my one rep max on my squat from 185 pounds to 352 pounds. My bench press went from 200 pounds to 264 pounds. Yes, with a torn pec thrown in the middle. And my deadlift went from 256 pounds to 441 pounds. Insane. Which means Bass's predictions from day one were on the money. Except for the deadlift. in which I lifted an extra 44 pounds. The coolest part about this entire experience for me, I did all this at the same time I turned 36 and became a parent for the first time. I challenged my own assumptions of what's capable if you dedicate yourself to a goal consistently and if you have a strong support system around you. Here's to the process, whether you finish first or second to last.

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💪 Get the 100 day program I use in this video here:
https://strengthsystem.com/matt

Learn more about Sebastian and his work here:
https://instagram.com/australianstrengthcoach

Hi there 👋 If you're new to my videos my name is Matt. I made a documentary called Minimalism that trended on Netflix a few years back and now I make YouTube videos. Some people (Jeff) would consider this a huge step backwards and a massive failure but I'm honestly pretty happy with how things turned out. Also Jeff is an asshole. If you like learning about things like minimalism, happiness, productivity, biceps, dodging existential dread, eating food, talking shit about Jeff or overthinking everything, then you're in the right place. Please subscribe so my mother-in-law thinks this is a better career choice than being a doctor.

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🎬 CREDITS
Directed by Matt D'Avella
Cinematography by Matt D'Avella
Day one training cinematography by Josh Janssen
Comp day cinematography by Daniel Mendenhall
Edited by Matt D'Avella

🙏 Special Thanks
Powerlifting training: Sebastian Oreb & the Base Gym Team
Additional training:  Erin Felton
Comp day coaching: Zach Presto (https://www.instagram.com/zachpresto/)
Comp day gym: Warhorse Barbell Club (https://www.instagram.com/warhorsebarbell)
My family for turning out to the comp with custom shirts and all!