r/powerlifting

The chair of the danish IPF affiliated federation, DSF, Eva Buxbom, herself an experienced equipped lifter, has written a very long and detailed report from the latest IPF general assembly. The report goes into details with a troubled IPF economy, higher fees, high wages for IPF officials, the disbanding of the Ethics Commission, conflicting views on democracy and much more. It is a somewhat troubling read to be honest.

The report is written in danish but can be translate using whatever translation service you want:

For discussion of:

• Eating all the food when you want to get swole

• Eating less of the food when you're too fluffy

• Diet methods and plans

• Favourite foods and recipes

• How awful dieting is

I haven't posted a meet report in this sub in many years, and this is my second-ish year back to powerlifting after taking time off due to life things from 2021-2024. This was my fourth USPA nationals meet (I did one in 2017, 2021, and 2025).

(For 2025 I had some sciatica flare up 2 months before the meet if you want to read about how I navigated training around injury for last year, but I did well enough to qualify for 2026 USPA Nationals this year.)

Background

Female, 35 yo, 5'4", ~150-155lb

Started lifting in late 2015 at a bodyweight of ~125lb and my starting numbers were roughly 105lb squat, 45lb bench, 185lb deadlift. I had some athletic experience training in wushu (Chinese martial arts) on and off through high school and college, and I believe that gave me a pretty decent lower body strength base.

Currently my primary activities are powerlifting and pole dancing/aerial arts, and I also teach pole now so it's been interesting to balance it all. I find that both pole and lifting actually benefit each other so I love cross training, and I've managed to get a few of my pole friends into strength training to benefit their goals!

Goals for this Meet

Match my bench PR from 2025 (82.5kg / 181lb) with a higher squat/deadlift than last year, also aimed to break a California drug tested state record for the submasters 35-39 age category for my weight class. This was my first year competing in submasters!

Training Schedule and Balancing Pole & Lifting

I started teaching pole in April 2025, and it took a while to figure out a schedule where I could balance both powerlifting and teaching as it can be fairly demanding on the body having to demo pole tricks and explain/talk while upside down lol.

I ended up training for PL ~3x/week, teaching pole 3-4x/week, which means sometimes I end up doubling up on lifting and teaching, so that I can still have 1-2 FULL rest days where I don't do either. I found that this was super helpful for recovery, though I made sure I was eating enough for days I was doing 2 activities in the same day.

In a week of PL training wise I would generally do 1 day of competition squats/close grip bench, a day of competition bench/pause squats, and a day of deadlifts/larsen press. I also did a mix of accessories on each day after the compound lifts that include pull-ups, RDLs, DB rows, OHP, etc.

Diet & Nutrition

I didn't really track food meticulously until maybe 1-2 months out, and even then I was mostly just tracking carbs and protein to make sure I was adequately fueled and maintaining around 69-70kg bodyweight throughout prep. I water loaded the week of the meet and dropped carbs the day before weigh-ins. Unfortunately, water retention from my cycle meant I woke up morning of weigh ins 0.5kg over and had to walk on a treadmill for an hour to sweat it off 😭 usually I can sweat off 0.3-0.5kg easily in a hot bath, but the hotel we stayed out didn't have a bathtub in our room and I didn't have time to find a sauna before weigh ins :(

I weighed in at 67kg and spent the next 24 hours refueling with lots of carbs and salt. Had a big brunch with pancakes and potatoes, and had AYCE sushi with lots of rice and soy sauce as my last meal before the meet. 

Unfortunately the night before the meet, I was barely able to sleep for whatever reason, and only got 4 hours of very poor quality sleep :( Goal for the day was to make it through and adjust attempts if needed.

----ATTEMPTS FOR EACH LIFT----

Squat:

127.5kg / 281lb ⚪️⚪️⚪️ (good lift)

135kg / 297lb ⚪️⚪️⚪️ (good lift)

140kg / 308lb 🔴🔴🔴 (no lift)

My first time failing a squat in competition! Legs were jello from the 12k steps I did on the treadmill the day before + the lack of sleep, so I decided not to grind it out and save energy for my bench and deadlifts, which carry more of my total 😂 I’m not mad about it, squats have been fickle in training and I haven’t had 300+ lbs on my back in over a year.

Bench:

77.5kg / 170lb ⚪️⚪️⚪️ (good lift)

80kg / 176lb ⚪️🔴⚪️ (good lift)

82.5kg / 181lb ⚪️⚪️⚪️ (good lift, matched meet PR)

I was finally more awake by this time, bench held up surprisingly well, though I did sliiiiiiightly jump the press command on my second, and the head judge made me pause longer on the 82.5 💀 But the 82.5kg moved noticeably faster than it did last year even under worse conditions so I was happy with this.

Deadlift:

165kg / 363lb ⚪️⚪️⚪️ (good lift)

177.5kg / 391lb ⚪️⚪️⚪️ (good lift, new CA drug tested record for submasters)

185kg / 407lb 🔴🔴🔴 (no lift)

Honestly the 185kg/407lb came up really smooth, and I’ve never hook gripped 400+ before! But the fatigue caught up to me and I could feel the bar slipping out of my fingers 😭 I’m really proud of how well it moved up until then, and I know we have this at the next meet! This would’ve been a 2.5kg ATPR.

Overall:
7/9, 395kg total (10kg under my best from 2021) at 67kg, DOTS score finally back above 400

Overall:
- did not bomb out (a real fear this year!)
- CA state record for drug tested 67.5kg submasters (35-39 years old) deadlift only at 177.5kg
- matched bench PR with a 20kg higher total than last year
- 2nd place in 67.5kg raw drug tested submasters (35-39) total
- no injuries except for a ripped callus (but no blood!) on my 2nd deadlift

I also had a client who competed on the same day and it was her first national meet, so being able to juggle that (she PR'ed her squat/deadlift/total and matched her bench PR!) with managing my own lifts was a big accomplishment too!

()

Summary

This was my first meet competing as submasters, while juggling a client who was also competing at the same meet, and I went 7/9 and totaled 10kg under my best from 2021. While my goal at national meets usually is solely focused on my own numbers, I'm finding that the longer I've been doing this, I'm actually starting to have a real shot at the podium and some state records here and there, which is kind of exciting!

I qualified for IPL Worlds which will be in November in Vegas, so I'll be prepping for that soon and hoping to take another shot at a 407lb+ deadlift.

One thing that I took away from this experience was that: Sometimes we can get everything right during meet prep and shit will still hit the fan the day before and the day of, but it doesn't mean that all of your training went down the toilet! I definitely felt frustrated that things went wrong in the last 48 hours, but I was still able to put up pretty good numbers while sleep deprived and I'm especially happy with how fast 407lb moved off the floor even if I couldn't lock it out. I'm excited to go for it again in November.

Happy to answer any questions if you've read this far :)