It's been two and half weeks since I competed at the 2015 Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio, USA. It was a turbulent trip away with some great highs and some personal lows. But all in all, it was a wonderful experience.

Injuries suck. Suck big time. They can be devastating to people who have an active lifestyle and/or are training for an event or sport.

On Sunday 28 September I competed at the NSPC Raw Powerlifting Challenge. The aim of this competition was to build confidence for the major competition to come in December, that being the Oceania/Asia Championships. I weighed in at 50.75kg and finished with a 120kg squat (PB), 60kg bench press and a 120kg deadlift (PB), giving me a total of 300kg (PB). I finished in 1st place for the 52kg weight class and came away as the best female lifter of the competition (based on strength to weight ratio).

Last Friday I competed in the 2014 Australian Raw Powerlifting Championships. It was a high profile event, with the Championships being held at the Australian Fitness and Health Expo in Melbourne.

Every Saturday morning I get up early to do my powerlifting training. Last Saturday was no different, except for the fact I was testing out my max competition lifts, all in the one training session. I hadn't done this since my dismal performance at the Australian Powerlifting Championships in March so I was a little nervous about it. I told myself though, that I shouldn't focus on a particular number, but just get in there and try my best for every lift and keep going until I knew I had no more. It was a great session and even with training and working all week, I achieved PB's in all three lifts - 110kg squat, 57.5kg bench press and a 115kg deadlift.

Being a competitive powerlifter, I obviously have a love for lifting heavy weights and being a personal trainer, I love to share this love with my clients, especially women who before training with me would never have thought about giving it a go.

Just over a month ago, I competed in my first international powerlifting competition, that being, the Oceania Powerlifting and Bench Press Championship, which was held in Sydney. This competition brought together the best lifters in the region, with competitors from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa and Nauru.

This coming Sunday I will be competing in yet another powerlifting competition. So with this in mind, I thought it would be an ideal time to finish the third and final instalment of my deconstructions of the powerlifting lifts. I have previously written about the squat and the bench press, and now here are my insights on the deadlift.

I recently competed in my first ever Australian Raw Powerlifting Championships. I'd been looking forward to this competition since competing in the final competition of 2011, the Matti Tikka Challenge. I took a few weeks off training over Christmas and started the new year with the goal of getting my deadlift back to 100kg for the Australian Championships.

It's almost time for me to compete at the Australian Powerlifting Championships. It's now under two weeks away. I've been training hard and hopefully in  a few weeks I will have a positive post about how I went. In the meantime, I thought I would share with you my second instalment of my powerlifting series. In the first post I went over the technique of the squat. Today I will break down the correct way to perform a bench press.