Taylor Atwood’s Success Story

The Full Story

2014

Taylor Atwood Became a TSG Athlete

Taylor Atwood’s Success Story began in 2014 when he was looking for a new competitive outlet after finishing a training camp stint with the BC Lions. He brought the explosive ability that he was known for as a running back into the weight room but needed polish and precision to realize his potential. So we began working toward winning Raw Nationals and setting the National Record on Bench Press. His starting numbers were SQ: 215 kg, BP: 170 kg, DL: 260 kg.

Unknowing of the experiences they’d have together in years to come, Taylor, his father Scott, and Jason would meet for the first time at that meet. Taylor won his first national championship and showed significant progress. In his first meet with TSG, he had increased his squat by 20 kg (235 kg), his Bench Press by 15 kg (185 kg, and his deadlift by 12.5 kg (272.5 kg), for an improvement of 42.5 kg to his total (687.5 kg). Following the meet, we decided not to compete at the 2014 World Championship. Instead, our focus was to set world records at the 2015 Arnold Classic.

2015

Overcoming a Back Injury

A back injury compounded the setback of bombing out at the 2015 Arnold Classic. Taylor sustained this injury in training shortly after, likely due to “popping” his hips forward before initiating the descent in his squat. As a result, Taylor could not perform lower body lifts, so we trained bench press and maintained a high lower body isolation exercises workload. Dr. Quinn Henoch provided guidance that helped Taylor complete a few squat & deadlift sessions with less discomfort before the 2015 Raw Nationals. Neither of us had an idea of what to expect, but he wanted to defend his national championship, so we decided to compete. The only certainty going into Nationals was that we’d all be there, and Taylor would be lifting for Team De Novo Nutrition to help them on team scoring. We met the Owner & Head Coach Ben Esgro, who agreed to join our game day team. Although Taylor warmed up pain-free, he re-aggravated his back injury when a loud “crack” occurred out of the hole on his 3rd attempt. He made the lift. Once the adrenaline wore off a few minutes later, Taylor couldn’t stand up without significant pain. We contemplated removing him from the competition until he found that lowering his belt helped manage the pain. He stayed in the meet with an easy 185 kg 3rd attempt on the bench press. However, things got complicated once again when it came time to warm up for the deadlift. Taylor fainted and fell face-first onto the platform on his first warm-up set with 70 kg. Now bleeding from the cheek, he got up and confirmed that he had held his breath for too long the rep. Half an hour later, he made a 272.5 kg deadlift to win his second national championship. This win came at a cost, and we had to maintain our focus on Taylor’s bench press from November to April. Then, we began to train effectively again with the World Championship less than three months away.

2017

Another Letdown at the 2017 IPF World Championships

After winning his third national championship, we began preparing for the 2017 World Championship in Belarus. During 2016 and 2017, my quest to develop as a coach led me into sports science. I thought that if we could train consistently, Taylor would win in Belarus. But unfortunately, he sustained a strain less than two months before the World Championship. Although Taylor had progressed his total to 733 kg, we had again placed 2nd. Only this time, the result was far more disappointing than the previous year. In hindsight, Taylor’s training that year was too conservative, and when the training load did pick up, he couldn’t tolerate it. Little did we know that this realization about training volume, work capacity, and how they relate to injury prevention and performance improvement would later become fundamental to our training system.

2017 – 2018

Finding Our Inflection Point in Late 2017-Early 2018

Taylor sustained another injury during his first week of training with Ben and I. Once again, it was likely due to having a low work capacity at that time. However, he bounced back within a few weeks, and we had a strong end to 2017 Nationals preparation. Taylor won his fourth national championship with a 750 kg total and qualified for the 2018 World Championship in my hometown Calgary, Alberta. We immediately set our sights on redemption at the Arnold Classic. Now healthy and with more time to build his chronic training load, Taylor progressed by leaps and bounds, heading into this competition. Competing at 75.2 kg bodyweight, Taylor smashed his previous personal best of 750 kg with a 782.5 kg total. This performance showed us the power of the data-based training system that Ben and I were building each week, and it changed our entire outlook towards the World Championship that was to take place four months later.

Worlds in Calgary | TSG’s Hometown

Taylor, Ben, and our entire team arrived in Calgary with confidence levels sky-high. Despite sustaining another muscular strain during the final weeks of preparation, we knew that Taylor had a strong chance of winning his first World Championship. Taylor posted a World Record-setting Total of 758 kg, and we finally had our first World Championship. We had the best time celebrating it with the entire team and my family, and we agreed that even if he had won in Killeen or Minsk during previous years, the feeling wouldn’t have been as great as it was.

2019

The 2019 USAPL National Championship

Following a well-deserved break after a challenging eight-month training period preparing for his win and Best Lifter winning performance at the World Championship, we began training for 2019 Raw Nationals on short notice. Coming off of a dominant win just a few months earlier, we pushed Taylor hard on a new three-day-per-week training split due to his time restrictions. Unfortunately, he ended up sustaining the second major injury of his career, this time a groin issue, less than a month before the meet. He was hurt, but he was stronger than we’d ever seen him too. At the 2019 Raw Nationals in Lombard, Illinois, we decided on a conservative game plan for squat. In part, this was a tactic to avoid an injury flare-up during the competition, and it was also a glaring oversight by me. I didn’t scout the competition before that meet, and it took me off guard when the competition matched or exceeded Taylor’s lifts on each lift. Although Taylor won the meet and Best Lifter with margin, it was clear that the new wave of competitors was closing in. With the inaugural 2020 SBD Sheffield Invitational coming up five months later, we knew that we had to overcome this injury and continue to make progress to retain Taylor’s status as the Best Lifter from the 2019 World Championship.

2020

812 kg at the 2020 Florida State Championships

Taylor next took the platform in October of 2020. With a healthy three-month period of preparations under his belt, he felt stronger than ever on each of his lifts heading into the meet. He started the meet by hitting a 293 kg squat to take the national record with ease on his third attempt and then made a limit lift at 199 kg on bench press to take the national record as well. Heading into the meet, we knew that Taylor was strong on the deadlift, but we didn’t have a true idea of how much strength gains he had made. He secured the first-ever 800 kg total by a 74 kg lifter by lifting 310 kg on his second attempt, and then he easily lifted 320 kg on his third attempt, a weight that we thought would represent the limit of his strength. Something about the training set-up had produced another inflection point for Taylor, and this time it was the deadlift that was rapidly increasing. After this competition, we were amazed at what we had achieved. The sight of Taylor totaling more than 800 kg reminded me of an old IPF Magazine issue with Brett Gibbs on the cover, and the title was “The Quest for 800” [as an 83 kg competitor]. In four years, this total had gone from an 83 kg milestone to a 74 kg milestone, and what’s more, Taylor’s chief competitor Austin Perkins became the second 74 kg lifter to total 800 kg one month later. How far the competition standards had risen since we started was quite unbelievable, and we knew that we’d be in for a battle at the next USAPL Raw Nationals.

Achieving the #1 All-Time Points Ranking at 2021 Raw Nationals

We prepared harder than ever before, leading into 2021 Raw Nationals. The venue was the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, the same venue as where Taylor had won his first Weightlifting meet a decade ago. With his family in attendance and fatherhood around the corner, we knew that we had a great opportunity to achieve a personal best performance. Acknowledging the growing strength of the competition, we thought we’d need a personal best performance to win his 7th national championship as well. The condition that Taylor was in during the final month of competition prep was something we’d never seen before. Each session, he was like a rubber band stretched to its limit, lots of potential energy that was ready to become kinetic, but also ready to snap. We were training on the razor’s edge of fatigue and fitness, yet he’d exceed previous velocity personal bests during each grueling four-hour training session. His condition in the final month of prep was a testament to the hypothesis we formed after the 2017 World Championship in Belarus, that the best powerlifters are the ones who can adapt to performing more work over time, and we knew that if he could make it to the platform in one piece, we could have a shot at achieving a historical total. As soon as Taylor weighed in, I calculated what he’d need to total to achieve the #1 points ranking by the GL, DOTS, IPF, and Wilks (old and new). He needed to total 835.5 kg that day as a 74 kg lifter to set the new mark to beat, and it was within our strategy for the day. Our first objective was to win the competition, and if we could secure the win, we planned to push his attempts to the limit to achieve the milestone. With the win secured, Taylor and his meet day coach, Matt Gary, decided to load 340.5 kg/750 lbs on his third attempt. He stood up with the weight, and for a moment in time, he held the all time world record for an 83 kg lifter too. It was an unbelievable achievement for us. In six years, we had transformed from being a bumbling duo featuring a talented and hard-working athlete and a young and inexperienced coach, to achieving the #1 all-time ranking. Our story is still in progress. Taylor’s next competition will be Powerlifting America Nationals on April 1st. Stay tuned. #BlueTakeover