TEN LESSONS LEARNED The 1997 ADFPA Northwest Regional Powerlifting Competition Having never been to a powerlifting competition before, I talked my wife into giving me a Sunday off from the family, got my workout partner Tom to come along, and drove 30 miles out of Seattle to the town of Monroe, where the ADPFA was holding its NW regionals. When I called the gym that organized the event, the guy on the phone told me it was at a Boy Scout camp only 3 or 4 miles north of Monroe, a town in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. He also said women and men's masters would lift on Saturday and that men's open competitors would lift on Sunday. Since I could only get one day off anyway, I decided (and Tom agreed) that Sunday was the best day to see the top lifters. LESSON NUMBER ONE: Never believe what some gym rat tells you over the phone. We followed a windy mountain road _10 miles_ north of Monroe and still no sign of a Boy Scout camp. I kept driving just in the hope of finding someone walking along the road so that we could ask for directions, but the road was deserted for the next three miles. I was desperately looking for a driveway to turn around, when finally there was a sign for the camp. That road led to several others, including a drive through the Pacific Northwest's signature landscape--clearcut. Some place for a Boy Scout camp, I thought. We finally found the camp. The cafeteria had been made over into the competition site. We arrived an hour late to find the room full of spectators and but no weight lifters--the competition hadn't even begun. LESSON TWO: Powerlifting competitions _never_ start on time. Then we noticed that teen-age women started to come out. Hmm, weren't they supposed to lift yesterday? We learned that the organizers had flipped the dates, and now we were going to see teen-age women, open women, men's masters and the 148 men's open class. LESSON THREE: This isn't the Olympics. Call before the meet and confirm the times and schedules. Tom and I settled into a corner to watch the squatting. We were directly behind one of the side judges so we got an excellent view of the depth of each lifter. The girls did fine on their early lifts, but as the weights got heavier, the judges seemed a little more forgiving. There were several lifts that would have gotten a red light from me, but passed the judges. "I guess I shouldn't be so hard on your depth when we lift," Tom said to me, half-joking. It took a long, long time for two flights of women to complete their three squat attempts. There was lots of adjustments going on with the rack stands. Jeez, why not just have it in a real gym with a power rack instead of these flimsy stands that look like they are going to fall over any second, I asked. Tom said it would probably give an advantage to lifters who used that particular gym every day- -a wise, and probably true, comment. Finally the men came up to squat. Again, the judges were more forgiving than I would be. The one lifter in my class (181) started with 175 kg (385 lbs), and got it easily. I'm in the masters class myself, and my one rep max is 305. This guy made 385 look like a warm up. He eventually got 190 kg (418 lbs) on his third attempt. LESSON FOUR: I have a long, long way to go before I am competitive. Most of the men were wearing squat suits and knee wraps. It seems that equipment is a must if you want to lift in a competition, at least in the regional level. (The was a national qualifying event.) Yet there was one 148-pound lifter who just wore a wrestling singlet and T-shirt, and he got all three squat attempts with ease. His best was 182.5 kg (401.5 lbs), the best squat of anyone in his class. I dubbed him "The Purist" and admired his determination to lift "raw." Watching the squats, I felt the setting was much more intimidating than I imagined. You are not in your comfortable old gym using your comfortable old power rack. You are alone, vulnerable like a child waiting for a school bus, staring out at the crowd instead of at your image in a mirror. You have to unrack without help and steady yourself and then wait what seems a lifetime before the judge tells you to squat. Sometimes lifters would wait after the command, but most started their descent as soon as the command was given. Strangely, the lifter did not seem to be in control of the situation until that crucial point in the squat when he/she had to start back up again. And even then, it was the judges that decided if the lift was clean or not. LESSON FIVE: For a sport called powerlifting, the lifter does not seem to have much "power" over what is happening. Three hours after it began, the squatting was over. There has to be a better, faster way to get through this, I thought. Maybe they should have two sets of racks and two sets of judges and run the flights through faster. While one rack is adjusted, the other rack could be in use. Of course, who is going to pay for double the equipment and double the judges? LESSON SIX: Since money is so tight, you can't expect glitzy production values or even efficiency in powerlifting. As for the spectators, they were part of the American Way of Sport. Though this was an intense, energy-depleting sport, we all sat on our butts. Tom and I would stand and stretch every so often just to get some relief. People had been through this before and were obviously camped out for the day. Some even had coolers filled with soda pop and snacks. I was impressed with the number of little kids and families present. Perhaps because it was women and masters day, it was more likely that there were wives, husbands and kids around. At last the teen-age girls came out for the bench. I was curious to see how much of a pause there was between the descent and the lift. It seems that the judge did indeed wait a half second or so-- certainly enough time to eliminate any threat of bouncing off the chest. Most lifters arched their backs severely and many wore their belts because of the arch. It made my back ache to watch... The bench went much faster than squats since there wasn't any rack to adjust. Again, equipment was king: Almost every man had a bench shirt on except The Purist. Even more surprising, The Purist refused a lift-off from the spotters and just took the bar off the rack himself. Again, he beat the other two lifters in his class with 117.5 kg (258.5 lbs). LESSON SEVEN: Bench shirts are handy, but ultimately, you are competing against yourself, not against others. The third attempt for the men on the bench was a risky lift. According to my notes, half of the men bombed on their third attempt. I suppose this is to be expected, especially on a relatively "safe" lift. Much easier to push your limits on the bench press compared to the risky squat. The one masters guy in my class (181) did a perfect three lifts, hitting 125 kg (275 lbs). That wasn't so impressive, since I have done 250. Of course, I didn't pause at the bottom of my lift. (But then, I wasn't wearing a bench shirt. Do the two even each other out, I wondered?) One lifter made the mistake of picking a weight that was too much for his opening on the bench press. Each time the crowd would shout encouragement, but he just couldn't get it past the sticking point. On the other hand, it was a kick to see a 319 lift set a new NW record on the bench at 182.5 kg (401.5 lbs). By now it was 4:30 and the deadlifting hadn't even started. I promised the wife and kids I'd be back by six and Tom had to work on his Ph.D. dissertation (Who said all powerlifters are meatheads?), so we left. What are the final lessons I learned? LESSON EIGHT: Respect all those who competed in a relatively obscure sport. They are obviously doing it for the love of lifting, not for the glory or cash bestowed by others. Hell, most of my friends think I am crazy to be doing this stuff. LESSON NINE: The reliance on equipment--squat suits, knee wraps, bench shirts, etc.--is a disappointment. I really don't feel like investing $100 on equipment for a competition. It takes away from the purity of the sport and muddles the issue of who is stronger. If I ever do enter a meet, it will probably be a raw event. LESSON TEN: Weightlifting in general and powerlifting in particular is about testing your limits. How much can you defy gravity? How strong are you, really? And the ultimate test of those limits is in a competition, not because you are necessarily competing against others, but because you are competing against yourself.