Competition is good; it keeps the adventure juices flowing.
27 June 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Competition is good; it keeps the adventure juices flowing.
A man need occasionally be jerked out of his torpor.
DeLuxe/Picasso
Had a small powerlifting competition in my neighborhood and quite a few people used it as an excuse to come to town, lift and afterwards kibitz with other like minded individualsJohn, from the mythical Zebulon (right next door to Xanadu I suppose) made the six hour trek north to south central (Pennsylvania) while Chuck Deluxe drove three hours from West (By God) Virginia. Jeff zigzagged up from Reston. Like a curious anthropologist studying some mysterious aboriginal culture (Mind if we dance wiff yo dates.) my sympacato soul mate sister Susan came up to see some real-deal iron-slinging up close and personal.
The setting was right out of the movie Deer hunter. On this day instead of a wedding being held in the United Auto Workers Union Hall (local 191) tucked just off the interstate in rural Pennsylvania, on this day the hall was being used for a weight lifting competition. I actually saw a bemused local wander in and ask a burly onlooker who happened to work at the hall, So I take it this is not the Pictovitz wedding? No, thats tomorrow. It was a throwback retro power competition, only 30 or 40 athletes were entered so we were finished inside four hours. It was a drug-tested competition of regional importance, mostly locals and no performance enhancing equipment allowed. Lifts needed to be done properly. Three no-nonsense referees judged each and every lift and two out of three need agree the lift was done correctly in order for it to count.
It is nerve-racking proposition for an athlete training at home to travel to a competition and lift a heavy poundage in front of a crowd while unsmiling judges tell you if your lift sucked or was just okay as Randy Jackson of American Idol might say. Squats had to be way deep, bench press had to be held on the chest for a full second before being pressed upwards, deadlifts had to be explosive, the slightest bobble hitch or hesitation cause for disqualification. Youd think athletes would grumble about being subjected to such picayune scrutiny but real lifters love tight judging as it weeds out the poseurs who get to watch from the audience after bombing out (missing three successive lifts in row) and being ignominiously tossed out of the competition, much to the amusement of the seasoned pros.
Once NFL great Willie Davis was asked by a reporter if mean man Vince Lombardi was a racist, No way he treats us all the same like dogs. And so it is with old school retro powerlifting: no drugs, no equipment, no bogus lifts, no gifts and no bitching. Jeff was making a comeback after being away from the competitive lifting platform for many years. He lifted with great precision, a technical clinician. His restraint was obvious and I believe he made every lift except his final deadlift. I also believe he received three white lights on all eight of his successful lifts. John made two personal records, a 424 squat and a 446 deadlift; his ace-in-the-hole, the bench press let him down and he missed 385 twice. Chuck Deluxe is the defending national/world champion in AAU in his weight division and made a really nice 540-pound squat. Bench madness infected Chuck and he missed a big one and had to settle for 363. In the deadlift he made 584 before missing the winning 606-pound deadlift. He was edged out by a 27-year old rising powerhouse from York. Chuck lifted in the 220 pound class instead of his regular 198-pound class. Hell be lifting as a middle heavyweight in Richmond in January to defend the title.
I have a top secret diet given to me years ago by Dorian Yates that I shall take out of the wall safe and share with him. (and John) This eating regimen will allow him to shed 20-pounds of fat while hanging onto every bit of current muscle mass. Hell be able to make his current lifts 20-pounds lighterAfterwards there was a feast on the deck back at my place and many powermen came by to eat and drink beer and swap lies around the grill as the chicken was being grilled. I felt like Emerile Lagasse cooking for famished prison inmates just in from a long day of busting rocks in the hot sun: the group stood around in a loose semi-circle surrounding the Weber as I commenced the BBQ process but they all inched imperceptibly closer to the grill as the first batch of hickory smoked bird came ever closer to fruition. The circle was so tight at the end that when I sat the platter on the table adjacent the grill I had to yank my hand back to keep from getting stabbed with an incoming fork.
I went though 6-pound of boneless chicken, a big tray of baked tortellini, 3-pounds of spaghetti with homemade sauce and country sausage, two giant pots of fresh assorted farm vegetables, six heads of romaine lettuce and six cases of beer - all inside three hours. The highpoint came after dinner when the boys retired to the third floor Near Room and Chuck Deluxe discovered an alto sax and began playing (repeatedly) a beery, fumble-fingered extremely enthused alto sax solo to Who could it be now by Men at Work, the Australian 80s bland-rock band. Imagine a sack full of cats trapped in a canvas bag being whacked repeatedly by Jose Canseco wielding a 36-ounce Louisville slugger after an all-out drug cycle. No sooner would DeLuxe finish one pathetic rendition when he’d yell to the third floor mob, Wait! Wait! I can do it better.
I was afraid the more inebriated lifters were going to start launching empty bottles and cans towards the ceaseless, continual caterwaulingI knew we were in trouble when he first grabbed the shiny sax like a little boy seeing a red fire engine and pointed to the mouthpiece cap that covers the reed and said, Whats that Mar-tay? A dead giveaway that his I played sax for years. line used to entice me to let him play in the first place was a complete lie. Too latehe later suggested that a good family coat of arms might be a shotgun crossed with an alto sax.
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