European Power Lifting & Bench Press Champs

The British Powerlifters of the BPO sent a strong team to the European Power Lifting Championships in Vienna for the three day event that ran from 22nd to 25th June 2006.    Rich West and Alex Wheatman from the Forest Gym took part and got great results.   It was not an easy task since the standards of lifting and the numbers of competitors have both been rising rapidly in this organisation in the last few years.  As well as taking part Alex has sent us a report of the event.

Hi everyone.   I had been looking forward to this event for some time and the comp went quite well. I was happy with what i made and know that there’s a lot of room for more improvements. I flew out on the Wednesday from Heathrow - nice and early as i was overweight.  I was thinking that I could bask in the sun and relax and dehydrate myself for a day so Ii could make weight.

At the airport I bumped into one of my friends, a 158 Kg SHW; the last man you want around you when dropping weight. We booked into the hotel and went shopping for gartorades, fruit and carbs for after my weigh in. So I had a small salad for dinner and off to bed I went.  After a long delay, I got weighed in at lunch-time Thursday.   The scales were on a small matt so they were very uneven and were a KG out. As if that was not bad enough I found that the the little Austrian who I was supposed to be up against had moved up a class. After that, I spent the whole of the restof the day stuffing my face.

Richard arrived on the Thursday after I had been weighed in, so we met up, had something to eat and a few beers before we went off to bed for an early night. I woke up the next day bright and early, after a good night sleep.  I had some breakfast — not too much as I was squatting first and did not want to lose browney points with the judges by throwing up all over them!  

The venue was nice. It was in a sports hall, not dissimilar to the one we use in Gotha, Germany. I had a nice slow warm up. There were four flights on the first day and only two in the second; just another great example of German efficiency!!  

I opened with a nice easy 200KG. There was not even that much shouting from me before the lift — so I must be getting used to the weight!! Then I called for 220KG which went up nicely but I knew that there was not the 255Kg that I wanted there today. So I called for 230.   Now asking for a weight to be loaded and getting it are two different things.  I got the bar out of the mono lift and it felt a bit lop-sided.   I went down with it and as I came up I thought it felt heavier on the left hand side, so I called for them to take it off of me.  Low and behold they had stuck an extra weight on the left.  So with my back in agony I hobbled back to the warm up room for a bag of ice to apply.

One of my friends was in the last flight. He has been competing in a different federation for a few years and had decided to move over to the BPO. He is an 82.5Kg Open lifter called Justin Hurley. Now this boy is strong — and I mean STRONG. He opened on a 320Kg squat and just missed 360Kg. The week before at the BPC British he went for 390Kg.  He benched 200Kg and pulled a 280 Kg dead lift — just missing the WR of 301Kg.

Coming back to my lifting and on to the bench. After a lot of massage on my lower back I started warming up.  It felt ok, but I could not arch my lower back as much as I wanted.  So I hit 105 and then 115Kg for three lights.  I went for 125Kg.   It felt fine out of the rack and I must of had the longest pause at my chest that I have ever had.  I had thought that he had forgotten about me and gone for a coffee or something, so I just missed the lock out.  By this time my back was in serous trouble and I was starting to doubt whether or not I could carry on.

After more ice and rest I started to get warmed up for the dead lift. Just 60Kg felt like 600, so i dropped my opener to 180 instead of 200Kg.   I managed to get through the warm ups pulled my 180 then pulled out of the show before I did serious damage.

So on the whole it was ok; could have been better but there you go. I was 20Kg up on my squat and 15Kg up on my bench. Not bad in four months!
Then it was home to the hotel, food, a few beers and bed as I had to sort out Rick the next day.

Saturday came around and a very sleepy looking Rick picked me up in the taxi.  On talking to him I found out that he had not slept since Thursday night when he woke up at three in the morning; so at that point he had been awake 36 hours! 

His warm ups went ok but he had to drop his opener to 220Kg — which he smoked; as he did with 250. Feeling a bit more awake after having me shouting at him he called for 280.5Kg for a new world record, but his foot placing was quite out and his body started to turn on the descent.

Now it was Richard’s turn to have one of his friends shine in the 100KG class.  Craig Coombes squatted 405Kg.   Yes, that’s right over 4 times his body weight —893lbs for all you old-time lifters  Then he achieved a 255Kg bench and a 310Kg dead lift. Now those are some good numbers no matter what weight class you are in!

Rick’s bench went really well as you would expect.   We went for 165, 175 then 185.5 Kg for the new world record and boy did it fly off of his chest.  If it had not been for a shoulder injury I would have called for a lot more to be put on the bar.

In the dead lift the warm up went very well — nice and slow and we were both feeling confident that Rick could get the 260.  So he went 220, then 240.  Both very easy.  He went for the 260Kg; it was pulled but just not locked out.

So it was a good showing from the old boy on the whole. I was very impressed by his lifting. Rick is nearly 49 and is still out lifting people half his age in the gym and at competitions.

So now we start preparations for the next event.

We may be noisy and throw some chalk around the gym but we make the effort to go compete.  If power lifting looks that easy then come and join the BPO and lift against some real quality lifters.   

already doubly qualified for the UKBFF Finals via his Overall win at the South Coast and his 2nd place behind Damar Martin at the SE Show in May.His regular gym is the Broadstone Leisure Centre in Poole and he has made great progress with only limited help.

p4

The full British team at the BPO European Championships in Vienna.  Alex Wheatman and Rich West are 4th and 5th on the back row.

Alex Wheatman doing his squat, bench press and dead lift at the European Championships in Vienna on 23rd June.

Men on Bikes

In Trouble Again

Yet again the Tour de France is being wrecked by another load of rubbish about drugs.  The fact is that men on bikes, like Bodybuilders, use drugs.   Anybody who doesn’t want to accept that should not get involved in cycling.   This applies to everyone, the riders themselves, the team bosses, the sponsors, the fans – everyone.  It is obvious that the riders want to use drugs not just to beat other riders but to be the best that they can be.  If they put so much into their sport they should be able to use whatever pharmaceutical assistance they require.   The essential limitations should be related to health and it is the health of the riders which should be the prime concern.

The latest story has its origins in Spain.  The authorities in Spain desperate for something to do, announced last year that they were setting up Operation Puerta to crack down on drugs in sport.   The police had been tipped off by someone that a Dr Eufeminao Fuentes had been operating a doping clinic. Raids uncovered over 200 samples of frozen blood, marked with code numbers to hide the identity of the owner of the blood, which was being stored ready to re-inject before some specific event and boost red blood cell levels.  In addition they found steroids, HGH, insulin and a few other things like corticosteroids, etc.    Filming of the appartment block where the doctor operated have revealed visits by top cyclists [more than 50 men] plus a hundred or so of performers in other sports as well.  All shock/horror stuff.    I have seen many comments in newspapers and on web sites asking the question, “If everybody is using drugs what is the point?”   They do not understand.  Everybody in cycling must be 100% aware that almost everybody uses drugs.   It is not news. Clearly, like Bodybuilders, they want to use drugs.   Get a bunch of competing Bodybuilders together in private and before long they will be talking about drugs.     They will talk about what works best and when and in what doseages, etc.   And in my experience somebody you might compete against would not resist telling you where to get substances A, B or C if you were having trouble.   Clearly, in the case of the bike men, many were going to see the same doctor to help them when they would be racing against each other in an up-coming event.

Although Jan Ullrich, Basso and all the others have not actually failed drugs tests they have been withdrawn from the Tour de France because they have been named in the Spanish investigation. On 24 May, Liberty Seguros team boss, Manolo Saiz, Comunidad Valenciana team boss, Jose Ignacio Labarta and Spanish doctors Eufemiano Fuentes and Jose Luis Merino were arrested by Spain's Guarda Civil. Liberty Seguros then withdrew sponsorship from their team.   In the aftermath of the raids, T-Mobile's management asked all its riders to sign written declarations stating that they were not involved in any way.  It made no difference. T-Mobile revealed that the report showed that there was "clearly contact" between Dr Fuentes and Ullrich, Sevilla and team manager Rudy Pevenage and suspended all three.   CSC rider Ivan Basso, joint favourite for the race with Ullrich, was then excluded by ASO.  And on 30 June the Astana-Wurth [their sponsorship took over from Liberty Seguros] team were forced to withdraw after the team members named in the investigation left them with too few riders to compete.

And so it goes on.   What good has it done?   Almost all the top riders have been eliminated.  Can we assume now that all the riders left have never swallowed an illegal pill or had a non-permissible injection or used a pharmaceutical substance?   If you believe that you are probably living in another universe.

Cyclists are phenomenal athletes and they are having their sport buggered by a collection of self-righteous men in suits who couldn’t ride a bike round the block.

Guys, I don’t know what you have or have not actually done but I wish you the very best of luck in getting it sorted.