Moderators & Contributors

Tony Gruber:

• Here's my favorite quote from that day, maybe for the year!
  A couple guys thought there would be lots of women there (Oh yea! Chicks dig Powerlifters!). So they were talking back-stage about how girls will be hanging all over them after the competition. Another guy mentioned that he brought his girlfriend, and they started teasing him and telling him what a bad idea that was:
  "Dude! You shouldn't have brought your girl-friend here.
  That's like bringing sand to the Beach!"
  These guys were really disappointed when they found out the audience was full of high-school boys and other powerlifters!
• There were lots of nationally ranked pros there! About 50 guys competed.
• I got to meet Louie Simmons of WestSide Barbell fame.
• The guy in the blue shirt won 1st place overall with a 715 bench in the 220 weight class - The big check was for $1,000!
• I dropped from 265 to 235 to get in the 242 weight class. Overshot by 7 lbs 'cause the scale at my gym was off - Oops!
• I wore a single-ply bench shirt, but it LOWERED my max by 40 pounds. Bench shirts aren't magic! You have to train with them, and train for them. I learned that the hard way!
• One contestant got into powerlifting to keep her rehab interesting. She benched 100 lbs that day! Better still: The rehab got her out of a wheel chair and into braces and crutches!
• There was no predictable correlation between size and strength! I've known this concept for years theoretically, but it was of amazing to see it in action!