Masters Benching Secrets

by Roger LaPointe

Rudy Bletscher, at 70 years of age, performing a Feet in the Air Bench Press at the 2006 USAWA National Championships.

How much do you bench?

How many times have you been asked that question?

To me, the bench press is an exercise. To other people, I know it can be a way of life. For the Masters Age lifter, it can be an enigma..

I have recently been doing more bench pressing, because of my focus on the Crucifix Hold records. Thanks to a torn rotator cuff twelve years ago, I quit doing regular bench pressing. Now, thanks to the Indian Clubs, I am not so hesitant to bench. It used to put that shoulder out of commission for a week, or two, if I pushed it at all.

5 Training Lifts for the Master Bencher

  1. Crucifix Hold – I deal with a lot of Masters Age lifters and we all seem to have our particular collection of injuries, big or small. The Crucifix Hold is a funny lift. I have definitely found the classic flat bench press to be a helpful training lift to help with the crucifix 1RM, and vise versa.
  2. Olympic Power Clean and Press – Don’t use a super arched lay back, like the Russians of the early 1970s, instead press like Schemansky. Jim Bradford told me that Norb (Schemansky) told him he needed to “massage the bar”. My buddy Dave Pohlzin has been teaching me to do it. It’s pretty cool. One day I hope to Clean & Press more than I can bench.
  3. Incline Dumbbell Bench Pressing – Man, you need to crush it like Casey. I have an old Meet poster from Dr. Ken’s Iron Island Gym with a photo of Pat Casey doing incline dumbbell benches with some dumbbells that look to weigh around 220 pounds. Awesome. Most guys over do it with the flat benching and develop tendonitis and other problems at the point where the pecs, front delts and biceps meet at the front of the arm pit. This helps to avoid that problem.
  4. Side Lateral Raises – I know you have heard it a million times before but you really do need to avoid muscle imbalance in the delts. On some of these things, the bodybuilders have it right. If you hate this classic bodybuilder movement, try a one arm barbell snatch high pull. I won’t beat a dead horse on this concept. Just try it.
  5. Dumbbell Bent Over Rows – This will solidify the shoulder girdle like nothing else you can do.

Round out these movements with Indian Club work. Masters lifters all seem to have rotator cuff and biceps problems. In many cases, the Indian Clubs seem to solve that problem. They will help you bench more weight. Follow up the Indian Club work with the 5 exercises listed above and you might be benching more than when you were in your 20’s.

Roger LaPointe
“Today is a good day to lift.”

OHHH! My Toe!

by Roger LaPointe

Al Myers doing a Steinborn Lift at the 2010 IAWA World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. The Steinborn Lift is a lift that requires very tight quality collars that won't slip off!

Clang! Ding! Bang! Ohhh! My TOE!

Imagine the sound of plate after plate hitting the floor and then the other plates bouncing off those plates and rolling on the floor, with the ringing sound of milled cast iron followed by intense cursing and swearing…

Yes, the catastrophic failure of a crappy spring collar is what I have just described. Of course, it is followed by intense pain, maybe a little blood and a quick trip to the emergency room. None of this is anything I want to be a part of. I really don’t want to be the guy being taken to the emergency room.

Before you do a lift, make sure someone reliable has checked your collars, particularly if you are doing a dumbbell lift. Equipment failures happen. If there is a bolt, it can come loose. If there is a collar, someone can forget to tighten it down. If there is a weld, it can break. As unbelievable as it sounds, I have even seen dumbbell heads that have sheared off the steal handles. The long and short of it is that people abuse gym equipment and there is NO way a manufacturer or gym owner can anticipate every stupid thing that can happen in a gym… Believe me, I can tell you stories.

Quality Spin-Lock Collars are available from Atomic Athletic.

You have to be responsible for your own actions. Check your equipment.

RULE #1
I never use crappy collars for dumbbell lifts and ALL Spring Collars are crappy.

RULE #2
If I am the one who might be injured, I check the equipment before lifting with it.

RULE #3
See Rule #1 and Rule #2. If I violate them, then I only have myself to blame.

I can get a little OCD and excessive about certain things and will simply go overboard sometimes. For example, I have a collection of collars, both standard size and Olympic sized. I use different ones for their ideal applications. If you are just realizing that your collars are an important part of your equipment arsenal, then here is a good place to start looking. I love spin-lock collars. I highly recommend that everyone own at least one pair.

Happy lifting. Make sure to tighten down your collars.

Live strong, Roger
“Today is a good day to lift.”

World Entries

by Al Myers

Art Montini, the oldest active lifter in the USAWA, was the first person to send his entry in for the IAWA World Championships!

The deadline has passed (September 15th) for entry into the IAWA World Championships to be held on October 6th & 7th in Salina, Kansas.   A total of 25 lifters have entered, which looks to be a good field of competition!  I am excited that there are 6 overseas lifters registered – from England, Scotland and Australia.  This will make this years meet a TRUE World Competition.  In the past there have been people who have not liked to refer to this big IAWA meet as a “World Meet” because of the limited number of countries in attendance.  I will say this – the invite is open to ANYONE IN THE WORLD to attend, so why is it not a World Meet?   Just because most countries elect not to attend?  No one is being excluded from participating in this one, so I would say that qualifies it as a World Competition.  I will always refer to this competition as the World Meet. 

I want to thank everyone who has entered.  Chad and I are “in the middle” of making the final plans to insure that this will be  a TOP NOTCH Championship.  Part of this plan-making process involves getting the final count of awards for the lifters, which was done first thing this morning.  That is one of the many reasons we needed to get a good “head-count” by enforcing a deadline for entry.  The awards we are giving out are VERY NICE and we want our order to be exact on this as to not leave any “left overs”.  So the order went out for 25 this morning for those 25 lifters which got entered in time –  and which was the final date deadline the trophy shop gave me.

Now onto “my soapbox” for a spell.  Promoting these type of big competitions cost money.  Anyone who thinks meet directors “get rich” are clueless – and these people should promote a competition themselves firsthand to find out how much it costs to put on a good show.  The entry fees never cover all expenses. I’m just lucky Chad agreed to “share the losses” with me on this one.   We made it pretty clear that there was a entry deadline with penalties for late entries (if they were going to be accepted).  Chad and I have decided we MAY take late entries with this stipulation – entry fee is now $100 and the late entrant will receive no award (since this order has already been placed), and you have asked us and received permission before the day of the competition  if there is still “room” for you to enter.  Another thing – an entry is not complete until the entry form AND ENTRY FEE is in hand.  I’m not interested in good will gestures of taking the word that a lifter will show and making plans for that, only to be stiffed.  It’s happened too many times to me in the past. 

Again – I want to thank all lifters who have entered.  Chad and I will do our best to insure that you will have a very enjoyable time!   And special thanks goes to Art Montini for getting the first entry in!!!

REGISTERED ENTRIES FOR WORLDS
Art Montini USA
George Dick Scotland
Frank Allen England
Sam Trews Australia
John Mahon Australia
Chad Ullom USA
Lance Foster USA
Paula De La Mata England
Graham Saxton England
Tim Piper USA
Dawn Piper USA
Dennis Mitchell USA
Ruth Jackson USA
Al Springs USA
Denny Habecker USA
LaVerne Myers USA
Rudy Bletscher USA
Frank Ciavattone USA
Dan Wagman USA
Bob Geib USA
Susan Sees USA
Dave Glasgow USA
Doug Kressly USA
Jera Kressly USA
Randy Smith USA

Motivations from Castro

by Roger LaPointe

Pablo Lara

Do you know who Pablo Lara is?

Even if you do, I’m betting that almost nobody you know has a clue who Pablo Lara is or what he is famous for doing. For those of you who don’t know of Pablo Lara, he won the gold medal in the 76 Kg Weight Class in Weightlifting during the 1996 Olympics. His 205 Kg (451.9 lbs.) Clean & Jerk was an Olympic Record.

Motivations are funny things. By the year 2012, anyone knowing who won the 75 Kg (167 lbs.) weight class is filling up brain capacity with some pretty useless trivia. Yet, For PABLO LARA, that information is NOT TRIVIA. Lara set five world records during his career and was a national hero in Cuba.

You want to know about intensity? In 1997 I was able to watch Lara lift. I never spoke with Lara. I wanted to shake his hand, but really didn’t have a good opportunity. He was being watched pretty closely by the Cuban coaches. I was lucky enough to be sent down to Guatemala for the NACACI Championships in order to politic and try to sell weights for the York Barbell Company. Lara was my hero. I was able to watch every one of his warm-up attempts and his lifts on the platform. This was not a big contest, so he ONLY did a 190 kg Clean & Jerk. That is 418.9 pounds, more than any middle weight lifter has ever done from the United States.

Here’s some real motivation. I watched Lara come into the hotel, before the meet, with at least a pound of gold chains around his neck. I thought it was pretty ostentatious, but I had grown up in the Detroit area and had seen that sort of thing before. Leaving Guatemala, I saw Pablo in the airport and he didn’t have any chains. I found out, from one of the Canadian Coaches, that he had sold all of his gold so that he could bring back dollars to Cuba. Essentially, the Cuban team lived a good life sponsored by the state, but the lifters families were still in poverty and that is what the lifters would go back to when they were no longer part of the National Team. Those gold chains were going to be a chunk of Pablo Lara’s retirement. I have no idea how true that may be, as I have never heard anything more about him after that meet. I have heard similar stories about successful lifters from other third world countries. That is some motivation.

You have to find your motivation. I know that through that look of intensity, Pablo Lara also seemed like one smiling happy guy. Weightlifting is hard work. I also know that no one sticks with it without truly enjoying it. Ultimately Lara was done after 1996.

Live strong, Roger LaPointe

Result of Knee Sleeve Poll

by Steve Gardner, IAWA President

Announcement – Knee Sleeves – An IAWA Worldwide Members Poll

As you will all be aware, there was a proposal recently being put to IAWA about allowing the use of ‘Knee Sleeves’ to be worn in all lifts when competing with IAWA. The Knee Sleeves were not being proposed to be performance enhancing or assisting, but simply, we were led to believe, to help keep the lifters knee joints warm and comfortable. Whilst that proposal could be easily understood there would of course be concern that this might well lead eventually to items being worn that would in fact become performance enhancing. It was decided that in this unusual circumstance, rather than let the issue be decided by the group of members that happen to be in Kansas this October, it would be a far better way to decide the issue if we conducted an individual poll of all IAWA members in all Countries. Many of those who did comment, made the point that it was easy enough to wear such an item whilst training and warming up, and then remove them whilst going onto the platform to perform lifts. Of those who spoke for allowing the move, most said that they not wish to see knee supports used as an aide to lifting, and many then went on to say that in fact, they couldn’t really see the point of bringing in such a move if it wasn’t going to be of any real assistance. IAWA does allow the use of wrist wraps, a belt (and knee wraps for the front and back squat only) and in the event, it seems that is how the IAWA membership want to see it remain.

My thanks go to Al Myers in the USA and Robin Lukosious in Australia for helping me conduct the poll, which was quite an undertaking. My thanks again to all those members who returned poll forms, and for the many constructive comments that were made ‘for and against’ and thank you to Dan Wagman from the US who forwarded a full report on the matter. The poll return was roughly 40% of the total membership who were polled. Of those that made returns, the result was 40% for the proposal and 60% against the proposal. The matter is now closed, and IAWA will continue without knee sleeves as per the majority vote result, in line with our democratic principle.

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