rescindx december 2012
DESCRIPTION
Strength From the Shadows 2nd IssueTRANSCRIPT
Strength From The Shadows 4
7 View From The Bar
10 Morning Training
12 Importance of Mental Prep
13 Competition Training
17 Building a Fat Bench
20 Foam Rollers
24 Getting Toned?
30 2012 Last Chance Ottawa OPA
37 Fuelling the Machine
45 2012 CPF Provincials
53 Shockwave Therapy
58 John MacDonald - Machine?
70 Lance Lavallee Strongman
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74 Why do you lift?
76 British Columbia Fall Classic
77 Fat Attitude
78 Warm up, lift more
79 Iceland’s World Disabled Strongman
81 Chris Fudge Profile
83 Rich “Tiger” Singh Profile
84 2012 IPF World Masters
90 2012 Bavarian Strongman
101 Spotlight on Kevin Sedore
103 2012 Amherst Autumn Armageddon
Our first issue is now in the books. While there are so many incredible people to thank ,I am sure I wouldforget someone. Let us just offer a huge thank you, to all the organizations and federations, our advertisers,all the people that contributing with writing or just brainstorming but mostly to the Strength Athletes. Thismagazine is dedicated to you. Without any of you, none of us would be involved in this wonderful worldof strength.
If you have any ideas, criticism or you want to write an article for us. Drop us an email [email protected]. Same if you are interested in advertising.
Strength From the Shadows, it is within all of us.
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Editor’s CornerIt really is true when you put in the effort,the benefits come quickly and often. Thiscould be referring to lifting heavy weightsand objects or to your business practices.
All of us at RescindX went all in this year.In order for us to brand ourselves correct-ly, we identified a particular niche in sportsthat truly appealed to us. We have met themost incredible people and dealt with themost incredible organizations and federa-tions.
And for 2013, that is only going to get moreintense and much bigger and much moreinvolved in the strength sports. We are alsohoping to add arm wrestling to our cover-age and sponsorship chances. If you are in-terested in helping write on any of a largevariety of topics, please feel free to contactus at [email protected].
We look forward to even more chances tosponsor and give exposure to the sports ofpowerlifting and strongman in the comingyear. We thank you wholeheartedly for allthe support and encouragement we havereceived from federations, athletes, fansand supporters. RescindX is becomingmore well known due to all of you and weplan on giving back even more in 2013.
Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmasand Happy New Year and look forward toyour feedback on the latest issue of themagazine.
Bruce MillwardPresident RescindX Apparelwww.rescindx.ca
My View From The Bar
Sunday morning, one of thefirst of the Fall season and Isit here in the morning sun-shine, looking out over apatchy sod field, noticinghow the leaves on the treein my backyard are juststarting to turn colour or getthose dried curly edges.Cue the sound of birds
chirping and crickets humming.
And I hate it!
This can only mean one thing. The beginning of theseason of “stop and wait”. The season of ‘repose’, if Iwant to get all philosophical. The season of rest. AndI accept ‘rest’ about as good as a bunch of cats be-ing thrown in a bag!
Seasons. Cycles. In the wisdom of my 50 years, I’mstarting to see a pattern. Yeah, I’m a slow learner.When I first started any sort of physical training, onmy quest to become “perfect” (as well as world domi-nation), my coach made out my program in 5 weeksegments with a built-in 6th week ‘rest’ week.There’s a rest? A break in this madness?? I knewthis had to be a match made in heaven! I looked for-ward to this period of no lifts, no runs, no walks, nonothing but what Linda wanted to do.... long bubblebaths, book a massage, evenings watching TV, lei-surely cooking meals. Cue the ‘spa music’.
However, the IDEA of rest and the reality of restwere two different birds! Two days in and I was‘sneaking’ in power walks, just for fun grabbing thebarbell and doing curls for amrap, throwing the tread-mill on incline just to see how much difference therewas in how long it took my heart to explode into mythroat. I’m a fun girl like that. I felt so uncomfortablein the ‘rest’ that I fought it every step of the way.
Then, I come across this sport called Powerliftingand one of the demands of the sport is rest. Rest be-tween sets, rest between lifting days. Deep breath in,hold it - SQUAT! Deep breath in, fill your chest -PUSH! Set your body, deep breath - LIFT!! Pushback against that moment’s rest with all your might,
every fibre of your being. Gather and direct all yourstrength in that moment of ‘inhale’.
Deep breaths. Rests. Pauses. How many times dowe either take this all for granted in our everydaylives or fluff it off as phooey?
If you read my last diatribe, you know that I havebeen going through an emotionally hurtful time.Haven’t we all? To get me through that, without total-ly deciding to get in my car and drive away as far asmy Visa limit would take me, I rallied some friends,hired some mental coaches, bought a lot of booksand every single one of them told me something Ididn’t want to hear. Pushed me to do something Ifought every step of the way.
Just breathe. Just pause. Feel the heaviness. Allowthe pain. Welcome it. Sit with it. Accept it. Feel the‘uncomfortable’ and then know that the only way tothe other side, to really and truly get strong again, isto accept the time it takes to get past this. Past theseason. Use the pause. I cannot tell you how much Idespised doing this. No matter how many schoolsyou went to, how many degrees you have, how muchyou think you know, this causes me pain. Mental,draining, exhausting, temper tantrum, I don’t want todo it anymore - pain.
But - and there’s a big but - I’ve had a whole lot ofpain from growing my muscles, strengthening mybody, conditioning my so-called “aerobic capacity”.I’ve had no trouble enjoying the stiffness that a ‘good’workout brings. I’ve bragged about how I can barelybrush my teeth because my arms are toast from dipsand close grip bench presses. How it’s a yoga pantday because my legs are swollen from heavy dead-lifts. How my ‘chesticles’ ache from sets of pausedbench work.
And then it occurs to me.....There is strength in thepause.
On seasons; off seasons; high carb days, low carbdays, sprints, walks, de-load week, peak week. Allterms that the athletes inside us know, accept andhonour.
We’ve all had our backs on the bench, under the bar,pumping out reps. Got the rhythm, got the stroke, to
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the chest or to the board. Smooth as silk baby! Addsome weight. It presses down a bit harder. You tight-en your body, adjust your set up, and plant your feetand push! Then along comes the pause rep. Youknew it was coming. Just a matter of time before ithad to be done...overcome...conquered. There’ is nogetting around the pause.
I remember the last competition I was at. My lastbench attempt was a weight that I had never liftedbefore. I had benched a kilo or so under it, but hadnever managed to get that particular weight off mychest. I’m all set up, got the lift off, control the bardown to my chest... and wait for the command.Pause. Pause. I’m thinking, where has the judgegone? Lunch time? Pee break? Why is it that no oneelse’s pause seemed to take as long?? Is this not thestory of my life??! Of course, it was only a matter ofseconds, but I wasn’t strong enough to press it out. Iaccept that. My body knew what its limits were at thatpoint in time.
Since then, I have kept the analogy in my head that INEED to train the pause - in whatever form it comesin. Feel the weight. Accept the burden. Revel in there-set.
Then, when the PRESS command comes, I will re-spond - body, mind and spirit - and it’s 3 white lightsall the way!!
So this time, my view is from under the bar and thelesson I’m learning to accept:
There is strength in the pause.
When is the last time you truly made time to pause?
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This is Ontario Strongman - home of the Ontario Strongman As-sociation, and your Internet source for Strongman informationin the Province of Ontario since 2003. Check out our Resourcessection for articles and workout spreadsheets.
Although rapidly increasing in popularity, Strongman is a rela-tively new sport in Ontario. This site exists to promote the sport,provide training resources, advertise all levels of provincial com-petitions, spotlight the athletes, and to provide a tool to bringpromoters, athletes and fans together.
Strength From The Shadows 9
Morning Training: To Eat Or Not To EatKyle Grieve
Perhaps you have setyour alarm earlier thenyou would like to getsome grub in before youtrain. You did this be-lieving that it is a prereq-uisite to eat before youtrain in the morning in
order to reap the benefits of the anabolic (muscle building)window and stave off catabolism (muscle wasting). May-be on your deadlift day you forgot to set your alarm andweren’t able to get breakfast in before training. “Well itlooks like a wasted day of training,” you tell yourself…Lucky for us, we’ve got scientists in lab coats whose veryjob is researching these kinds of things. The emergence ofresearch that’s been broken down by such names as BradPilon, Ori Hofmekler, and Martin Berkhan have allowedus to seek new methods to be lean, and still remain asstrong, or even stronger than we ever thought possible.The main reason for proponents of eating before you trainis this: carbohydrate depletion!Basically, when we train we use mainly carbohydrates tofuel our exercise (yes fat is also heavily utilized dependingon training duration and other factors). If we train hardand have no carbohydrates in our muscles, liver, and cir-culation it is hypothesized that our performance will de-crease.On the other side of the coin, research shows that trainingin a fasted state actually increases the bodies’ ability toefficiently make glycogen (the storage form of carbohy-drate). What this means is that if you want to train fast-ed, you probably do not need to worry about a decrease inperformance if you train in a fasted state. This is still anindividual thing as I’ve had clients who absolutely musthave carbohydrates before they train otherwise they noticea marked decrease in performance.The beauty of the human body is its’ efficiency at storingenergy. In the case of carbohydrates, our muscle and liveris king. They both store glycogen for use at a later time.Whether you are hunting your next dinner or deadlifting aPR, that glycogen will be waiting there for you until itget’s depleted. Fortunately, we can replenish wheneverwe want and still have stores to use at a later time.Another possible benefit of training fasted is the anabolicrebound effect, which occurs when you eat after training.Simply put, when you eat after a fasted training bout, you
stimulate the anabolic effect even more so than training in afed state.This study used a mixture of carbohydrate, protein hydro-lysate, and leucine. I wouldn’t worry much about the particu-lars of the amino acids or dosing, what does matter is that youget some sort of carbohydrate in after you train, as well asprotein. Something incredibly simple might be a high carbsports drink with a couple scoops of protein mixed in or twoseparate beverages.So how can you use this information to help you get leanerand/or bigger and stronger?
- Have you ever felt uneasy after eating then maxingout on squats? Maybe you had to make a trip to thenearest garbage can? Train fasted.
- Strapped for time and don’t want to eat breakfastthen digest before you train? Train fasted.
- Do you have zero appetite in the morning? Trainfasted.
The important thing to understand is that you shouldn’t noticeany kind of decrease in performance, nor should you worryabout losing any hard earned muscle. Feel safe about trainingfasted.The period of the fast is a whole different and largely re-searched topic. Unless you have researched a particular meth-od of fasting, don’t worry about the length of the fast. Eatyour last meal of the night, and then either sip BCAA(branched chain amino acid) beverage during your training, oreat immediately following a training session.Resources:Van Proeyen K, Szlufcik K, Nielens H, Ramaekers M, HespelP. “Beneficial metabolic adaptations due to endurance exer-cise training in the fasted state.” J Appl Physiol. 110(1)(2011) 236-45. EpubDe Bock K, Derave W, Eijnde BO, Hesselink MK, Koninckx
E, Rose AJ, Schrauwen P, Bonen A, Richter EA, Hespel P.“Effect of training in the fasted state on metabolic responsesduring exercise with carbohydrate intake.” J Appl Physiol.104(4) (2008):1045-55. EpubLouise Deldicque, Katrien De Bock, Michael Maris, Monique
Ramaekers, Henri Nielens, Marc Francaux and Peter Hespel.“Increased p70s6k phosphorylation during intake of a protein–carbohydrate drink following resistance exercise in the fastedstate.” EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSIOLO-GYVolume 108, Number 4 (2010), 791-800. Epub
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How Important is Mental Prep?Written by Shantelle Szuch
From a psychological perspective, mental preparation isgood for justabout anything.Got an exam?You shouldprobably prep.Got a job inter-view? Youshould probablyprep. Got atough conversa-tion? Youshould probablyprep. What
about sport? Got a big event? Yes, you should probablyprep. Now, what happens here though, people think “I goto the gym, I train, I practice so I am prepared.” In a phys-ical sense, you definitely are. And, in a psychologicalsense, you have done much of the work that will benefityou. Rehearsing your events, lifts, etc in real life is criti-cal to psychological preparation, but you can do more.
Most athletes have heard of visualization, and this is onebig part of mental preparation for sport. You want to cre-ate a vision of what you want to have happen. This doessomething important. It boosts confidence in a big wayand it creates a reality in your brain where this happens.Using powerlifting as an example, if I can’t see myselfdeadlifting 200 kg then even if I have the physical strengthto do it, I won’t be able to. The brain is THAT powerful.Now, if I visualize myself deadlifting 200 kg a hundredtimes a day and don’t have the physical strength to do it, Istill won’t (the brain isn’t quite that powerful - ha!). But,let’s put these two together and the likelihood that I willmake that pull is much higher than if I never saw it as myreality.
Although I cannot find the specific article and citation,Australian psychologist, Alan Richardson, used the skill ofshooting baskets as a way of testing the effectiveness ofvisualization. A third of the test participants (group A)were told to practice their free throw technique twentyminutes per day, the second third (group B) were directedto spend twenty minutes per day visualizing but not actu-ally attempting successful free throw attempts, and thethird group (group C) were not allowed to either practiceor visualize. At the end of the test period, the group’s skilllevels were measured. Predictably, Group C did not im-prove at all, however, both groups A and B showed nearlythe same degree of improvement. Essentially, people who
simply thought about the skill of shooting baskets wereable to perform almost as well as the ones who had actual-ly practiced! Richardson's study is now used to suggestthat peak performance is obtained through 75% visualiza-tion and 25% physical practice. Neuroscientist Dr. KarlPribram explains this for us through his research thatshows visualizing an event activates the same neural net-works and patterns as actually doing the event. Our brainsare pretty powerful things!
So, now that I’ve convinced you to do this, how about Itell you how to do it?! Generally a quiet place whereyou’ll be left alone for awhile works best. Create an im-age in your head of how you perform the exercise. WhenI’m preparing for a meet, I run through a few lifts mentally– my squat opener, my 3rd squat (my goal number), my 3rd
bench (goal) and my 3rd deadlift (goal). I rehearse theselifts executed perfectly. Sometimes my brain tricks meand makes me mess up – performance anxiety takes overfor a second there. In these instances, I immediately reori-ent myself and get back to practicing correctly and thenrehearse several times correctly. It’s like physical overcorrection for a movement done wrong, except this ismental over correction. I also imagine the setting, thesounds, the smells, anything that can really put me in themoment. I imagine the feeling of my knees beingwrapped, I rehearse the cues my brother/coach tells me foreach lift, I imagine him and the things he hollers at meduring the lift. I rehearse the commands and I allow my-self to experience the feelings that accompany the lifts.
That leads me to one of the things that can be very benefi-cial; imagining the emotion and feelings that accompanythe success. Emotion is incredibly powerful and when weconnect a positive, powerful emotion to a success, we fur-ther increase our likelihood of success. So, when I re-hearse my goal lifts for a meet, I imagine what it will feellike to be successful. I imagine my own internal celebra-tion and what it will feel like to walk off the platform hav-ing gotten that lift. I really let myself experience it!
This sounds like it can take a very long time to do, andinitially it might. But, it’s definitely worth it and as youget more rehearsed in doing this, it will get faster. I don’tnecessarily visualize the entire meet all at once or even all3 lifts at once. I might visualize my squats one day when Ihave 5 minutes. Then another time when I have 5 minutesI will practice another visualization. The more you canrehearse the lifts in your mind, the better, but always besure to finish visualization with several successes and acontent feeling. You still have to get your butt to the gym,
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Competition NutritionWhitney Garrah
When you think about the sport of powerlifting, clean eat-ing isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind. Butjust because you’re getting on a stage in a singlet and not abathing suit, doesn’t mean your nutrition shouldn’t be justas accurate as a body builder. In fact, how you eat is justas important as how you train and ultimately affects howmuch iron you can lift. Remember that a good nutritionprogram for any athlete is very important when it comes toperformance. For powerlifters, nutrition is can sometimesbe the weakest link, but with the right amount of dedica-tion and coaching, think of it as your secret weapon.
For our powerlifting team, we carefully plan and track nu-trition focusing on a macronutrient split of 30% carbohy-drate, 40% protein and 30% fat. Perhaps lower in carbsthan you might have thought, but in order to keep ourteam as lean as possible in their designated weight class, itis the most effective program.
Our plan when it comes to our nutrition programming is toincrease strength (aka lift as heavy as possible), decreaseor maintain lower levels of body fat (more muscle, lessfat) and ensure that proper nutrition protocols support themuscle recovery process (and also prevent nasty injuries).
All calories come from foods in their most natural state.The majority ofcarbs come from fruit, vegetables, and some whole grains.For protein, we focus on animal proteins (beef, chicken,eggs…etc) and fat sources include nuts, seeds and oils.And yes, just in case you were afraid, bacon does make anappearance on our breakfast meal plan!
In terms of supplementation with a 5-6 day a week train-ing schedule, pre and post workout nutrition is key to dailytraining performance, increasing strength and allowing formuscle recovery. Our lifters use beta-alanine pre-workout,a BCAA supplement peri-workout and a large whey pro-tein shake with fruit within the first 30 minutes post work-out. They also supplement with a slow digesting caseinprotein about ½ hour before bedtime to ensure that musclebreakdown is prevented during their fasted state whilesleeping. This snack is usually a cup of cottage cheesewith some cinnamon or cocoa.
The best advice I can give is to keep it simple, focus onfoods in their most natural state, decrease foods you needto unwrap before eating (aka cut the junk food) and think
about your nutrition program as your secret weapon to lift-ing more iron.
Whitney Garrah is the co-owner of Taylored Training Inc., Cana-da’s first Hybrid Gym, based out of Kingston, Ontario.
While pursuing an honours degree in Sociology at Queen's Univer-sity in Kingston, she was certified as a Fitness Instructor Specialistthen Certified Personal Trainer and most recently as a CertifiedFitness Nutrition Coach through the ISSA as well as being a Level1 Precision Nutrition Coach.
As a business owner, trainer and nutrition coach with over 10years experience in the fitness industry, Whitney believes that wemust always have fitness goals to motivate and challenge our mindand body. Our bodies are incredible machines that need tobe pushed, challenged and well maintained.
www.eatcleanandtraindirty.cawww.tayloredtraining.ca
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Calendar of EventsOntario Bench Press and ON 3-Lift Classic Champs.
December 15-16, 2012, Belle River ONMD: Jerry Marentette - Ph: 519-727-6096
2012 Rhaea Stinn Last Chance InvitationalDecember 29, 2012, Moose Jaw, SK
MD's: Rhaea Stinn & Ryan StinnEntry form in MS Word or Adobe PDF
2013 PEI Provincial ChampionshipsJanuary 12, 2013, Souris, PEI
MD's: Tom Nicholls, Larry Leblanc 902-687-1963 & Jason Mosher 902-367-7224Entry form in MS Word or Adobe PDF
1 Optimyz Live ChampionshipJanuary 19, 2013, Halifax NS
MD: Rob SnowEntry Form in MS Word or Adobe PDF
QPF Provincial Classic ChampionshipJanuary 19, 2013, Jonquiere, Quebec, G7X 3K2
MD: Joël Boulianne, Tel.: (418) 290-7808
2013 Ontario Equipped Provincial ChampionshipsJanuary 26 & 27, London, ON
BCPA Winter OpenFebruary 10, Richmond Oval, Richmond BC
Canadore College "Classic" ChallengeMarch 16 2013m North Bay, ON
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Calendar of Events
2013 CPU NationalsMarch 18-23, 2013, Richmond BC
MD: Joe OliveiraWebsite: www.cpunationals.ca/ - Facebook Page
Belle River OpenMay 11, Belle River, ON
Toronto Super ShowMay 31, Toronto, ON
BCPA ProvincialsJune 2013, location to be confirmed.
BCPA Fall ClassicNovember 2013, location to be confirmed.
Info on Ontario Meets can be found on the OPA's website.
Building a Fat Bench By Michael Petrella
In the early days of the STG Strength and Power power-lifting team, I was working with a pair of young powerlift-ers to help them get ready for a National powerliftingmeet. Since the Worlds were too far away for them to trav-el to, the National meet was their largest meet that year.Bo th lifters had a biggo al in mind: to goov er 400 lbs in theben ch press at theme et. One of the liftershad accomplished thisjust once before, whilethe other had not. Eightwe eks away from theme et, we started 1-rep
max training, asjust like any sport, practicing the skill is necessary for youto succeed. In the case of powerlifting, this means per-forming maximum lifts in competition form.
As the competition grew near, we encountered a problem.Both athletes had become too good at bench pressing.Now, before someone jumps all over this statement, let meexplain – when each of the athletes setup properly, trackedthe bar properly, breathed properly and, in general, per-formed a well-executed lift, both could easily go over 400lbs. However, they had become so primed to this specificmovement that if one factor was off just a little bit, 400 lbswas out of the question. For all the time we were spend-ing perfecting the lift, we had lost that brute strength thathad got them there in the first place.
Naturally, we continued training the lift exactly how itshould be performed in competition, but we had to makesome alterations to the accessory work to get their powerback. The exercise we came up with was pin pressing witha fat bar. I do not believe this is an original idea, but I do
believe that when it is used in the way we implemented it,it can help anyone build a much stronger bench press.
There were several factors that we ensured were in placefor our pin press with a fat bar. First, we set the pins asclose to the lifter’s chest as our power rack would allow toavoid shortening the range as much as was possible.
Second, we did the exercise off of pins instead of off thechest because we wanted to minimize the stretch reflex.The bar came to a dead stop each repetition and the lifterwould even sometimes wait several seconds between repe-titions. Any weight you can drive up and lockout from adead stop is a weight that you will be able to lift in compe-tition form. In fact, if you decide to add this to your ownprogram, don’t be surprised when you need to lower theweight substantially at first.
Third, we used a 3” fat bar. There are many reasons forthis. The tracking that your body gets used to in the benchpress is thrown out the window. Instead of relying on get-ting the “groove” perfect every rep, you need to focusmore on the driving and muscular contractions. Doneproperly this has an interesting effect on benching with anormal bar. Best lifts will always come with perfect form,but the body now seems to be able to move outside the“groove” and still complete a good lift. It is almost likeenlarging the sweet spot on a golf club driver - the ball canbe hit outside of the middle of the club and still achieve agreat straight shot.
The last factor to the fat bar pin press that we used wasthat the athletes performed this exercise hard. Many pow-erlifters are afraid to take movements to failure because ofthe potential to burn out or fall into overtraining. The riskof this increases as you train harder, but I truly feel this isthe exercise you want to push the intensity on. With mostbench pressing motions, you need to make sure you have avery good spotter, or, for the stronger lifters out there, sev-eral good spotters. However, this exercise can be donesafely without anyone else present. When you hit failure,you simply lower the bar onto the pins. This fact alone isone of the reasons fat bar pin pressing is so effective. Toreally increase stimulus, this is the perfect exercise forrest-pause training. Also, as a bonus, using a thicker bar isan excellent teacher of how to hold on tight to the bar – Iwouldn’t try suicide grip with one of these.
So what were the results? The first lifter hit a 425 lb benchpress at the meet. At that point, this number represented anew PR (and not just a competitive PR). The other lifterhit a 413 lb bench press. His previous best, which had
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been performed in a competition earlier that year, was a385 lb bench press. The fat bar pin press was, of course,only part of the entire program used in their training, but Ido feel it was an integral part. Also, in case anyone waswondering, both of these lifts were done raw and drugtested.
Author’s note: Thick bars can be expensive to buy. Aninexpensive solution would be to weld two fixed Olympiccollars to a thick bar with a diameter of your choosing. Aneven cheaper option is to buy a pair of Fat Gripz and putthem on the bar. I don’t feel this is as effective as havingto press a real thick bar, but it is a substitute for a lifter ona budget.
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Foam Rollers – Do They Work? Justin Lewis
I have seen many competitors using foam rollersduring their training, as well as a precompetition routine.But do foam rollers actually do what they’re said to do? Dothey improve your performance?
There hasn’t been much research performed on thetopic of foam rollers. There are two studies that have beenperformed1, but both contain basic research flaws. Thishowever does not mean that the results are correct orwrong, but must be read with a grain of salt. Both studiesdiscuss the need for further research into the topic on howusing foam rolling for self myofascial release can aid inperformance.
So what are foam rollers supposed to do? A numberof sellers of foam rollers claim that they are used to inhibitoveractive muscles. Others claim that they are a way ofperforming self myofascial release. Another claim is tocombat reciprocal inhibition. There are more claims, butlet’s focus on these three for the sake of time.
Let’s look at inhibiting overactive muscles andreciprocal inhibition together, as they are basically one inthe same, depending on which muscle you us the foamroller on. The term reciprocal inhibition basically meanswhen an agonist muscle contracts, the antagonist becomesinhibited and simultaneously relaxes. A simple example iswhen the quadriceps contracts, the hamstrings will relax,allowing the knee joint to be extended.
If we were to use a foam roller to achieve this result,we should then be rolling the foam roller, not where we feeltight, but on the antagonist. Now we’re making sense. Buthave you really ever seen someone rolling out their ham-strings, so that their quads will decrease in tension? Maybethat’s an educational thing or bad advertising by the sellersof the foam rollers, or maybe a bit of both.
How about inhibiting overactive muscles? If we useit on the proper muscle, we can achieve this by reciprocalinhibition, as shown above. Is there another way in ‘inhibitan overactive muscle’? Yes, but not with a foam roller. Oneway to cause inhibition of an overactive muscle is to treatthe Golgi tendon organ. The Golgi tendon organ is a prop-rioceptive receptor that tells the muscle information regard-ing the amount of force and strain on the muscle itself.
The important part of information regarding theGolgi tendon organ is its location. It is located where themuscle fibres turn into the tendon of the muscle. So if wewere to treat this using a foam roller, people would not berolling the muscle belly itself, but where the muscle turnsinto tendon. Have you seen that being done before? Notvery often. Usually you see someone rolling the entirelength of the muscle, not just at the muscle-tendon junction.
So what if we see someone rolling the entire length of atight muscle? Chances are they are looking more for amyofascial release, then any type of inhibition. Now, we’restarting to make sense. Fascia is becoming one of the mostpopular structures to study. Daily we are learning moreregarding its structure and function.
Fascia envelops every muscle fibre, every muscle,groups of muscles and even swaths of the body in general– often referred to as trains. Think of wearing skinny jeansand trying to perform a set of squats. It’s not a problem withyour muscles, joint, ligaments or tendons - it’s your jeans.
Fascial restrictions can cause the same symptoms. They canrestrict movements, restrict circulation and cause manychanges in body mechanics. Release the restrictions in thefascia, and the movement returns to normal. Using a foamroller to achieve this type of release makes more sense.
Now the issue becomes how effective it really is atachieving this. Which brings us back to the two studiescompleted regarding the increase in performance after us-ing a foam roller.
So, do foam rollers work? The answer seems to bea large ‘maybe’. First we have to pin down why we areusing the roller. Secondly, we have to then use it appropri-ately to achieve the desired result. Thirdly, more – andbetter – studies are needed to prove the validity of the useof foam rollers.
Then again, maybe it’s all just the placebo effect?
Justin has been a massage therapist since 2002, having graduatedfrom Centennial College’s Massage Therapy program, where he is nowcurrently a part time faculty member. He practices out of BoomersSports Medicine Clinic in Bowmanville, and its sister clinic Park RoadPhysiotherapy & Foot Clinic in Oshawa. He has been involved inOntario Physique Association shows since 2004, and currently organ-ises and leads the Massage Therapy Crew for the Toronto Pro Super-Show. He can be reached via email at [email protected] MacDonald et al. Journal of Strength & Conditioning
Research. 2012 May 10. Healey et al. Journal of Strength& Conditioning Research. 2011 March
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Athlètes de force du Québec (Quebec’sStrength Athletes)
By Jean Frechette, AFQ owner
Athlètes de force du Québec (Quebec’sStrength Athletes) was born on a freezingnight of February 2010, the perfect nightto stay inside, start a new website andearn geek points.
For you to understand, I need to intro-duce myself. I am Jean Frechette, I am astrength athlete and I live in a town inthe province of Quebec. Everybody herespeaks French. I fell in love with thesport in 2008 and I wanted to knowwhere the competitions were takingplace, where I could find the stuff andgear to practice this sport, who were thebest athletes.
I have been doing research on strengthathletes for a while, but the informationin French was hard to find. There wasonly one website entirely dedicated to thesport in Québec. Sadly, it was neglectedand lacked the passion. Being a geek anda strongman, I decided to put all the stuffI could find about the sport online. Ifound that the pros were very interestedin helping this website grow. They were,
and still are, very generous, offering timeand advice.
Once a French-Canadian site only, it isnow bilingual. The website, as well as theFacebook page, is being written both inFrench and in English since more andmore athletes from other provinces andcountries come to get the results of thecompetitions held in Québec.
One can find the results, the athlete’snames, the records, the events and muchmore.
The site is fan oriented. The success ofAFQ relies on the participation of people.I receive scores, time of events and infor-mation from everywhere on a daily basis,making this site so up-to-date.
I’m really proud of working with thestrength athletes and promoting thissport. The AFQ is my way of contribut-ing to the success of the sport. Visit thesite and the Facebook page!
Website Link
Athletes de Force du Quebec
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Hey ladies, want to get “toned?”I will start by saying that the most commonquestion that I hear from women when per-forming a personal training session is: “Butwon’t I get big and bulky from lifting heavyweights?”
That is the question that bugs me almost asmuch as “what exercise can I do to get rid ofthis?” while grabbing at their mid-sectionwith a look of disgust on their face. Thatquestion will take a whole separate article tocover, so hold tight, I will try to get to it the
next time.
Back to womenlifting weights.When womencome in andsay, “I want toget toned” thistells me that theindividualwould like to
have some muscle definition, or what we liketo refer to as an “athletic look”. That is whatI am assuming because everyone has his or herown definition for this word “toned.”
To have muscle definition, or an athletic phy-sique, you must;
(a) Perform any sort of muscle building exer-cises using your body weight or (heaven for-bid) weights
(b) Reach a low percent of body fat
For these two possibilities to become a realitythere is a lot of hard work required. I am notgoing to lie. Lifting weights is hard work, per-forming cardio training at 100% effort is hardwork, and keeping a clean diet in check is alsohard work. None of these are for the weak-minded. Results will not occur overnight ei-ther. You must work hard, consistently, for along time. This is obviously why we don’t seeall kinds of wonderfully “toned” middle agewomen walking around like it’s nobody’s
business.
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Now, don’t let me discourage you. Let me en-lighten you. By challenging yourself and liftingweights, you are putting out great effort and,in turn, burning loads of calories and buildingmuscle at the same time. And as you may al-ready know, muscle burns more calories whenthe body is at rest than our friend fat does. (Upto 50 to 100 calories more per day)
For women to become bulky by lifting weights,they must want this to happen. By this I mean
that they are taking a testosterone supplementto help them build muscle beyond what the fe-
male body is capable of. For the average wom-an, the existing low levels of testosterone in ourbodies will prevent us from building musclelike our manly counter-parts, and this alsomakes it tougher for us to maintain a lean phy-sique. Heck, there are men who even havetrouble putting muscle mass on their skinnyframes. If a woman was to train as hard andheavy as the strongest man in the gym, chancesare she still wouldn’t have the athletic phy-sique that she desired.
Of course, there are obviously going to be theexceptions. Some women are lean and sportthe athletic look without the help of regularexercise. Let’s not hold this against them. Yes,it would be nice to be able to sit on the couchand not be able to develop a muffin top or batwings, but this isn’t a reality. Most of us haveto do it the hard way. Exercising and liftingweights can actually be an enjoyable past time.The rewards of lifting weights and regular ex-ercise are too many to be listed. The results ofa sound, healthy body image are far more re-warding when you have worked your ass off inthe gym to get them. Not everyone who is“thin” is healthy, and don’t ever forget that.
Take any long-term personal training client atUltimate Fitness and ask them if they enjoytheir time with us. We use primarily freeweights and body weight exercises in our ses-sions, and of course, a lot of hard work. Guar-anteed our clients at some point will mentionthat it isn’t easy, but they will also tell you thatthey feel like they are in the best shape of theirlives. Seriously, ask any one of them.
I am confident that they will tell you the samething I did. With all of our clients, confidencelevels are increased in all aspects of life, andthere is always a personal record to beat in thegym. With this I mean any record that youhave set for yourself individually, or maybeeven putting up a number on one of our gym-lift record boards. Having a record board witheveryone’s best lifts provides a competitiveedge that pushes people to try that much hard-er in whatever it is that they are doing, just toget their name displayed in front of all the oth-er members. It is a great feeling to achieve.
So, bottom line ladies, lift weights, get stronger,and don’t be afraid to put the men in the gymto shame. I take great pride in doing so myself,I won’t deny it. You know, it is self gratifyingto be physically strong and not have to askyour partner to open the pickle jar for you.With some hard work, soon enough he will beasking you.
Get your name up on that record board.
Sarah
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Ontario Powerlifting AssociationThe OPA strives to be the standard in Ontario Powerlifting offering lifters theoption of competing in both the Classic and Equipped divisions’ three lift and
bench press competitions throughout Ontario.
Annual OPA memberships provide lifters with Canadian Powerlifting Union(CPU) memberships allowing lifters to lift in OPA sanctioned powerlifting
meets throughout Ontario. Competitions are open to both men and women invarious age and weight categories.
Additional Information can be obtained from the OPA website at http://ontariopowerlifting.org or bysending an e-mail to: [email protected]
LAST CHANCE OTTAWA OPEN 2012
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LAST CHANCE OTTAWA OPEN 2012
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LAST CHANCE OTTAWA OPEN 2012
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LAST CHANCE OTTAWA OPEN 2012
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LAST CHANCE OTTAWA OPEN 2012
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LAST CHANCE OTTAWA OPEN 2012
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FUELING YOUR MACHINE:IS THE PALEO DIET FOR YOU?
Jill MacCallum Sproul
Paleo diet as we know it today is about 40 yearsold. Proponents of Paleo will describe it as alifestyle more than a diet-and it is often called the“no-diet diet”. To explain this statement from anacademic standpoint, “diet” as a noun is “the kindsof foods that a person, animal or community habit-ually eats”. However, today “diet” is more com-monly used a verb- as in to “restrict oneself tosmall amounts or special kinds of foods in orderto lose weight”. For the purposes of this article theword “diet” will be used in both senses but inusing diet as a verb-I suspect the majority of thereaders in this community are looking for perfor-mance-not weight loss. After all, this publicationrepresents the strong, the powerful, and the bigeaters of the general population!
So what is the Paleo diet and where did it comefrom?It’s often referred to as the Cave Man diet, makingus think it’s been around since pre-historic timesand discussed at the paleolithic campfire amongstthe women of the small band of paleolithic hu-mans and passed down through generations... (oogoog meat...oog oog vegetables...!). Obviously,this is not the case!
The diet of humans of this era consisted of what-ever could be hunted or gathered, not one personof that era ever documented what they ate, how itwas prepared, or what they were not allowed toeat. A diet of this era was about survival-not somuch for weight loss or performance in the gymor in competition.
So where do the rules come from for the “Paleodiet” as we know it today?
It was first popularized in the mid 70s by gastro-enterologist Walter L. Voegtlin. The nutritional
concept has evolved over the last 40 years and hasbeen presented to mainstream population in vari-ous forms and guidelines have evolved as well.The common theory of all authors and researchersis that modern humans are genetically adapted tothe diet of their paleolithic ancestors and thathuman genetics have not evolved much since thedawn of agriculture. (Agriculture marked the endof the Paleolithic era).
Considering that illness and so called “lifestylediseases” or “diseases of affluence” (such as typeII diabetes, coronary disease, obesity, alcoholism,gout and some allergies) are on the rise the moresociety consumes processed and artificial foods-the concept of Paleo makes perfect sense.
The Paleo Diet is not just another fad diet withpromises of “never count calories again-eat asmuch as you want-lose weight-build muscle”.There is a great deal of scientific support for thetheory and for the strong, and the big lifters ofsociety who are moving big weights multipletimes a week, this diet is well suited for you!
Food is the one of the most powerful componentsin your high performance formula. Without prop-er fuel your performance will suffer. Considerthat a calorie is a unit of energy, all foods havecalories, but not all foods provide equal potentialfor high performance. (Check out the Pit Stop tosee how we process fuel!)
So why does a Paleo diet suit the dietary needs ofthe strong and the most powerful members ofsociety? Figuring out how to fuel your machinefor optimal performance is the Holy Grail. If therewas one formula that would work for every humanon earth, that magic pill would be worth billions!Though there is not one diet that will be effectivefor everyone, I encourage you to read on andconsider with an open mind how your machinemight respond to fueling using Paleo guidelines.
ü Eat fresh or frozen vegetables eithercooked or raw and eat with fat. Somestarchy vegetables are ok, like sweetpotatoes are also great as a source ofnon-toxic carbohydrates. (In additionto the gluten found in wheat basedcarbohydrates, wheat based carbohy-drates can contain toxins that pollutethe body).
ü Fruits and nuts are OK in moderation.Stick to lower glycemic index fruits,and nuts that are high in omegas.
ü Meat is best if it is pasture-raised andgrass-fed, purchased locally.
ü Choose organic, local and/or seasonalfruits and vegetables.
ü Cut out all cereal grains and legumesfrom your diet. This includes, but isnot limited to, wheat, rye, barley, oats,corn, brown rice, soy, peanuts, kidneybeans, pinto beans, navy beans andblack eyed peas.
ü Cut out all vegetable, hydrogenatedand partly-hydrogenated oils includ-ing, but not limited to margarine, soy-bean oil, corn oil, Crisco, peanut oil,canola oil, safflower oil and sunflow-er oil. Olive oil and avocado oil arefine, but don’t cook with them, usethem in salad dressings and to drizzleover prepared food.
BASICS-NO CALORIE COUNT-ING: EAT WHEN YOU’RE HUN-GRY, STOP WHEN YOU’RE FULL
WHAT’S OUT?
Eliminate sugar, soft drinks, all pack-aged products and juices (including fruit
juices). Eliminate dairy products otherthan butter and heavy cream. It is im-portant to ensure to get adequate sleep.Alcohol is also not part of a strict Paleolifestyle.
As a rule of thumb, if it’s in a box, don’teat it. At the grocery store, visit only themeat, fish and produce sections. Saygoodbye to sugar, candy, and alcohol forsure. Be prepared to eat and eat and eat!Think about beef and broccoli, huge om-elets filled with vegetables, chicken andsweet potatoes! You can eat as muchvegetables as you like and you will notget fat.
What about energy? The body has mul-tiple metabolic pathways to ensure it canalways produce energy for basic bodyfunctions (breathing, brain function).When fat is the source of fuel, the bodyuses ketones as a source of fuel. Beforethere was agriculture, cavemen did notwheat based carbohydrates available,and using ketones as a fuel source is ef-ficient, and effective.
ARE YOU HUNGRY YET?
Eating the right foods at the right timesis also important. Post-training mealshould include higher glycemic indexfoods such as sweet potatoes t to replaceglycogen in the muscles quickly and ef-ficiently and a protein to provide build-ing blocks for your muscle repair. Thefoods you will be consuming all day willbe nutrient dense high quality foods thatwill keep you filled up, and fuelled forperformance.
If you are concerned that you need yourpasta, and your bread and sugar; that is amyth! You do not need wheat basedcarbohydrates. Vegetable carbohydrates
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actively prevent lifestyle diseases and in doingso not place demands on our health care sys-tem.
As with any diet plan, you will have to try it outfor yourself and see how you react to it. Intrying a new plan, it is important to be mindfulof energy levels, strength in training and sustain-ability. You should never feel depleted or weakand the food preparation should be reasonableand affordable for your “real life” demands.
And as with any diet plan... don’t forget to havea treat now and then! I personally recommendchocolate; because I am a firm believer that lifeis too short to deny yourself chocolate, 70%cocoa of course... for the health benefits!
Author Bio:
Jill MacCallum Sproul
As a former competitive gymnast and coach andvarsity soccer player, Jill is not new to the worldof competitive sports, but Jil is now finding her-self immersed in the world of powerlifting andfitness as a result of her commitment to a health-ier lifestyle over 2 years ago. In the last 24months Jill has turned around a life filled withstart and stop fitness plans and an up and downweight gains of 10-30 pounds! She has surviveda year of 6 am training at Fit camps, competed ina Figure model competition, a deadlift competi-tion, a mini-triathlon, a 10 km and 6 km kayak
relay race and a full powerlifting meet! Jill now considers herself anawesome mix of powerlifter and body builder, basically the ultimate gymbunny!
Jill works full time outside the home as a Quality Manager for a vaccinemanufacturing company, is mom to 2 busy athletic kids, andgirlfriend/training partner to the non-stop powerlifting machine JohnMacDonald. Jil has a M. Sc. in protein biochemistry and this nerdier sideof her comes out whenever looking into diet plans; she enjoys research-ing and figuring out the biochemistry and physiology of why or why nota plan might work!
Jill trains 6 days a week with John out of Island Performance Elitetraining Center in Charlottetown, PEI. Recently Jill travelled to PuertoRico with John for the IPF Men’s World Powerlifting Championships.Her passion for trying to get stronger, and constantly improve herphysique while living a healthy lifestyle year round and not having any“off-season” mentality has driven her to pursue her personal trainercertification and to continue constantly research and evaluate newtraining and eating ideas!
You can check out her Blog at http://jilconfitssional.blogspot.ca/
Canadian Powerlifting Federationwww.canadianpowerliftingfederation.com
Follow us on Facebook
Raw and Equipped
- First Raw federation inCanada- Wrist wrapsand belt
- Multi Ply EquippedDivision
Novice Friendly
- All first time lifterssucceed in their firstmeet
- Judges educate lifters
Lifter Friendly
- Bench press pause isjust that – a pause - NoSteamboats orMississippi’s
- Squats must breakparallel - Top of kneebelow crease of hip
Amateur and Pro
- Amateur competitionsfeature random drugtesting
- Separate Records forPro and Amateur
- Pro and amateur meetsare always separate
Fun
- Always loud music- Always people laughing- No Membership fees
WPC/AWPC Affiliate
- Lifters auto qualify forworld and NorthAmerican Amateur andPro championships
- No qualifying requiredfor any CPF Meet
Strength From The Shadows 41
Canadian Powerlifting Federationwww.canadianpowerliftingfederation.com
Follow us on Facebook
2013 Meets
February – Paris Iron Man inParis
Fourth Annual resurrectionPush Pull for High School inWaterloo
April – Atlantic CanadaPower Challenge in AmherstNova Scotia
June – Canadian High SchoolChampionships
Canadian Amateur and NorthAmerican championships
Canadian Pro and NorthAmerican championships
August – AWPC Worlds
November - WPC Worlds
Strength From The Shadows 42
The Canadian Powerlifting federation, CPF, sup-ports both Amateur and Professional divisions inour lifting community. The difference betweenthe 2 is drug testing, all Amateur meets are ran-domly tested. In 6 years the CPF has never had apositive drug test result in any of our amateurmeets.
The CPF is affiliated with the World PowerliftingCongress, which supports amateur liftersthrough the AWPC world championships andprofessional lifters through the WPC worldchampionships. The AWPC and WPC champion-ships alternate between Europe and North Ameri-ca each year.
In 2012 the AWPC worlds were in Kiev, Ukraineand the WPC worlds were in Las Vegas, Nevada.The CPF supports both Raw and Equipped pow-erlifting, in fact the CPF was the first powerlift-ing organization in Canada to support Raw. Ourrules are stringent, raw means belt and wristwraps. No knee wraps, knee sleeves or elbowsleeves. Raw lifters like Mike Sinclair, Jay Nera,Kade Weber and Greg Doucette all set worldstandards for others to live up to.
We support any number of plies in our geareddivision, with 2 ply being the most popularchoice amongst lifters. We have boasted somepretty amazing lifts in our past such 1100 poundsquats by Matt Court and Alan Mehan along withsome amazing 800+ benches by Clint Harwood
and Mike Guay. Clint in fact was the first personin Canada to bench 800 pounds!
When you look at our records you will see a com-posite set of records that reflects all lifting inCanada associated with the WPC going back tothe early 1990’s. We have maintained our histori-cal perspective to honour some of the originallifters in our sport in Canada.
As a federation we are not opposed to lifterscompeting in any other federation, we view thegrowth of the sport as of primary importance –how it grows is less important.We do have some differences between ourselvesand some other federations. We like to have funis one big difference. Our meets typically are ac-companied by loud music, lots of screaming,some people head butting the squat bar and usual-ly a lot of audience audio involvement.
But we also view meets as learning events forourselves and in particular for new lifters. Novicelifters always succeed in their first meet in theCPF. We have them identify themselves with achalk mark so that when they go lift the first timethe judges will give them their first lift if theycomplete it. Judges then spend the time to tell thelifter what they got wrong and more importantlywhat they got right. As the novice progressesthrough the day judges tighten up the criteria sothat the novice lifter has a chance to learn underfire and progress rapidly on their first day.
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The CPF is located in a number of provincesacross the country with active lifters and meets inBC Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, Ontario, NewBrunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI. There is typi-cally one meet a month in the CPF and you cansee our schedule atwww.canadianpowerliftingfederation.com.
There is also a list there of people to contact inyour respective province to get more information.
So – get out, come and join us and just lift. Thereis nothing more fun than getting under the barand leaving everything you have on the platform!3 events, 9 lifts and no excuses!
Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy (ESWT)has been used safely and effectively in Europefor over 30 years, and in North America forover 20 years.
The technology is based on lithotripsy, which isused in Hospitals to effectively treat kidneystones and gall stones. Now, this technologyis being used to successfully treat a wide rangeof orthopaedic conditions, such as muscle, ten-don and ligament injuries. It is also been prov-en to be highly effective in treating a widerange of chronic pain conditions, urologicalconditions, and neurological conditions (suchas 'pinched nerves').
The device generates a high-energy percus-sion sound wave (or 'physical' shock) which isapplied to the affected tissue. There is no'electrical' shock (as seen in other treatments,such as TENS and Interferential Current).
How does it work?- Treatment accelerates the healing process(promotes the remodeling of dysfunctional col-lagenous tissues, such as tendinopathies, trig-ger points, muscle strains, etc.).- Shockwaves break down scar tissue and/orcalcification- Transmission of pain is diminished throughneurological mechanisms (inhibition of nocice-ptors)
- There is increased metabolic activity aroundthe site of pain or injury (leading to a strength-ening of damaged ligaments, tendons and oth-er tissues).
What are the benefits of Shockwave Treat-ment?This therapy stimulates the body's natural self-healing process. There is actually an immedi-ate reduction of pain and improved range ofmotion.
ESWT is a non-surgical approach that mayeliminate your need for surgery.
Results are rapid compared to conventionaltreatments
High level of safety
Highly effective for eliminating Chronic Pain
Successful for injuries and conditions that havenot responded to other forms of therapy
May eliminate the need for medication use
What is the success rate of this kind oftreatment?Worldwide, success rates are around 80 to90% (even for conditions that are chronic andhave not responded to other types of care).
What conditions can be treated with ES-WT?Almost every musculoskeletal injury:Muscle strains
Tendonitis
Pinched nerves
Calcifications, spurs
Plantar fasciitis
Knee pain
Shoulder injuries
Low back pain
Running injuries
Chronic Pain
Scar tissue
Tennis elbow
Golfers elbow
Impingement Syndrome
Snapping hip
Ligament injuries
Tailbone injuries
Shin splints
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Other conditions that can be effectivelytreated:Chronic Pelvic Pain
Pudendal Nerve Entrapment/Neuralgia
Chronic Prostatitis
Urological conditions
...essentially Shockwave Therapy can be usedeffectively to treat conditions and pain in situa-tions where all other treatments have failed.
For more information, please refer tosome research and articles regarding the useof Shockwave Therapy by Dr. Gordon, an Or-thopaedic Surgeon and one of the leaders andinnovators in the field.
Strength From The Shadows 57
Justin Lewis, RMTRegistered Massage Therapist
Treatment of injuries, surgeries, and ath-letes only.
Boomers Sports Medicine Clinic164 Baseline Road East
Bowmanville, ON L1C 1A2Phone: 905-623-3221
Fax: [email protected]://www.medicalrehab.ca/
JOHN MACDONALD:THE STORY OF THE NON-STOP
POWERLIFTING MACHINE
Journey to the 2012 IPF Open Men’s World Powerlifting Championships.
When John was 11 yrs old, he started lifting weights in hisbedroom, using 10 lb dumbbells and bench pressing hisbed. Weighing in at about 120 lbs then, he continuedlifting weights at home in his room until about the age of14, when his family got a fitness membership at a localfacility “The Spa Total Fitness Center”. At 14 he startedbiking 20 minutes each way to lift weights with his buddyBlake Tremere. For about a year he worked out withweights with no direction, just doing what he had learnedfrom the programs that came with his dumbbell sets!
On February 28th, 1998, Anthony Cannon, a family friend,took his son Kyle and John to go and watch powerliftingat the Charlottetown Civic Center. “I remember seeingreally big guys lifting, and little guys too and even SpecialOlympians”. After this meet, John was introduced to thelegend himself, Tom Nicholls for the very first time. Thesummer would pass, and John continued with his weighttraining at The Spa.
In the fall of 1998 when John asked his mother if he couldjoin boxing, she replied : “Why not try powerlifting?”Those 4 words would bring John to the sport that he now,lives and breathes.
In September 1998, John’s mother took her son to theIsland Powerlifting Club then located at the Charlottetown
Civic Center. They knocked on the door and were greetedby Tom Nicholls. After some chatting, they decided Johnwould try it out for a week and decide if he liked it. Hetrained that first week and signed up right away as amember of the club. “I would train Monday, Wednesday,Thursday, and Saturday. I remember Rob MacDougallshowed me a few things. The biggest piece of advice Irecall from that time is that the back of your body is yourpower muscles, your glutes, lats, triceps, hamstrings; andyour chest and biceps are your pretty muscles” After 2months of training he entered the bench press competitionin the Eastern Canadian Championships held in Charlotte-town. This was his first competition-raw bench press. Themeet was a learning experience. “I only made my opener,I didn’t remember to pause on my second or third lifts. Ibenched 80 kg while weighing in at only 78 kg”. (This82.5 kg weight class was a weight class John would neversee again!) John has fond recollection of that first meet, “Iremember the morning of the meet I was playing outsidein my tree fort in the woods and thinking –Oh yeah, Ihave to go compete this afternoon” (Flash forward toPuerto Rico, 2012 and that same teenage boy in the treefort has now grown into a fierce competitor about to makehis debut in the Open Men’s division at the IPF WorldChampionships against the best on the world.),
John would continue his training at the Island PowerliftingClub at the Charlottetown Civic Center until 2003 whenthe local junior hockey team got dibs on the weight roomat the arena. During that period John would compete in hisfirst full meet doing all three lifts at Eastern Canadians in2001. John competed in the 100 kg weight class andplaced 2nd. By the time the club left the civic centre Johnhad competed in 4 powerlifting meets and 7 bench pressmeets. This number included Nationals in 2003 in Winni-peg where he won the 110 kg Junior title, and silver in the110 kg bench press. Winning that first title at his firstNationals by over 125 kilos and just missing his lastdeadlift that would have given him “Best Overall JuniorLifter” was how John MacDonald announced to the worldthat he was here to compete!
In June 2003, the Island Powerlifting Club moved tempo-rarily to its new home at The Spa Total Fitness Center untilDecember 2003 when Tom Nicholls opened what wouldbecome known as “Big Poppas Pit Of Pain”. The clubtrained in “the Pit” which was a garage located right onNicholls property next to his home in Sherwood, PEI. ThePit was still run as the Island Powerlifting Club withroughly 8 members. John recalls training at the Pit 4-5days a week in addition to his continued membership at
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The Spa Total Fitness Center with his family where hewould do cardio and general conditioning. Overall Johnwas moving weights 7 days a week whenever he could.
In November 2003 John would travel to Yarmouth, NS tocompete in the Atlantic Open Powerlifting and Bench PressChampionships. Here he would set his first national re-cords in Bench press for 100 kg weight class in both pow-erlifting and in bench press only. He lifted 200 kg inpowerlifting and 197.5 kg in the bench press only. With abench press that had begun at the age of 11, bench pressinghis bed, 9 yrs later John would set the first of over 40Canadians records he has since achieved.
In 2004 John successfully defended his National title in 100kg Junior in Kitchener, Ontario. Also in 2004, John com-peted at 3 more Atlantic and Eastern Canadian meets. InSeptember of 2004, John was scheduled for jaw surgery.The post-op recovery was short and sweet as John compet-ed at Eastern Canadians that year with only 10 days prepa-ration! John was living and breathing powerlifting andnothing would stop him. Then, at the age of 21, and still tothis day John has never touched alcohol or tobacco, or anydrugs at all; choosing instead to abuse his body in the gymrather than with chemicals. John’s sport is his lifestyle, andhe is 100% dedicated to it.
John’s typical training style revolved largely around push-ing himself as hard as he could and having fun seeing howfar he could take it. A typical powerlifter would set aworkout at 3 sets of 8 or 5 sets of 5; a typical “Johnworkout” then nicknamed “The Freak Show” by Tom Nich-olls consisted of repping out until his nose bled. It wasn’tunusual for John to be in The Pit for 3 hours then go to theSpa and do cardio and abs and hit the sauna. So althoughstrength was growing for the Freak Show he was workinghard for it, and paying for it with his body. The strengthgains didn’t necessarily show at the meets. In 2004 Johnwas figuring out how to peak at the right time and picking
his attempts wisely. Gear was also not contributing what itshould have-as learning how to get the most from your gearis something he had to figure out.
In January 2005, John attended the Niagara Open in Ontariowith Tom Nicholls. He competed in the 110 kg weightclass winning Best Overall Junior. Upon returning to PEI,John called John Fraser, meet director for the Sydney Openand asked if he could still register-meaning John wouldcompete back to back weekends! After getting acceptanceto compete, John travelled to Sydney, NS, with some localCharlottetown lifters out of the Island Powerlifting Club.John has a specific recollection of the trophies at this meet.“I remember they were trophies like statues of men bench-ing and deadlifting, I remember thinking- Wow I surehope I win Best Lifter” John would end up taking homeboth of those trophies-Best overall Junior and Best BenchPress. He had also managed to add 2,5 kg to the total hehad achieved just the week prior with no training betweenthe 2 meets!
After Sydney came the 2005 Nationals in Calgary, AB toget his “Three-peat” of the 110 kg men’s Junior title. Johnwould get 2nd best overall lifter-again. This Nationals alsoserved as a qualifier to the Junior World Championships inFort Wayne, Indiana, US. World’s were months away andJohn continued on his “non-stop powerlifting” scheduletravelling to Sackville , NS a month later for the NovaScotia Provincials where he took the 110 kg Junior title andBest Overall Junior powerlifter and bench press. All of thatspring and summer were spent training for Worlds. Muchof his training during that time was solo, the plans and goalswere set in his head. It was a tough training regime, and heoften missed out on geared workouts because he had no oneto help him out; John’s preparation was mainly raw lifting.In September 2005, the MacDonald family travelled toIndiana for John’s first ever Junior worlds, he would com-pete at 110 kg. Arriving with only about 2 kilos to cut Johnwent into the meet with a good weight and an injured back.
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The injury was as a result of training about a month prior.John met up with other Team Canada members in Indiana.John recalls the squats were rough that day but he still hitall three attempts, he recalls he was 5th or 6th in the benchpress but that that standing was only 15 kg from the goldmedal. “I fully feel I could have easily done another 10kg but at the time I didn’t really realize how much I had”Deadlifting that day would also prove to be a challenge dueto the back injury, but he still finished with a 755 kg totaland 6th /6 place overall finish. This had been John’s firstexposure to international competition. “I recall feeling likeI was up against the impossible, I recall seeing Russianswith totals almost 200 kg greater than mine” (To this day,John has not reached a total as high as the ones he recallsfrom that Junior meet, but he is getting close!).
After World’s John spent sometime looking at the worldaround him. He had gotten laid off from his job, ended arelationship and was feeling like he needs something solid.In January 2006 John would apply to the Atlantic PoliceAcademy, and waited to see what would happen there. Stillthe non-stop powerlifting machine, he decided to head backto the Sydney Open for the second time. Still a Junior, Johncollected the 110 kg title again and the Best Overall Power-lifter and Bench Press. His focus then shifted to training forhis last Nationals as a Junior. The 2006 Nationals wereheld in Chilliwack, BC. This would be John’s 4th Nationaltitle and he would once again be named 2nd best lifteroverall. A month later he was onto Sackville, NS for NSProvincials at 110 kg to claim best overall Junior lifter.
The 2006 Worlds were to be held in Bulgaria. John wasfocused and driven, deciding to cut to 100 kg-a number hehadn’t seen since 2003, He also had a team mate to trainwith this time, local Shawn Francis. This partnershipwould help keep the momentum going and the drive high!John and Shawn trained like animals all summer, videotaping the majority of their training and meets and puttingit all together into a DVD called “Road to Worlds” with
highlights of all of their meets and training. (As John talksabout that summer he says “Man I wish I still had thatfire”-he is so much more cautious now and knows injuriesfrom experience and isn’t that wildly aggressive in traininganymore).
Travelling to Bulgaria in September 2006 with Shawn tocompete at 100 kg, John was feeling good and injury free.The accommodations in Bulgaria proved to be somethingJohn had never had to deal with before, the hotel had a hosein the wall for a shower, and there was no bath tub, just adrain on the floor! Without the comforts of home, John wasstill determined to have a good meet. After cutting 10pounds to make weight, the meet got off to a great start insquats where John collected a bronze medal squatting 300kg. His first ever World’s medal! Bench press was evenbetter where John set a new Canadian record at 212.5 kg,and that was good enough for a gold medal! John collectedhis second World’s medal! Deadlifting came down to anumbers game to seek an overall medal. With his seconddeadlift he had secured a bronze overall medal. On his thirdattempt he went for a silver medal finish, but it wasn’t to be.After locking out the bar, it slipped out of his right hand.In his final World’s as a Junior John had achieved his goalof winning a medal at Worlds. He had also set a newCanadian record for the Junior total. Part of his plan tomake this goal was the weight cut, and the freak showtraining all summer.
Around the same time, John learned of his acceptance intothe Atlantic Police Academy beginning in January 2007.John would finish out the non-stop powerlifting schedule of2006 with 2 additional meets, Eastern Canadians in Ste-phenville, Nfld and The Truro Fall Classic. Competing atboth meets at 100 kg, John would set his first Canadiansquat record in Nfld, squatting 305.5 kg, and he would alsobeat his World’s total (And Canadian record) by 2.5 kg.His final Junior meet of his career was the Truro FallClassic, where he reset the squat record again at 307.5 kg,and reset the Canadian Bench record at 213 kg (increase of
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0.5 kg), and reset the Canadian Junior total record yet againat 815.5 kg. The 815.5 kg total also put John to the top ofthe Canadian All Time Best Wilks score. John sums up hisJunior career, “I finished on top”.
January 2007 had John relocating to Summerside, PEI tobegin training at the Atlantic Police Academy. He decidedto take a break from powerlifting and focus on his cardioand endurance to ensure he was in top physical form for thedemands of a career in policing. Police training was 9months long, during this time John didn’t compete in anypowerlifting meets. Graduation was late August 2007, andthe non-stop powerlifter was hungry to compete, enteringthe Falmouth Record Breaker only 1 week after graduation!Weighing in at 108 kg, in his first ever Open competition,John took first place in his weight class and Bench Pressed500 lbs for the first time ever-hitting 518 lbs. In NovemberJohn returned to Truro to compete again in the 110 kgweight class, and won gold. It was as if he had neverstopped! John was setting PBs and feeling strong.
2008 would bring back the PEI Provincials after a 9 yearhiatus. Jason Mosher and John were responsible for theresurrection. It was held at the Spa Total Fitness Center.John doesn’t recall this meet as one of his best performanc-es “I recall the nagging injury to my trap, it was giving mea lot of grief, but I never stopped training” This meet wasJohn’s first ever attempt at a 700lb squat, he was notsuccessful in the attempt. Although he still won his weight
class, John seems to mainly recall the injury and the missedattempt. His focus is largely on improvement and personalgoals and less on winning titles.
Also in 2008, an opportunity to attend the Arnold SportsFestival in Columbus Ohio was presented to John. Thiswas the first year that the IPF affiliated themselves with thepowerlifting at the Arnold Sports festival. He was definitelyinterested and jumped at the chance. The Arnold SportsFestival was a chance to test himself against world classlifters in a high profile sporting event. John competed at110 kg and placed 5th overall finally hitting the over 700 lbsmark in his squat. “The atmosphere of the crowd reallypushed me that day”. John also recalls that ArnoldSchwarzenegger himself actually showed up at the meet,interrupting the meet to say a few words. “He actually didsay “I’ll be back”!”
Nationals in 2008 were held in Niagara Falls. These wereJohn’s first nationals as an Open competitor. Still in the110 kg weight class, John finally managed to earn a 500Wilks, and achieved a PB total of 5. That performance wasenough for a bronze medal finish in both Powerlifting andbench press.
Two more meets in 2008 would be on the horizon for thenon-stop powerlifter, NS Provincials in May and a meet inFalmouth in November. Both meets successful, winninghis weight class both times.
2009 would be a turning point in John’s powerlifting career.The year started with PEI Provincials, at this meet Johnwould finally surpass one of Tom Nicholls Provincial re-cords (in the squat). This was a milestone for John havinglooked up to Tom as one of the best in Canada. He also anew PB for his total record at 870.5 kg.
Having earned his invite back to the Arnold with a 500Wilks, he decided to compete in both the raw and equippedcompetitions, meaning he would compete on back to back
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days! Starting with the raw on the first day, John came outon top claiming the gold by a 30 kg margin, setting a PBdeadlift of 312.5 kg- this raw pull was more than he hadever pulled in gear at the time! Day 2 was the equippedmeet, John was feeling not too bad after the battle the daybefore, and set a new total PB of 872.5 kg, placing 4th . Hewas the only one in his weight class equipped, who hadcompeted raw the day before. (Earning him the nameCrazy Canuck!) The back to back competitions were anaccomplishment that John has great pride in, he is truly awarrior among men.
Less than a month later John was back on the Nationalplatform to win his first Open National title in the 110 kgweight class. The day before this meet John’s weight was116.3 kg, he managed to cut down more than he plannedand weighed in at 108 kg! This meet brought a new PBsquat at 337.5 kg.
John was working as a police officer for the city of Char-lottetown, and the demands of policing coupled with thetraining, John suffered a leg injury that sidelined him fromthe gym for a brief period. In the summer of 2009, therewas a raw meet held in The Pit, this was John’s return tocompetition. It was after that point, John decided he wouldbecome a non-stop eating machine and go up a weight class.Being in the 110 kg class off and on for 8 years he figuredit was time to shake things up. The main goal of the gainwas to increase strength and lift massive numbers. ByNovember John weighed in at 117 kg for the Eastern Cana-dians, and would go on to total 900 kg for the first time everand make a valiant attempt at an 800 lbs squat. As the bodyweight increased so would the power. John says “I remem-ber on my second squat that day I squatted the biggestsquat ever by an Island lifter”. John’s 900 kg total that daywas not the biggest total of that meet as that was the sameday Alex Mardell totalled over 1000 kgs-making Canadianhistory!
Weighing in at 118 kg in January 2010, John realized thatthe extra 15 kg to play with in this weight class was closingin on him. The meet was a success in terms of the outcome(winning the weight class and best overall lifter) but Johnsustained an injury when a spotter inadvertently shifted theweight on the walk in causing John to pop something out ofplace in his back. This shift in his back caused such asevere pain, John could not even set up the lift, and couldnot perform the attempt on his second squat. Between thesecond and third attempt, John managed to get himselftogether to a point where he could manage the pain andperform the third attempt setting a new PB of 353 kg.
In March 2010, it was time to travel back to Columbus,John had registered in October 2009 as a 110 kg. In March2010, John’s actual weight was 124.3 kgs! He had almostentered the next weight class of 125 kg! The judge doublechecked the sheets and assumed there had been a mistake!John competed in the 125 kg that day... barely! Returningto his third appearance at the Arnold, competing back toback again; John placed 2nd in the raw meet and placed 3rd
the following day in the gear.
Still keeping the weight in the 120's, John hit the Nationalplatform in 2010 in Quebec at about 122 kgs. The meet wasa battle between the top 2 through all three lifts. Technicaljudging decisions made in error prevented John from load-ing the requested attempt on the bar, causing an argumentbetween the judges and coaches while John stood by inknee wraps! Eventually winning the argument and havingthe bar loaded, the judges subsequently awarded only onewhite light despite a clear demonstration of below parallel.John shook it off and figured he’d make up the 10 kg deficitin the other lifts. In the bench they tied. The deadlift woulddecide the winner. John made every effort to close the gap,but in the end he finished in second.
Later that spring, the Non-Stop Powerlifting machinewould attend the World Bench Press competition inKilleen, Texas; here he had a PB Bench press of 257.5 kgplacing 8th overall. Next up for John in August was his firstNorth American Championships in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico(same city, same venue that the current World Champion-ships would be held in 2012). At this meet John had yetanother PB in the bench press and a PB in his total. Thebench press of 262.5 kg surpassed the North Americanrecord by 27.5 kg! He also totalled 915 kg which earnedhim the gold medal overall, his first North American titleand a new North American total record. John returned toPEI and competed a week later at the Atlantic Raw meetheld in Charlottetown. John recalls asking Tom Nicholls ifhe could enter as he hadn’t registered prior to leaving forPuerto Rico. He worked a night shift policing and wentstraight to weigh in for the meet after being awake for 24
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hrs straight! “I remember feeling like the weights were alot heavier than they looked because fatigue was setting inand although I set my best raw total ever that day,...I wouldabsolutely not ever do that again!”
Still weighing around 125 kg John made the decision to cutweigh back down to the 110 kg class for a meet in Novem-ber. To achieve the loss John went on a very strict diet andstepped up his cardio, and did a lot of boxing. He was ableto make the 110 kg class on the dot in November for the PEIOpen. John lifted raw at the meet, and attributes the 50 kgdrop in his total from his last raw performance to somestrength loss from the weight cut.
2011 would be a very big year for John-“I remember beingindestructible for most of that year-the training regimewas intense and challenging”. John incorporated someunique feats of strength into his training that year at thelighter body weight such as 1146 lbs partial squat, 848 lbsrack pull and a crazy 58 inch box jump! To start the yearoff, the IPF adopted new weight classes eliminating the 110kg class, giving John the option of cutting to 105 kg orgaining to 120 kg. John opted to cut and continued withmore cardio based strength training and managed to cut to105 kg for PEI Provincials in January. John would capturebest Open lifter for Provincials. March would see John’sreturn to the Arnold for back to back meets in raw andequipped lifting. The raw meet would be a teaching mo-ment for John. “What happened was I thought that if youand another lifter were tied for body weight and totalweight lifted, that the lifter with the better lot number wasawarded the gold medal. This was not the case; and I lostout on the gold medal to Jamie Emberley because hemade his total before me in the meet so he was awardedthe gold medal. Had I known this I would’ve thrown afew more kilos on my deadlift, I had lots left in the tank!The lesson I learned was to not hold back!” The next dayhe competed equipped, his body holding out pretty goodand adding 25 kg to the total from Provincials 2 monthsprior; and giving John his second silver medal performancein 2 days.
Nationals were held in April in PEI that year, holdingbench press Nationals earlier in the week, and powerlift-ing later. John would participate in bench press Nation-als placing second and later in the week he would claimanother National title at 105 kg. This title was a hardfought battle with JP Richard, in the end John won by27.5 kg, and was yet again 2nd best overall lifter (thiswould be 4 times he had been 2nd best at Nationals).“Nationals were the second time JP and I would battle at
105 kg. In August of 2010 JP had issued the challenge(jokingly) that he would take me on if I could ever cut to100 kg, but with the weight class changes, we would windboth sitting in the 105 kg class. Lifting against JP pushesme to keep improving, I know he is hungry and won’t stopcoming after me, I am always looking forward to compet-ing against JP.”
John would return to the North Americans in July of 2011,in Miami, Florida. At this meet John would set a new NorthAmerican record for the total at 897.5 kg and win hisweight class by 62.5 kg. John thanks Stephen Seney formaking the trip down to Miami from Halifax just to coachhim at this event.
John would continue his non-stop powerlifting crusadewith the Atlantic Raw meet in Charlottetown only 1 weeklater! Claiming best overall lifter in addition to winning hisweight class, John set a PB in his deadlift and his raw Wilksscore.
In the fall John was focused on 2 main meets to finish outthe year. The Eastern Canadians in Charlottetown and the
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Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships inBournemouth, UK. The Easterns would be the first timethat year that John’s body would start to show signs oftiring from the intensive year of training and competing.“Although I felt like my body was needing a break, I wasstill strong as a bull. I set a PB in the squat, deadlift, totaland Wilks that day and felt like I had a lot left in me. Myback was killing me, but I powered through”
In December John would travel to Bournemouth with TomNicholls, the first trip together for the 2 in a long while.“The trip reminded me of 2005 when we had travelledtogether to Niagara, where Tom had been such a superiorcompetitor than I was then, and at this point I felt it wasfinally my time to be the better lifter. Thanks to hismentoring and guidance throughout the years, I felt I hadbecome as great a competitor as he is. The mentality I hadfor those 7 years focusing on consistency and paying mydues would prove to me that success could be achievedfrom hard work and dedication .”
And success did come! John would compete at 113 kg inthe 120 kg Open weight class, winning gold in all 3 disci-plines and the total. John would beat 3 of Tom NichollsCanadian records-this was a first for John. John would alsoclaim 3rd best overall lifter and set a new PB Wilks score.It was a strong finish to a busy year.
Not one to take a break, John was right back on the compet-itive platform weeks later in PEI Provincials, winning hisweight class and best overall lifter in the powerlifting andbench press.
In March, John would return to the Arnold for his 5th
appearance giving an exciting performance in battle yetagain. The back to back competing was earning him areputation of being a “Crazy Canadian” known as “Johnfrom Canada”! John’s body was so beat up from theintensive year in 2011, he was struggling to find a groovein training and went to the Arnold feeling less than pre-pared. “It was the first time in a long time that I was at ameet of this calibre and really didn’t feel at my best, I feltlike I didn’t belong there, but I convinced myself I wouldstill go and enjoy the competition”. After a very toughbattle in the raw squat and bench, John had to put up a 700lbs deadlift for the win (this would be the most he had everattempted raw before). John would pull the 700 lbs witheverything he had and win the gold; the battle was so tightthat the top three lifters were only posting an 11 poundspread. John also took home the 3rd best overall Wilks inthe raw meet. The next day was the equipped meet. “Afterthe raw lifting, I went back to the hotel and started icingand resting and trying to repair my body for the nextbattle.” The equipped meet started with John feeling “nottoo bad”, getting through the day, he managed to secure asilver medal.
Returning to PEI to continue training towards Nationals thistime, John’s body was in rough shape; his left lat muscle,deltoid, and pec were giving him a great deal of grief. Johnwas just wanting to hold on and get through Nationalsbefore taking a much needed rehab break from powerlift-ing. This rehab break was not part of the plan John had tomeet three goals in 2012. The goals were to win the rawNationals, the equipped Nationals, and the best overall lifter
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(that had eluded him since his first Nationals as a junior).The raw competition ended with John on top winning gold.“In my first deadlift my hand tore and blood was pouringout. I went for the raw deadlift record on my secondattempt and managed to pull it without losing grip, butripped the hand even more. My competitor went for histhird attempt to beat me overall based on body weight afterhe missed his attempt; I still went for my third attempteven though my hand was in bad shape and I had alreadywon. The audience was promised a National recordattempt and I felt it was my responsibility to give them thatentertainment. I successfully made the lift and increasedmy National record, feeling the bar wanting to slide out ofmy bloodied hand.”
The raw champ was battered and bloodied but still had tocompete one more time that week in the equipped meet.There were 3 days between meets to recover, but stillmaintain weight for weigh in. The hand would not havetime to heal, and the left side injury was not getting anybetter either. John gave everything he had left in hisequipped performance with the help of physiotherapist,chiropractors, and massage between attempts to try to helpthe left side to fire. The battle came down once again to thedeadlifts. “Ironically, the weight I needed to pull for thewin and best overall lifter was the same weight I hadpulled raw just days before, even with the gear on, thistime I was inches short of the lock out. My body just didnot have the strength.”
Finishing in second place, John had missed out on the everelusive best overall lifter at Nationals yet again. Thisequipped performance was the lowest total he had put upsince 2008 even though he had tried harder than ever.
John returned to PEI to battered and in need of rehab to getready for training for the World Championships. He took3 weeks off from powerlfiting and went to physio anddoctors seeking the source of the left side injury and weak-ness. Eventually it was revealed he had a tear in hisshoulder and the compensation by the rest of the muscles
had caused the majority of the pain and weakness. The nextmonth or so was a frustrating time for John, his body wasweak, even though his mind was ready to go hard. Hedecided to just start having some fun in the gym to keepbusy, adding in what he considers fun-a set of 10 x 1000 lbstire flips in 30°C heat outside in the parking lot! Not onlywas he doing this for “fun”, he was doing it as fast as hecould, and inspiring many other gym go-ers to get outsideand flip tires! At about mid-summer, the focus shifted toAtlantic Raw meet planned for September. John was stillcontinuing his rehab, including chiropractor, massage ther-apy, and using a TENS machine. John avoided using anyanti-inflammatory drugs as these can interfere with strengthgains. All rehab was done under his body’s own power.At the end of the summer, his body was feeling pretty goodexcept for the tweek in his back that has occurred intraining. With 617 lbs on the bar for a raw deadlift, some-thing jolted in his back and John could barely walk, he put2 hrs in at the gym that night stretching and rolling on hisrumble roller, until he could finally walk out of the gym-with his body wrapped up in a knee wrap, he then wentstraight to work on the boats.
Atlantic Raw meet was held in Charlottetown in Septem-ber, John weighed in at 110.1 kg not cutting any weight forthe meet. Still injured from the deadlift, John went into hislifts cautiously making 6/9 lifts that day. John competed asa sumo deadlifter for the second time in his career, and seta Canadian record in the deadlift with ease, and narrowlymissed breaking it a second time. Still claiming gold andbest overall lifter, John had more recovery to do beforeWorld’s.
The focus was now 100% on the World Championships.John had been out of his gear for over 5 months and had toget back into the groove of knee wraps and suits. With newgear in hand from Titan Support Systems, John would starttraining with the help of his local powerlifting guys whenthey were Available. John’s work schedule was alwayschanging and finding time to get into the gym when therewould be spotters was a huge challenge. Thanks to the
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flexibility and commitment from a few of his friends, PatMyatt, Chris Petrie, Dave Forner and Brad Kennedy, Johnwas able to get into his gear and through his plannedworkouts most of the time. Overall training was going welland John had set a few PBs and with 2 weeks left to go,John tweaked his back walking out with a 760 lbs squat.Having caught the walkout on video, it was clear one of hislegs had buckled from the tweak in his back. John headedback to the chiropractor and was informed he had a rotationin his lower spine and his left leg was an inch longer thanthe left. After the adjustment, John was back in the gym.Finishing off his training program feeling like his last fewworkouts were rushed and worrying about the fit of hisgear, time had run out.
On the eve of his first Open World’s John is feeling readyto go, anxious to perform. Reflecting on his training planhe executed in preparation John feels like he is yet to fighthis battles with big numbers. This time he’ll fight on theplatform as opposed to his previous training prep where hewould fight it out in the gym prior to meets and often arrivewith injury or in mid-rehab.
On the day of the competition, John sits with coach JoelBoulianne discussing strategy, they are both hungry andmotivated for success. John is appreciating the support andadvice, Joel is eager to push John to his limits and see himfulfill his potential. John trains alone most of the time,getting help when schedules work out, from local powerlift-ers in the gym (now at Island Performance Elite StrengthTraining Center). John knows his body and what it can do,but he is still humble and open to learning and listening andgetting coached by Joel.
John’s face is determined and almost fierce looking as wesit and watch the category B 105 kg lifters. His weigh in isin 1.5 hrs and at last check he still needed to drop 300g. AsI watch him, his hands are fidgeting a little, and I canimagine that teenage boy who was almost too shy to enterhis first competition, now sits here as a solid grown manwho has worked for 14 years to earn his place here at themen’s Open World’s through blood, sweat and determina-tion.
I’m used to seeing John in our local gym where he is themost experienced and he is “the teacher” offering correc-tions and tips to all lifters of all levels. But here I see a manquietly observing and taking it all in. Whether listening toJoel or talking bench shirts with his sponsor Derek Brixiusof Titan Support Systems-John is never cocky and listens toeveryone’s advice. Here John is soaking in all of it, andwill bring this experience back to PEI and continue toinspire, share and guide other lifters locally.
The meet starts with a 322.5 kg squat, John was successfulin this attempt, but he was not feeling great about the fit ofhis gear. A few adjustments in the knee wraps would resultin 340 kg finish, being his easiest squat of the day. Benchproved to be quite a rough day for John successful only on
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his opener, the fit of the bench shirt due to the weight cutcoupled with his rushed training after the injury, the benchjust wasn’t coming together.
Deadlift was where John had a shot at a medal. Watchingthe other lifters attempts carefully, John successfully set aCommonwealth record with his second attempt. Going intothe third attempt, John submitted a lift attempt of 342.5 kgto go for the bronze. After another lifter missed his attempt,only 337.5 kg was needed for the bronze, but due to lotnumber drawings, John was not able to drop his attempt tothat number. Only being able to drop to 340 kg, John pulleduntil the judge waved him down, just inches from thebronze. “After the second deadlift I noticed my hand had ahuge blood blister that was ready to tear so during the thirdpull I could feel my hand wanting to let go. Somehow I wasstill able to give it my best shot but my hips were locked andmy body was too forward to lock it out.”
Finishing the meet in 10th overall was disappointing forJohn, he had been hoping for a top 6 finish. John felt thathe gave a sloppy performance, and realizes that hard workand dedication alone will not always bring you success.“All the stars have to align”.
The non-stop powerlifting machine already has the 2013competitive plan laid out with plans to hit PEI Provincials
in January, the Arnold Classic in March followed by Na-tionals (classic and equipped). John is hoping to competeat North Americans in Orlando, Florida in July and finishthe year off in New Zealand at the Commonwealth Power-lifting if time and resources allow! (and who knows, maybea few other local meets in the mix!)
Perhaps 2013 will be the year John finally captures the everelusive Best Overall Lifter at Nationals.
You can stay up to date and check out John training high-lights on Facebook “John MacDonald Powerlifter” and onhis You Tube Channel “superman83jm1”.
Bio for the John MacDonald Story:
John is a 29 yr old Powerlifter out of Charlottetown, PEI. Helives and breathes his sport and has worked for the last 14years at improving every time he steps on the platform. Thoughhe admits he doesn’t have all the answers it is clear that whatJohn does have is all the heart, drive, desire and determinationof a true Champion. This is the story of the journey from a shy11 yr old boy to a fierce competitor at the IPF Men’s OpenWorld Championships.
UPDATE ON JOHN. AFTER WRITING THEARTICLE, HE HAS BEEN OFFICIALLYSIGNED AS A SPONSORED ATHLETE BYRESCINDX APPAREL.
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Strength From The Shadows 69
LANCE LAVALEE
StatsYears competing: 6Age: 34Height: 6'2"Weight: 290Thighs: 32"Arms: 20"Neck: 20"
Raw LiftsSquat 550 x 2DL 625 x 4,Bench Press 470Log Press 350
From gym rat to pro athlete, we all have our ownmission when it comes to physical improvement.Mine is to be as strong as possible.
I am 34 years old, the proud father of two, lovinghusband, full time auto worker, Volunteer Fire-fighter, and I am on a quest for strength. I am notsatisfied with being "kinda" strong.
I have been constantly pushing past my personallimits for the last 7 years. Evolving and adaptingmy training. Consulting and aligning with thosewho are stronger and more knowledgable thanmyself. Pushing forward and climbing my way upto become one of the top strongmen in the Ontariocircuit today.
It hasn't been easy. Working 48-60 hour weeks,juggling my wife's schedule, making time for herand our children, being on call for any emergency24/7 365 days a year, overcoming injuries thathave left me so mangled I couldn't put on my ownsocks, and finally making the time to train avail-able, all keep me somewhat busy. Yes, it is a lotof work. But anything worth having is worthworking hard for. I wouldn't have it any otherway.
I would have to say my greatest influence on mylove of strength training has to have been my fa-ther. At 6'4" he sported 22" arms and it seemed asthose a legendary status followed him everywherewe went growing up. My personal favouritestrongman of all time is none other than the leg-endary Bill Kazmaier. His hulking physique, andlevel of intensity and strength seemed to be un-matched. The biggest thing I have taken from Kazis that in strongman there is no such thing as Ican't, it doesn't exist. There are only "I can", and"I Will".
I remember being at a very young age when Istarted drilling the gold plastic concrete filledYork Dumbbells, lying on the floor trying to imi-tate my father. Then moving on to my teenageyears, I became a total "Captain Upperbody" drill-ing curls in the power rack and bench pressingtwice a week minimum. In my graduating year Iwas the strongest guy in high school, but I knewvery little about what real strength was and howto achieve it. The one thing I had working for mewas that I trained with intensity. This is what gen-erated my results, but intensity alone will onlytake you so far.
By my mid twenties I expanded my knowledge oflifting a little and included Dead lifts and I eventried to squat sometimes. Building my frame up to245lbs and dead lifting 405 for ten reps with mywrist straps and Grizzly body building belt I de-cided I was strong enough to enter my firststrongman competition in 2007. I got drilled, ze-roing on the 190 pound log press for reps, I placed14th overall out of 21 competitors. But I had ablast doing it, I loved it and I was hooked.
For me this sport offers everything. With chal-lenges from max effort physical output to embrac-ing mental toughness to endure the pain of whatfeels like being literally torn apart, overcominginjuries, to implementing an intelligent well laid
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out plan to keep making progress, it doesn't getany better. The level of camaraderie I have experi-enced and witnessed is unmatched.
In 2008 I entered every contest possible, most ofwhich were too heavy for me, frequently taking azero on one or more events. I was not concernedabout my overall placing but rather just striving toimprove upon my own personal training records.Nearing the end of the 2009 season I was accept-ed to compete in the Dubreuileville Pro Invita-tional. Placing 9th overall with two 3rd placeevent finishes against a high level calibre of someof the strongest men in the country I was veryproud of my achievements. I realized that com-pared to the top level athletes at this contest, I hada long way to go to be competitive. I couldn't do iton my own. I needed help from those who were strongerand possessed the knowledge to obtain such a level. Enterthree time Ontario's Strongest Man, Paul Vaillancourt andstrongman veteran Jordan Foley, who later togetherformed Total Fitness Solutions. Impressed by my im-provements, they were more than willing to consult meabout training. I have made several 5 hour road trips a yearto train with two of the best strongman competitors in theprovince. The results came immediately and steadily.Leading me towards my first overall victory at the 2010Carp Fair Intermediate strongman competition. I was the2010 Carp Fair Strongman Champion! Champion….I real-ly liked the sound of that.
Building further upon my success in 2011, I placed 2nd(tiebreaker) at Montreal's Strongest Man, 2nd in the TrentonProvincial Qualifier, 1st at the Woodstock ProvincialQualifier, 5th in the Dubreuileville Pro Invitational, 4th atthe Oktoberfest Bavarian Strength Challenge, and 3rd(tiebreaker) at the Festiforce Amateur Inter-Provincial Cham-pionship. Gone were the days of scrapping it out to avoida last place finish. Now I was battling for a spot on the po-dium and loving it.
I had an early season start in 2012 entering the Arnold'sAmateur World Championship. Everyone was a huge mu-tant jacked beast! I was definitely intimidated initially. Ifinished 38th out of 47 competitors from different parts ofthe world with many of them being very high level ath-letes. What an experience. Competing against the bestAmateurs in the world and watching the Pros drill inhu-
man feats of strength motivated me to obtain, yet again, ahigher level of performance.
Rounding out the rest of my top finishes for 2012 includeNordic Thunder 5th, Woodstock 3rd, Warwick Semi Pro2nd, Ontario's Strongest Man 5th, Arnprior 3rd, Dubreui-leville 6th and 1st overall at Powerfests Productions' An-nual Oktoberfest Bavarian Strength Challenge. This is mybiggest victory and finish to date and the first contest in awhile that I feel I really put it all together.
With the end of the 2012 season upon us, my sights are setfor the upcoming season. I plan to compete again in the2013 Arnold AM. Although, qualifying for the CanadianChampionship is my highest priority. Lofty goals, but Ienjoy a challenge.
I have been lifting weights on and off for over 2 decades.The last 7 years have been continuous. I didn't really learnhow to train until getting involved in the sport of strong-man. And guess what, I'm still learning. I have been train-ing primarily solo for the last 3 years at home in mygarage. I have a pretty decent setup. I make time by settingthe alarm for 3:40 am when I'm on day shift, and train be-fore or after work on night shift. Whatever works for myschedule. My weekly routine is comprised of 3 gym days,and 1 strongman event day on the weekend. My gym daysconsist of a main lift including the Bench Press, Squats,Dead Lift, and Military Press. Each lift is supported byaccessory compound movements that compliment eachmain lift. I alternate between the squat and dead lift eachweek as the main lift due to the fact that strongman eventsare very taxing on the lower body and I simply cannot re-cover effectively from heavy training 5 days a week. I ambasically following 5/3/1 for my pressing and theOrtmayer/Magnusson DL template for both squats anddeadlifts. I deload every 4th week. This keeps me freshwith no need to take extended breaks in training and avoidover training. I believe training should be constant. Aboutten days out from a contest I like to apply CNS overloadtechniques and move some real heavy weight. This hasproven to be very effective to prep me for the upcomingshow and leaves me with a solid 1.5 weeks to fully recov-er.
Visit www.ontariostrongman.ca on the web. Be sure tocheck out the resources tab!
I have both short term, and long term goals. I consider shortterm goals to be ones that are obtainable within 1-2 years.And long term goals are just that, training for life. Asalways, I am looking to generate the biggest gains possible.
Strength From The Shadows 71
Over the years I have trained with many different fellowstrongman competitors, all of whom were stronger andmore experienced than me. I credit them with providingknowledge, critiquing technique and pushing me to newlimits. This list includes names such as Andy Burwell,Luke Skaarup, John Dungey, Terry Morrison, Adam Wit-zel, Paul Vallaincourt and Jordan Foley.
I owe a huge thank you to everyone that I have trainedwith over the years, to the promoters who put fourth theeffort to make these contests happen, and to all of myfriends and family that have come to watch the competi-tions and show their support.
Every strongman competitor needs a good chiropractor. Ihave found an amazing one. I have experienced tremen-dous improvements since I started getting adjusted thispast summer by Dr. Lianne of Elkin Natural Health Clinic.Strength and energy levels are up, and my mobility andposture have improved. I owe a big thank you to her andall of the friendly staff.
But the person I owe the biggest thanks of all to is my lov-ing, beautiful wife. Without her support I would not be theman I am today. She tends to the little ones at competi-tions and while I train events for hours at a time. She isalways there for me when I need her. Whether its to tellme I'm wrong or that I'm being a complete dick, or to shutup and train, she keeps me in check.
UPDATE ON JOHN. AFTER WRITING THEARTICLE, HE HAS BEEN OFFICIALLYSIGNED AS A SPONSORED ATHLETE BYRESCINDX APPAREL.
Strength From The Shadows 72
Strength From The Shadows 73
Why do you lift?By Marina Featherstone
A question I get askedquite often. And perhaps aquestion you sometimesask yourself. Why DO youlift? Aside from the obvi-ous physical benefits, whatare the other reasons youhave chosen to pursue thestrength sports?
I love to lift heavy things.A max deadlift, kettlebells, something heavy at work or arandom person, I enjoy strength. In fact, I love it.
My story begins as a farmers’ daughter, growing up on adairy farm in Grey County, Ontario. A typical day on thefarm, aside from milking, including many activities thatrequired strength; pushing hay bales, dragging chains, car-rying sacks of feed, tossing fence posts, walking with pailsfull of water or spent engine oil (does any of this soundfamiliar?!). As the eldest of two daughters, I had no choicebut to get strong and help out with the above chores.Strength was a valued attribute, and if you were not strong,work would not get done.
The days of the dairy farm are long gone, and my parents’farm now pastures grass-fed beef. Living in the country hasturned into living in the city, and the calls of career andresponsibility have etched their way into my daily life. Butstrength is something I continue to value, continue to pur-sue and continue to strive for. It has been a part of my lifefrom a young age. A part I will never forget.
As a relative newbie to a disciplined strength sport, I amfueling my deeply-etched value and constantly learningevery day. Muscle function, form, technique, variousstrength-building programs, self-care and of course nutri-tion. It is a fascinating world of fitness, food and mentalstrength that I delve into daily. And it feels like home.
My love for strength also influenced my choice in career.As a Registered Massage Therapist, I get to work withmuscles every day and my curiosity for anatomy and howmuscles function fuel my work. Having a dense anatomicalunderstanding, I am able to apply this knowledge andexperience to my own training, and to the physical needs ofmy clients. With my work and my training, I have devel-oped an acute and intuitive ability to assess muscle tissue:I can determine healthy tissue from old, scarred, worn-
down, hyper-stretched, hypertonic, hydrated, dehydrated,natural or enhanced. It is an inspiring and interestingability, one that I intend on developing further. Lifting hasenhanced this ability, and has made a positive impact on myprofession.
The aspects of nutrition and food and strength sports havebecome another self-professed obsession. Protein, macros,cycling, carbs, fats, you name it. With my small-farmbackground, and my family’s grass-fed beef venture, foodwas always a love of mine, and the subject of local foodshas become a more recent, vested interest. From grass-fedmeats to local produce to foraging for wild foods to raw andunprocessed, local and sustainable foods and food systemsis a subject I educate myself on daily and become more andmore involved in. Perhaps it’s a calling to do my part to fixthe food system as we know it. Lifting has made me moreaware of what I put in my body, and where my food comesfrom.
While the world of strength sports has increased my physi-cal abilities immensely, has positively influenced my ca-reer, has fueled my curiosity and involvement into nutritionand food, there is one side effect of the world of iron that Idid not expect, and this is perhaps the deep-seated reasonthat I lift. While exploring the world of iron, one noticeableside effect of strength training is its effects on the mind. Ihave quickly learned that any ounce of doubt in your mindas to whether or not you can lift what lies in front of you orabove you, will result in a failed lift. Training your mind,finding your zone, your happy place, your inner strength oryour ‘strength from the shadows’ is perhaps the biggestchallenge of all. It has been a welcome one, and one that Iam faced with daily. Lifting has trained my mind to neveraccept doubt, never accept fear, never accept defeat.
And that is why I lift.
Yes, it makes me feel amazing. Yes, it makes me functionoptimally on the farm, in work, and in life. Yes, it makesme walk confidently down sketchy night-time streets andmakes me the “designated protector” when I’m out with mygirlfriends. Yes, it makes me aware of my body, and whatI feed my body, and makes my aware of my clients’ wellbe-ing and physical needs. Yes, it makes me aware of wheremy food comes from. But, perhaps most importantly of all,it gives me inner strength, the strength to say “yes, I CAN”.
Strength From The Shadows 74
Marina “iron rose” Featherstone, is a Registered MassageTherapist, local-foods and grass-fed beef advocate and as-piring powerlifter. She grew up on a small farm in GreyCounty, Ontario, which has recently changed into a small-scale, niche grass-fed beef operation. Her parents remainon the farm and run the business, and Marina assists withmarketing, brand development and research. Additionally,Marina’s interest in local and sustainable food systems is adriving force in her own research and involvement in thecommunity.
Her love of strength was developed at an early age as theeldest born on a farm, and so flipping tires and ‘real’ farm-ers’ walks are deeply ingrained in her past. As a newbieto the world of powerlifting, Marina’s aspirations are todevelop her full potential within this strength sport andlive up to her alias.
Additionally, Marina’s profession as an RMT has provento be invaluable in the world of strength, and her passion,unique treatment approach and wicked elbow have earnedher an enviable reputation, and she was recently namedone of Toronto’s massage therapists of choice by Toronto
Life Magazine. She has treated professional major leagueathletes, world-winning kickboxing and mma fighters,bodybuilders and powerlifters alike. She is excited to con-tinue to develop and focus her skills within the strengthsports.
In her spare time, Marina likes to experiment with infusingcayenne pepper into massage oil, cooking a mean baconbrownie, exploring the world of wine, feeding her coffeeaddiction, racing down major highways like a NASCARdriver, going for long meandering walks in the woods andenjoying one-person raves in her apartment.
Marina’s blog, The Iron Rose, is a cumulative narration ofall of the above.
www.theironrose.wordpress.com@iron_rose_worldwww.facebook.com/[email protected]
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On November 3 the British ColumbiaPowerlifting Association held theirannual Fall Classic Powerlifting andBenchpress Championships in Abbots-ford, BC at the Abbotsford Arts Cen-ter. The competition, as with allBCPA events, was open to all BCPAlifters and Special Olympic athletes.The day started promptly at 9:00amwith the Special Olympians taking the
platform. The Special Olympic athletes perform in twodisciplines; the benchpress and the deadlift. The BC FallClassic had eight athletes who demonstrated their strengthon the two lifts. Veteran lifter, Dave Devison went fivefor six only missing his last attempt on deadlifts and fin-ished with highest wilks with 171.81. Jason Schilling alsohad a great day going six for six getting ‘good lift’s for allhis attempts. Great job by all the Special Olympic athleteswho lifted like pros and did exceptionally well!
The benchpress only flight started theafternoon session with twelve lifters.New lifters Brad Wilson and LukeHewco both posted their Nationalsqualifying totals at their first event.The benchpress only flight also hadtwo very experienced lifters both ofwhom are members of the Team Can-ada World Team. Rhonda Heaslip, aMasters 2 lifter finished
with a 105kgs and 114.50 wilks. Fellow Team Canadamember Brian Rock, also Masters 2, finished with 205kgsand a 122.75 wilks.
Following the single-lift competitionwas the full powerlifting meet. Thirtyone lifters took part in bringing theirbest to the platform. In the women’sflight, newcomer Pamela Anderson, a47kg Junior class lifter set seven Provin-cial records in her first meet - includinga 120kg un-equipped deadlift! AshleyJennings, Becky Lauridsen, Theoni Gill,Martha Woodruff and Amiee Mergaert
also set new BC Provincial records in their respective divi-sions. Veteran equipped lifter, and Team Canada athlete,Jaquie Sandu had a great day on the platform as well andfinished with a 385 wilks. Jaquie also won the women’sbest lifter award.
Pamela Anderson
The men’s competition was filled with names synonymouswith powerlifting in British Columbia; Don Lovell, Dar-shan Gill, and also the return of Jeff Toms. Gable Wang,a Cat 2 IPF referee, also made the BC Fall Classic his firstcompetition to lift in BC. New lifters Brain Wang andTerence Lim both went nine for nine on their attempts.The best lifter award for the men’s powerlifting went toGabe Festing who finished with a 492.9 wilks.Referees: Chris Robb, Gable Wang, Justin Gray, Joe Ol-iveira, Bob Hindley, Bill You , Barry Antoniow.
Jeff Toms
James HalladayGabe Festing
Men’s Best Lifter
Strength From The Shadows 76
Do You Have A Fat Attitude?
I’d like to start this article with a little background aboutmyself. My name is Craig Bongelli and apart from com-peting as a strongman in Ontario I am also a gym ownerand personal trainer. Over my years as a personal trainer Ihave seen many amazing transformations as well as turn-ing my 150 pound body into my current 300 pound one.I’m writing this article to outline what I feel is the singlebiggest hurdle standing between people and their goals: afat attitude.
I coined the term fat attitude while trying to figure outhow to tell, upon starting with a client, if they would makea successful transformation. I’ve noticed there are no tan-gible trends with those who find success with their goals(in all areas in life) and those who don’t. I’ve witness peo-ple who seemingly possess every advantage fail whilethose who’ve found themselves behind the 8 ball worktheir way out and all the way to their goal. The one trend Ifound was not money, free time, a great support system,the right trainer etc it was attitude!
We’re all bombarded with the importance of being posi-tive, with putting ourselves first and not allowing negativeself talk. Facebook is bombarded with quotes pasted onpretty picture expounding the dangers of a negative mindset. First of all, a negative attitude is not necessarily a badthing. The greatest achievers I’ve witnessed were all nega-tive with themselves, they were driven to change and im-prove because they weren’t happy where they were. Thisis the first piece of a fat attitude, the perceived right to behappy all the time. Winston Churchill once said, “Onedoes not leave a convivial party before closing time.” Ifyou want to squat 500 lbs and you currently squat 300 lbsdon’t talk yourself into being happy with it, be upset! Stayupset until you’ve worked long and hard enough that youcan squat 500 lbs and then be happy with what you’ve ac-complished!
Another characteristic of a fat attitude is the idea thatprogress should be easy! It’s interesting to me to watchtrainees rationalize what effort they’re willing to put forthand what result they believe will be owed to them basedon this. Nothing about achieving a goal is going to be fair,you can’t negotiate, you can simply agree to do what ittakes or not. I recently read an interview with a top strong-man who weighs 380 lbs and eats 4-5000 calories a day.I’m struggling to eat 7000 a day to weigh 310 lbs! This is‘unfair’ but I can either do what I have to do to get biggeror I can not get bigger, I don’t have any other options.
In my experience the key to success is to do the oppositeof what most would advise. Be unhappy where you are!The sooner you can accept that things won’t be easy, thatthey won’t be ‘fair’ and that you don’t deserve to be happyuntil you accomplish your goal the sooner you will startmaking strides towards it! Lose your fat attitude and youwill start losing weight, or increasing your bench press orbecoming better at that which truly matters to you.
“What you are must always displease you, if you wouldattain that which you are not. – St. Augustine
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Warm-Up, Lift More?By Cassie Dionne, BPHE, MScPT, Registered Physiotherapist
If you ask most serious strength athletes they will tell youthat they give everything they have during their training,leaving nothing behind. They work hard, and they areproud of it. They train six days a week, and are diligentwith their nutrition and supplements. They are entirely fo-cused on their next competition.
But, there is one thing that is all too often neglected, thewarm-up. I don’t know exactly what it is about the warm-up that makes it seem so easy to skip. Perhaps it is lazi-ness, time constraints, or simply not understanding howimportant the warm-up actually is. Regardless of the rea-son, I would argue that this is a crucial piece of the puzzlethat is missing from most strength and conditioning pro-grams.
Now, when I say warm-up, I do not mean throwing lightweight on your bench and hitting 10 reps before goingstraight into your 1RM. This may be the type of warm-upyou are used to, but it is not going to cut it if you want tooptimize your performance and decrease your chance ofinjury.
So, let’s talk about the warm-up. What is it, what does itentail and really, will it make that much of a difference onyour lifts?
When I look in the gym I most often see one of two typesof warm-ups:
1. The non-existent warm-up: The one where an athletewalks straight into the weight room, and starts lifting.Maybe they throw on some light weight like I mentionedabove, do that for one set and then are right into the heavystuff.2. The ‘Old-School’ warm-up: Hold a few stretches for30+ seconds, walk on the treadmill, jump on the bike, thenmove right on to their training session.
This is what needs to change. These warm-ups, or lack-there-of, are not doing anything to help prepare the bodyfor the heavy loads about to be lifted. This is why pre-workout all athletes (including strength athletes!) shouldbe dynamically stretching and going through a ‘movementpreparation’. In other words, going through controlledmovements that require them to use and build upon theirown strength. This dynamic warm-up literally “warms-up”the body and succeeds in not only increasing your core
and muscle temperature but also in stimulating your ner-vous system, activating all of the muscles you will useduring your lifts, actively stretching tight muscles, anddecreasing your risk of injury.
So, what does this type of warm-up look like? A combi-nation of exercises including inchworms, dynamic deeplunge to hamstring stretches, lateral shuffles, skipping,pushups, bodyweight squats, sprints, and some plyometricsquats and lunges to finish. By the end of it you shouldhave broken out into a sweat, forgot about any stresses ofthe day and be ready both mentally and physically to gopull some heavy weight.
The simple truth is that a good warm-up will give a liftermore ability to lift heavier loads and decrease their chanceof injury -all things that lead to achieving success duringyour training and, most importantly, success on competi-tion day.
Bottom line: If you aren’t warming up properly, you aren’toptimizing your performance and you are putting yourselfat risk for injury. So, do yourself a favour and start incor-porating a dynamic warm-up in your program. Make timefor it, and commit to doing it before every training ses-sion. You won’t regret it when you’re smashing a PB atyour next lifting competition.
Cassie Dionne, BPHE, MScPT, Registered PhysiotherapistCassie is a competitive powerlifter and the Lead Physiotherapist ofTaylored Training Fitness Studio, located in Kingston, Ontario.www.tayloredtraining.ca.
Strength From The Shadows 78
COMPETING IN ICELAND WORLD’SSTRONGEST DISABLED MAN
By Jeff King
DATELINE: August, 2012: I found out about this eventfrom the Ironmind web site. After a Google and Face-book search I found some information and was on a roll. Icontacted the host of the contest, former 4x WORLD’SSTRONGEST MAN title holder, Magnus Ver Magnussonand sent him my background info of strength, training andarm wrestling. As well, information on my disability Ce-rebral Palsy (CP).
Shortly after, Magnus Verhad me contact his eventpartner Arnar’ Mar.“Justget a flight over here andwe will take care of you forthe contest and every-thing!” That was prettymuch it.
So with a ticket to fly from Toronto to Rakyevik and pass-port in hand I was ready to go! Though not really know-ing what to expect but with a sense and hope that this wasgoing to be something.
Something more that disabled could compete in instead ofonly Para bench press or arm wrestling. As a handicappedstrength athlete this was the culmination of 20 plus yearsof lifting weights! I had always trained intensely for thebetter part of the year so it wasn’t like “OH NO! Now Igot to get ready!”
Approximately 1 month and counting down. I justtweaked a few things like adding hand over hand truck orsled pulls and stone lifting into the weekly schedule whichI didn’t have access to before. I DID know about a “Stand-ing” category and “Seated” or wheelchair category. Isigned up in the Standing class because I’m not wheel-chair bound in everyday life and I can/do train my legswith a few alterations from the normal.
So fast forwarding to October 17th : I was on Icelandairover the Atlantic Ocean “riding on eagles” for 2 days ofcompetition between Paul Bunyan and The Mighty Thor.The Nordic Vikings and the Canadian Lumberjacks.
I arrived Thursday morning at 6:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m. backhome) and was picked up at the airport by Arnarr and wedrove to the event hotel and contest venue for Day one on
Friday, The Viking Village. This was like MedievalTimes but with a Vikings theme.
The athletes and events meeting was at a local diner simi-lar to SWISS CHALET here in Canada. Here and thenwe found out the events we would be doing the next twodays. (There was a post online on Facebook about theevents but it was in Icelandic and Google translate didn’thelp much.)
This was the 10th annual edition of the WORLD’SSTRONGEST DISABLED MAN CONTEST.STANDING CATEGORY EVENTS:SEATED ARM OVER ARM TRUCK PULL 3 ½ ton cou-rier van on an uphill incline:(This was a good event for me. But it was lighter than Iexpected so I lost my hand control when it got rolling.Still finished in a good time.)LOG CLEAN & PRESS FOR REPS: 70 kg and 90 sec.time limit.MOORING BIT CARRY: 80 kg Walk til you drop it.(This was a fun event really. Similar to a Husafel StoneCarry but also a duck walk carrying the bit in the shape ofa Viking cross in the crooks of the arms.)SEATED CATEGORY EVENTS: SEATED ARM OVERARM TRUCK PULL 3 ½ ton courier van on an uphill in-cline:
(Event was done seated in a wheelchair which was har-nessed to the back of the second truck behind them.)LOG INCLINE PRESS FOR REPS 70 kg and 90 sec. timelimit.(Lifter was seated belted to the incline bench here.)
Was disappointed with the Log Clean and Pressafter Day one. Wanted to just do better overall. Especial-ly since it was for television. there and the log was aweight I’d done several times in training. (???) I stillcompeted well overall considering I was actually liftingagainst guys who were mostly developmentally disabledwith things like brain injuries or autism but physically100% able bodied. A few of them competing in regularstrongman and powerlifting in Europe as well. The ath-letes in the seated class were different types of physicaldisabilities. Spina Bifida, amputee/prosthetic limbs andanother competitor had CP same as me but more severewhere he used the walking canes with very little use of hislegs. These competed in things like Paralympicspowerlifting/Bench Press and arm wrestling.
Strength From The Shadows 79
Just to clarify my case, I have Cerebral Palsy,which is a physical disability caused by a lack of oxygenat birth which happened when you are born breached offeet first mostly. This affects things like balance, hand –eye co ordination, hip gait (walk with a limp) and thebody’s development on the affected side of the body. Insome cases speech and cognitive learning abilities are af-fected as well. In all cases the amount of time the baby isdeprived of oxygen determines the severity. Mine is notas severe as other where they have almost no use of somelimbs and ARE wheelchair bound and/or a speech impedi-ment .
I do not need a wheelchair is everyday life as I saidearlier and I’m not considered developmentally disabled
but not physically100% either here.So I was certainly“Mr. In Between”here same as backhome in Canada andwas having to fightup from the bottom….again this timetoo. The second dayhad some good
events for me too with the Hercules Hold and Silver Dol-lar 18” Deadlift for reps though so I could improve myoverall performance then.
DAY 2 OCT. 20TH: There was a new contest ven-ue indoors with 3 more events.STANDING CATEGORY EVENTS:
Atlas Stones 110, 155, 175, 200 lbs. lifted fromthe floor to barrels 90 sec.
(Standard style you normally see in strongmanhere.)
Hercules Hold for max time. 80 kg/176 lbs. a side(Weights in barrels held on pulleys.)(I won this event with a 1:26 time. It was good
and a gradual strain with forklifts releasing the barrels onthe “GO!” Really happy to win this one. They inter-viewed me for the television. after that event.)
Silver Dollar 18” Deadlift for reps with 420 lbs.90 sec. time limit.
(I liked this event too. Very bottom heavy so I hadto PUUUULLLLLL!!!! Then it popped up like doingbanded deadlifts in the gym. The Kinsmen/Kiwanis Clubversion there sponsored the contest to a large degree andbrought some handicapped kids to watch the contest and
for the awards presentations so OK time to soldier up anddo something out there! Also having a 4x World’s Stron-gest Man winner watching you lift, failing isn’t accept-able! Did the deadlift but might’ve gotten another rep ortwo if I didn’t land it crooked and couldn’t reset the steelboxes. DOH! But happy to show I could get on thescoreboard here too. Winning number on the deadlift was18 reps! )
SEATED CATEGORY EVENTS: (Events were all doneseated in a wheelchair.)
Seated Hercules Hold(Same weight and time limit as the Standing cate-
gory’s)Seated Crucifix Hold for max time.(22 lbs. Protein Powder Bucket in each hand,
palms up grip.)Atlas Stones (60, 110, 150, 175 lbs.) (Stones were loaded from one barrel across to the
other with a spotter pushing the wheelchair in between thetwo barrels for a 90 second time limit.)
Although I am disappointed in myself with myoverall placing I still did well and had a GREAT experi-ence and gained a lot of competitive experience for nexttime. Next year I was asked about doing the seated cate-gory and that is what I intend to do and will be able toshow better more of what I can do!
Thanks to everyone who supported me in trainingand getting to Iceland for the contest and thanks to Mag-nus Ver, Arnarr and all their crew while we were overthere for the contest.
Strength From The Shadows 80
Chris Fudge is strength coach and athlete. His edu-cation background started with a two year sport manage-ment diploma from Holland College where he specializedin health and fitness obtaining his Canadian Society of Ex-ercise Physiology CSEP Certified Fitness Consultant andPersonal Trainer. Over the two years he also obtained hisAmerican Council of Exercise Personal Trainer Certifica-tion which led him into his career. From here he workedfor the College in the Eye of the Hurricane Fitness centerwhere he trained students and staff creating and assessingindividuals from a variety of backgrounds. Chris’s passionmoved him to New Brunswick where while obtaining hisbachelors of Kinesiology degree and physical education de-grees, he worked for the University in different facets. Hestarted with the Varsity sports teams training most teams asthe head strength and conditioning coach. When not work-ing with the athletes he was working with the public in thefitness assessment lab running fitness assessments and testsfor the Criminal Justice Systems, New Brunswick Power,RCMP and assisting with ongoing University studies.When not working there Chris worked as a personal trainerfor the campus running individual training, small grouptraining, seniors programs (happy hearts) and boot camps.His passion carried over into a career after University.
Chris is now a Certified Strength and ConditioningSpecialist through the NSCA, Lean Eating Coach throughDr. John Berardi and Precision Nutrition, NCCP Weight-lifting and Basketball coach and recently certified as a Fas-cial StretchTherapistunder theworld’s firstCertifiedStretch Ex-perts Chrisand AnneFrederick .These aresome of theeducationtools Chrisuses at hisday to dayjob as a Level 5 Personal Trainer within Goodlife fitness.Chris also teaches for the company as a Personal TrainingSpecialist. Chris was recently awarded the 2011-2012 Per-sonal Trainer of the year award within Canada and prideshimself on client’s results first.
His extensive background allows him to work with alarge diverse group of people from rehabilitation, mobilityfor the elderly to muscle bulking, significant weight loss,body weight manipulation for weight class athletes, teamtraining, endurance and strength training such as powerlift-ing. Training under world class strongman trainer EoinLacey from the Irish Strength Institute has added to Chris’sability to diversify specific training principals to produce thebest results based programs for his clients.
As a powerlifter official and athlete himself he un-derstands the sport requirements and says using his recov-ery tools such as fascial stretch therapy allows him to train ata high level but most importantly stay injury free.
Chris writes, speaks and teaches for different organi-zations and is currently working on his Level 6 PT and Lev-el 2 Fascial Stretch Therapist certification to be amongstonly a dozen or less in Canada.
Chris will next be seen competing at the OPA Clas-sic and then Equipped Powerlifting and Bench PressChampionships in December and January in Belle Riverand London Ontario. Chris truly believes you can onlytrain as hard as you recover and if you’re training has you inthe same spot for over a year, your training is at fault.
To hire Chris’s services for· Weight loss· Weigh gain· Weight cutting· Weight lifting· Personal training· Strength and conditioning· Nutritional programming· Powerlifting coaching· Seminars· Recovery work with trigger point therapy· Fascial stretch therapy· Teaching/writing
[email protected]: (c) 613-218-5522 (w) 613-590-1499
Strength From The Shadows 81
Rich “Tiger” Singh
Basic Stats:Name: Rich “Tiger” SinghAge: 24Height: 5’ 11Hometown: Kitchener, OntarioBodyweight: 320-340 lbs
Bench Press Competitor in the CPF (WPC Affiliate) for 5years and counting
Favourite Quote: Obsessed is the word lazy people usewhen they’re trying to say ‘dedicated’
Best Competition Lift: 322.5 kg (710.9 lbs), 8th highestcompetition bench in Canadian history.
Major Wins and Records:
Best Heavyweight Teen Bencher AWPC Worlds: 2007Best Heavyweight Teen Bencher WPC Worlds: 2008Best Heavyweight Junior Bencher AWPC Worlds: 2011Best Bencher CPF Nationals: 2012Best Junior Bencher Can-Am Championships: 2012Best Junior Bencher WPC Worlds: 2012
AWPC Teen 18-19 World Record 125 kg: 207.5 kg(2007)WPC Teen 18-19 World Record 140 kg: 255 kg (2008)AWPC Junior World Record 140+kg: 272.5 kg (2012), setit previously at 240 kg (2011)
Athletic Goals for 2013:
Primary goal for 2013 is to join the two guys in Canadianhistory who have benched 365 kg (804.7 lbs) or more in acompetition
Ambitious goal is to take and ideally complete a legitimateattempt at 400 kg (881.8 lbs) at a competition.
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The 2012 IPF World Masters Champion-ships took place in Killeen Texas, a small city in southTexas. Killeen is known for 2 things, being the home ofthe largest military base in the world, Fort Hood, and forbeing the home of Johnny Graham, one of the busiestpowerlifting promoters on the planet. Johnny has hostednumerous USA national meets, collegiate and high-schoolnationals, and a number of previous world championships.Johnny is the Vice-President of the IPF as well. If there’sone thing this man knows well, it’s how to run a big meet.
The venue is the Killeen Conference and Civic center,located right next door to the contest hotel, the Shiloh Inn,
and both are excellentfacilities for our needs.The civic center has alarge hall for the contest,with adjoining smallerrooms for the warm-upareas. Early October insouth Texas it was stillover 30 degrees everyday, so we were thankful
for good air-conditioning.
Canada sent 19 lifters todown to this meet, 16men and 3 women, withmany of our men nomi-nated first in their weightclasses, so we knew wewere going to be the teamto beat this year.
Master Worlds normallyruns with a mix of ages and weight classes on each day,going from the lighter weight classes to the heavier, but tomake for a bit easier reading we will take a look at eachage category where we had Canadian lifters.
Quebec’s Janet Warne was out first lifter, competing in theMaster 3 (60 to 69) agegroup, 57 kg weightclass. She did not disap-point, making 8 out of 9attempts, picking up Ca-nadian national recordson all lifts, with a squatof 120 kg, a bench of
67.5 and deadlift of 120 also.
The M3 women’s group had another Canadian, Carol Bra-dy of Caledonia, ON, in the 63 kg class. Her performancewas a mirror of Janet’s, missing just one lift, her second
bench press, and settingCanadian records on ev-ery lift.Because of the limitednumber of competitors,the M3 women’s catego-ry uses a formula to com-pare the lifters in allcategories to determinethe medal placing. By
this formula, Janet came out in the Silver medal spot, outof 7 lifters, and Carol captured 5th spot.
We had no ladies in the M2, and just one in the M1 group,40-49, Ontario’s MiMi McRae. This was MiMi’s firsttime on the world stage, and she did well, making 7 out of9 lifts, setting some personal bests. We see a bright futurefor MiMi, with some more training. She lifts out of Niag-ara, where the Niagara PL club is very active. In fact theNiagara club hosted this same meet last year, the IPFWorld Masters.
In the Men’s M4, 60-69,we had just one lifter,Jack Taylor of Ontario.Jack continued the trendof the ladies, going 8 for9 as well, missing justhis opener squat fordepth. The Men’s M4 is
also done by formula across all weight classes, and Jackfinished up 7th out of 11 lifters.
Moving down the ages to the Men’s M3, 50-59, the com-petition starts to heat up. Although it threatened to cooloff quite a bit at first. Glyn Moore, president of the afore-mentioned Niagara Powerlifting club, host of the worldmasters last year, and Gold medalist in his 74 kg weightclass, setting world records while doing so, was defendinghis title. Glyn’s training had been off, and he only decidedto come to Killeen for sure about 2 weeks prior. It showedin his lifting, as Glyn could not get his squats down deepenough to satisfy the judges. When a lifter is unable to geta lift passed in one of the 3 disciplines, known as “bomb-ing out”, they are still allowed to continue and compete forindividual lift medals, though they cannot get an overallstanding medal. Glyn opted to not continue.
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In the 83 kg class however it was considerably different.Nova Scotia’s Ron Delaney came in as the favourite, anddid not let us down. Ron squatted 230 kg, getting him thesilver in squat, actually tied with Kitano of Japan, but Ki-tano was the lighter bodyweight. Kitano then bombed outon the bench while Ron got a nice 142.5, again getting sil-ver behind Ludecke of Germany. Ron two lift total how-ever was enough to put him out in front overall, and henever looked back from there. If there’s one thing thatCanadian powerlifters are known for, it’s deadlifting.Ron’s 255 opener was the biggest, save only for Hunga-ry’s Janos Fabri at 260. Ron was already ahead of Fabri byabout 20 kg. When Fabri failed on 2 tries at 275, and Ronmade his second lift at 265, it was all over. In the end,Ron beat out all 8 other lifters, by 20 kg or more to be-come World Champion!
Ontario’s Miroslav Koprnicky was in the 93 kg class inthis age group, and lifted very well also, only missing hislast squat, just a little too heavy this day. Miro finished up5th in the class.
At 105 we had Alberta’s Gord Chenkie. This was Gord’sfirst time at Worlds, and he was new to geared lifting aswell. A little too new to bench shirts. Gord squattedokay, missing his opener on depth, good enough for abronze medal in squat though. Come to the bench though,the shirts gave him difficulty. He had trouble getting thebar down to his chest, and when he did, it would springback up or wobble around before getting the Press com-mand. The end result, no bench presses passed.
At Master 2, 50-59, we had three lifters. Nova Scotia’sJohn Fraser has been a CPU veteran for many years, andhad lifted at this level before. While the aches and painsof age were troubling John a bit, his experience showed,John showed great form on all of his lifts, finishing with a602.5 total, and 6th place in the class.
Ontario’s James Abraham, was lifting in his first Worlds,and a great day, going 7 for 9, missing just his final squatsand dead’s. It should be noted that the main competitionin the class was Ron Garofalo and Dan Austin, two of thebest ever, Austin in particular is firmly in the “legend” cat-egory, and James out-benched him. Good for bronzeoverall, and silver in the bench, not bad for a first timer.
Emeryville Ontario’s Ron Strong, silver medalist in thisclass on four previous occasions was on a mission, andwould not be denied. He even bought a shirt, “Strong isNever Wrong”. Ron set a national record 300 kg in the
squat. He was behind by 15 after the squat to USA’s Gon-zales. Gonzales was a big bencher, putting Ron a full 37.5
kg behind at sub-total time. Itlooked like a mountain toclimb. But for anyone that hasever seen Ron deadlift, youknow that it’s his lift. He toldus, “just load up whatever Ineed to win, and I’ll pull it.”
The American was not a puller,missing his final at 287.5, get-ting him an 820 k total. Themeant Ron had to pull 320 kgto tie the total and win onbodyweight. When you see avideo later, a big deadlift takes 3 or 4 seconds. When yousee it live, and know that the gold medal is on the line, itseems to take 3 or 4 minutes to come up. Pull it he did,GOLD medal for Mr. Strong!
In a strength sport like powerlifting, it’s well known thatmany do not achieve their best lifting until after age 40.Dr. Fred Hatfield, a.k.a. “Dr. Squat” became one of thefirst men to squat over 1000 pounds at age 41. So themost competitive age group in the World Masters is al-ways the Men’s 40 – 49 class, and this year, Canada wasthe team to beat, with many of our lifters nominated totalsplacing them first.
We got off to a bit of a rocky start though. Edmonton’sLewis Noppers, was lifting in the 66 kg class, that’s about145 lbs. Except Lewis’s normal bodyweight is about 14lbs heavier than this. He could have entered the 74 kgclass, except we had another great lifter there already, andLewis was chasing a world record in the deadlift in the 66.
It was a tough weight cut for Lewis. He made it, but theweight cut was difficult for him, he came in to the weigh-in looking drawn and thin, like a POW camp refugee. ByIPF rules, a contest starts just 2 hours after the start of theweigh-in, and this was just not enough time for Lewis toget back to feeling normal. He went for an opening squatof 215 kg, “too high” said the judges. Bumped it up to220, with the same result. Same on the third try. Lewishad bombed out, like Glyn before him. Unlike Glyn, hechose to continue on though, and by the time of the benchhe was rehydrating and feeling better, enough to get silverin the bench, with a nice 147.5 kg. The deadlift has al-ways been Lewis’s lift, and he’d planned to take a shot atthe world record of 270 kg at this meet. But after a second
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dead of 250 kg, giving him the gold in the dead’s, andmaking it look easy, he decided to leave the record for an-other day and passed on his third. Records don’t count ifyou don’t get a total. He’ll have another chance soonthough, as Lewis will be lifting again at the Men’s Openworlds in Puerto Rico at the end of October.
The 74 kg class had Tom Kean of Newfoundland lifting.Tom is one of the best lifters Canada has ever seen, andhe was out to prove this to the world. Tom is a real tech-nician of the lifts; he executed his squats perfectly, 260,270 and 275 without a problem. 185 opener bench waseasy, the second at 190 was turned down, too low on thechest, but he got it easy on the third. Dead’s was similarlyeasy, missing just the final pullof 277.5. This gave Tom 737.5total, any easy win by over 20kg, and a Wilks formula total of531.5, less than 1 point betterthan USA's Eric Kupperstein. Thisnumber withstood the challenges of 3 more days of lift-ing, leaving Tom as Best Lifter in the men's Master one.Great work Tom!
The 83 kg had the age-less wonder, Jeff Beckerof Ontario. Jeff is thekind of lifter where hisopener, especially hissquats, will look like real-ly tough, like if he added
2.5 kilos more he'd be crushed. But he'll add 7 to 10 kgand just grind it out. His third lift will seem to take about10 minutes to come up, he will just not quit on it. Suchwas the case today, netting him a solid 292.5. He wenton to an easy win, gold in every lift and over 50 kg up onsecond place.
In the same class we alsohad Hoi Leung of St. Catha-rines. Hoi also had a greatday, missing just his finalbench and dead, comingaway with a 700 kg total, a
personal best I believe.
Dave Walters was returningchampion at 83, looking to de-fend the title. He had not such a
good day for him, getting just one squat in at 300 kg, buthis massive 255 bench helped keep him in the running,despite missing a third at 260. Dave was in a battle withMario Schnurr of Germany for the win. Schnurr is a sea-soned lifter, winner of previous world titles, and nostranger to platform pressure. It came down to the lastdeads for both. Dave had made 275 on his second,though it looked a bit heavy, putting him 7.5 ahead. Hewent for 280 on his third to lock it in, but it proved tooheavy today. This left the door open for Schnurr to go for310 for the win, a lift we all expected to be easy for him,but it did not pass his knees today. Gold for Canada!
Next up was the 105's, where we had Vancouver's Joe Ol-iveira. Joe was up against some tough competition herefrom USA's Ken Gack. Joe and Ken both squatted 310,with Joe getting the squat gold on lighter body weight.The American had the better bench, 242.5 compared toJoe's 212.5, while Joe had the better pull, 285 comparedto 275. Joe ended up in the silver spot, which wouldprove very important to us.
By the end of the 4th day the team scoring in Master 1was Canada with 3 golds at 12 points each, one silver for9, and one bronze, 8, totaling 53. The USA had 2 gold anda bronze, good for just 33, except... they had two verygood lifters in the 120+ class that was still to come, ex-pected to finish gold and silver. This would put us tied.(Only the best 5 from each country count towards teamtitles).
However Canada had a secret weapon, a.k.a. SheldonDuncan in the 120 kg class. The USA had no lifter in the120 class, so we knew that if Duncan was able get us asilver, there was no way the US could catch us.
First off, Sheldon proceeded to scare the hell out of us bygetting crushed by his last warm-up squat of 260, 10 kglighter than his opener. "I think I'll change back to thesuit I did my training in" he said, with about a minute tothe start of lifting.
Our worries were unfound-ed, as Sheldon squatted270, 282, 290, all good.Sheldon's only real competi-tion in the class was theNetherlands Michael Kalter,a veteran champion. New
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Zealand's Steve Lousich was also in the class, good squat-ter, a great bencher, but weak on the dead’s, so not reallya factor on the total race. Kalter squatted 320, for a 30 kglead. He had some trouble on his bench though, manag-ing just 210, while Sheldon pushed up 227.5 to close thegap to 12.5. Kalter is a good puller though, managing 315.Sheldon had done 302.5, and by this point we knew thesilver medal was a lock, so we went for broke, put in327.5 for the win. Sheldon gave it his all, and got it about6 inches off the ground, about 6 more than I think anyoneexpected, even Sheldon!
So Canada had locked up theMaster 1 team title, the firsttime in 20 years!
We had one more Master 1lifter though, Ontario's PeterMcGill in the 120+ class, lift-ing on the last day. Pete is a
fairly new lifter, and this was his first worlds. While notreally a contender for the class medals, Pete still lifted re-ally well, getting personal bests in every lift. All of thecoaching staff thought that Pete has a lot of untapped po-tential, and since he moves into the M2 class in the nextyear, he will be a force to reckon with next year.
All things considered, this was one of the best overall out-ings that Canada has ever had at the World level. Thanksneed to go out to all of the lifters that worked so hard, andthose that helped with coaching duties, Glyn Moore andTom Kean in particular. One other person, someone un-known to me before this event, was our unofficial teamdoctor, Aras Kvedaras. Aras (pronounced Audis, no ideawhy) is a chiropractor from south Ontario, and workedwith many of the team members from that area. He wasdoing adjustments on our team members, and workingwith lifters from other countries that had injuries. Hecame down at his own cost, and was a big help to all.Many family members also, that’s for your cheering andflag waving!
Full results can be seen on the IPF website, athttp://www.powerlifting-ipf.com/352.htmlNext year the Masters is in Orlando Florida and I thinkevery single team member told me they plan to be there.Of course they have to earn that right in Vancouver nextyear at nationals. See you all there!
Mike Armstrong, Head Coach
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NEED A PRO'S HELP WITH TRAINING, DIET, OR SUPPLEMENTATION?
Brian Carroll has been a competitive powerlifter since 1999, when he brokeinto the sport with bench-only competitions. In 2004, within a year of his firstfull power meet, he finished second at the WPC Worlds in the open class as ajunior – totalling 2000 pounds. Since then, Brian has recorded numerous top-two finishes, including the WPC Worlds, WPO Finals, APF Seniors, the IPAPro-Am, SPF Pro-am and the XPC Coalition Meet, as well as setting All-timeWorld records in multiple weight classes. For the past 9 years, Brian has con-sistently added an average of 90+ pounds to his total each year, going from1752 to 2730 over this span. Brian is self - employed as trainer (both onlineand in person) as well as a massage therapist in Jacksonville, FL - where heowns his own massage and personal training business. Brian enjoys coachinglifters, guiding their training, nutrition, supplementation and watching themsucceed. Brian is available for coaching and consults and can be reached [email protected]
Best official lifts:220 - 1030WR Squat, 633 Bench, 755 Dead - 2375 total - 10th best all-time*242 - 1064 Squat, 785 Bench, 771 Dead - 2570 total - 5th best all-time*275 - 1185WR Squat, 815 Bench, 800 Dead - 2730 total - 2nd best all-time**one of only 3 lifters in the history of powerlifting to have a top 10 biggesttotal in 3 different weight classes, at the same time
Sponsored by EliteFTS.com (Cream of the crop as far as strength training) andpart of the Q&A staff. Training log can be viewed, here:http://asp.elitefts.net/qa/training-logs.asp?tid=189&__N=Brian%20Carroll
Personal website: Briangcarroll.comYouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/bigcarroll81?feature=mhee
2012 Octoberfest Bavarian Strongman
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2012 Octoberfest Bavarian Strongman
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2012 Octoberfest Bavarian Strongman
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Spotlight on…Kevin SedoreBy Julie Beun
Photos by Joe Kristiansen
Kevin Sedore doesn’t look like the kind of manwho would struggle doing a lat raise with a can of soup.More like 450 cans of soup—give or take.
But seven years ago, a soup can was about all theToronto Police Services detective could manage. It’s a farcry from the 174.6 kg (385 lbs) bench and 290.3 kg (640lbs) dead liftperfor- mances that net-ted him a goldmedal in thehotly con-tested World Police andFire Games (WP- FG)Masters Pow-erlifting Heavyweight Divi-sion in NewYork City lastyear. And it’seven fur- therfrom his goalof smash- ingthe WPFG record next August in Belfast, Northern Ire-land, where he hopes to bench 181.4 kg (400 lbs) and deadlift 317.5 kg (700 lbs).
Not bad for a guy who was told by doctors thathe’d never lift more than a beer bottle again after a seriousmotor vehicle accident in October 2005 ripped apart hisshoulder. Although he initially shrugged off the injury—he went home after a brief check up in the hospital—hereturned the next day complaining that “things were kindof falling apart,” says Sedore, now 45.
Indeed they were. An MRI and ultra sound re-vealed the extent of the damage: his right side trapezius,supraspinatus, infraspinatus, biceps tendon and rotatorcuff were seriously torn.
“They said my days of heavy lifting were over,”recalls Sedore, whose shoulder was repaired during exten-sive surgery. “I wasn’t competing then, but I was liftingpretty heavy to increase strength for hockey and baseball.
Rehab literally started with soup cans and they told me I’dbe a year off work.”
But like most strength athletes, Sedore didn’t takethe limitations well. “I thought ‘I’m too young not to havethe juices flowing.’ I didn’t like the idea of not being ableto compete, either against myself or anybody else. Then Ilooked into powerlifting, because I’m not pretty enough tostand on stage in a banana hammock,” he chuckles. “Andthat’s where it started.”
But still, something was missing: motivation. Andso, after returning to full time duties within months (notthe year his doctor predicted), he scanned the Internet andfound what he was looking for. Hearing about the WorldPolice and Fire Games, which attracts 16,000 internationalcompetitors in 66 sports, he vowed to enter the 2009 meetbeing held in Vancouver, where he won gold in the push-pull with a bench of 174.6 kg (385 lb) and a dead lift of281.2 kg (620 lbs).
Not that he did it alone. Supported by fellow liftersClint Harwood, Tom Hayes and the crew at Toronto’s An-vil Gym, Sedore’s first raw lifts came in at a respectable142.9 (315 lbs) bench, 188.2 kg (415 lb) squat and 281.2kg (450 lb) dead lift.
“Initially, my training was upper and lower days,maximum alternating with dynamic. Then I did a little bitof Westsidetrain- ing, but Ipri- marilytrain alone.”Cur- rently fol-lowi ng theWen- dler 5/3/1rotat- ing wavepro- gram withplenty of acces-sory work, he’salso introducedchains and bands, as well as strong man training for gener-al physical preparedness (GPP). “With strong man,” heobserves, “you training for numerous maximal lifts. Soyou’re conditioning needs to be a bit better. It really ex-poses your weaknesses in other areas, so you can train forthem and that carries over to increasing your power liftingability.”
Then there’s nutrition. Like most power lifters, “I eat any-thing and everything, with plenty of protein and carbs onheavy training days,” he says. Currently, he’s also supple
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menting his diet with Genuine Health’s proteins+,greens+extra energy, fastjoint care+ and activfuel+.
“I’m finding good results with those products. The activ-fuel+ is not like an energy drink where you get your spike,then crash. It gives me energy throughout the day, becausethe natural caffeine comes from the kola nut. My recoveryseems to be a lot better now after heavy lifting with theprotein and joint repair, too.”
Now training for Belfast and increasingly addinggeared lifting to his regime, he says his strategy is allabout consistency and a winning mind set.
“My plan is to have a bit of fun with it,” he says,adding, “I’m constantly learning and trying to perfectform. The good thing about powerlifting is that everyonewants to help each other become the best they can be andreach their full potential. I’m nowhere near my potentialyet,” he laughs, “despite the grey hair.”
- 2011 World Police and Fire Games MastersHeavyweight Powerlifting, gold medal
- 2009 World Police and Fire Games MasterHeavyweight Powerlifting, gold medal
- 2009 Belle River Masters Heavyweight Power-lifting, first place
- 2011 Ottawa Open Powerlifting meet, MastersHeavyweight Division, first place
- 2012 Dundas Strongman Open Competition,Over 220 lbs Division, first place
Courtesy of RescindX for photos below
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2012 CPF AUTUMN ARMAGEDDON
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2012 CPF AUTUMN ARMAGEDDON
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