POWER PRO - a lifter's way of life
At the moment I do three jobs. I have had full time job as a prison guard and service desk official in our local police station for 11 years. As a part time job I work as a certified massage therapist ( European license ). Clients include athletes, companies like local post office and common people who mostly have neck and shoulder area problems.
My 3rd job is about strength. I have my own business in the field of power and strength. My services include:
Seminars. A complete power lifting seminar or a bench press seminar.
Articles. I write articles on two biggest strength and fitness magazine in Finland, BODAUS and K&F Magazine.
Books.; I have published two books. First ”The Bench Press Powerpack” came out in 1997 and the new one ”WESTSIDE BARBELL SYSTEM” right now, February 2001. I wrote that after almost six years in Westside training and after trying every system ever developed. This is the only one that I can make progress on. I'm proud to bring Westside here in Finland under Louie's permission. I have a good line on other books. Supertraining, Science and Practice, To Squat or Not to Squat are some favorites.
Videos. I will publish my first video later this year, I guess in the November or December. I have the Westside Videos for sale right now, call for prices or information.
TITAN. I import Titan power lifting equipment to Finland. This is the other thing that really makes the difference, to be your TITAN man here in Finland. If you are interested in bettering your own equipment or being a dealer in Finland or in Scandinavia give me a call and we'll see what I can do for you.
Exhibitions and meets. My projects on promoting for this year includes a National Military BP ( feet elevated&no gear ) Championships in our biggest Sport Exhibition march 30th-april 1st. I have invited guest lifters like Riku Kiri, Janne Virtanen, Ano Turtiainen and such. The second project is our FPO National Championships in Bench and Power lifting. It will be a meet where we expect multi 2200+ totals first time in Finland in national meet.
I started lifting weights for getting size for soccer in the age of 13. After trained weightlifting for two years, I was forced to couple of years of layoff due to illness and moving to another town. At the age of 16 I saw Power lifting on TV. The World's in Turku in 1978 impressed me so much that I started to try a new approach to lifting. It didn't take long till the power bug bite me big. I was lucky to have a coach who told me basics and was always encouraging and supporting me. Veikko Honkonen, the father of my hometown's Power lifting, is one of the great sportsmen I have been lucky to get to know. Well, Veikko threw, I took the ball and I'm still running.
After competing in our IPF federation for 8 years in international meets I switched to WPC after a tough conflict in drug testing. I never approved the way things were handled and founded our national affiliate for WPC in 1997. We have things going well for us and look new ways to promote the sport in a good way.
Best lifts
67,5kgs / 148´s:
SQUAT: 272,5 / 600 WPC World´s November 1999
BENCH: 175 / 385 IPF BP Nat´s & WPC World´s 8/94 & 11/00
DEADLIFT: 260 / 573 WPC World´s November 1999
TOTAL: 700 / 1544 WPC World´s November 1999
75 kgs / 165`s:
SQUAT: 275 / 606 WPC Nat´s June 2000
BENCH: 197,5 / 434 IPF BP World´s December 1996
DEADLIFT 275 / 606 FPO DL Breakers September 2000
TOTAL 705 / 1555 WPC Nat´s June 2000
Goals in the future:
After a permanent move to 165´s I will go as high as I can but have really no special numbers in mind. Turning into 40´s in a couple of years I think a good attitude is to lift almost every meet as like it could be your last. I really enjoy competing and hit the weights and have fun whenever I have a chance !
Training:
I have hit two major plateaus in my training. The first was in the middle of 80´s and was overcome by just training harder and concentrating on the main lifts. That upped my total to 650 in 1994, a 65 kilo increase in seven years as lightweight. Then the second plateau occurred. No matter what did my total stayed the same or got worse. The difference between training and competition weights got bigger, but I was unable to transfer it into meets. The harder I trained the more sore I just was. Heavier weights lead to injuries and I tore my patella tendon 5 weeks prior to IPF World´s in 1995 in Finland. That cost me the only international IPF medal missing in my collection. I also tore my tricep tendon which lead to serious injury which almost forced me retire from the sport that I love. Two doctors told that I would be never able to bench again. Having struggled for a year and half with low 300´s here I go again.
I have always been searching for information on how to train. I started to read the articles of Louie Simmons. At first I thought he was nuts and wrote strange articles just to catch attention. But after I got my hands on some studies and talked to couple of Finnish sport scientists, I finally found out what he was really meaning. Having tried everything and made all the possible mistakes I decided to give his methods a try. At first I did some box squats and speed bench training. After founding out how to use a box my squat went from 245 to 260 in eight months. After reading Louie's article ”Multi Year Training System” I got a clear picture what a good bench training could include. It was time to get to work. From may to December I increased my bench from 175 to 197,5, a huge 22,5kg / 50lb increase. That convinced me finally.
I'm still using the Westside approach to training and in my opinion it is the best way to train whether it comes to strength training in general, for some specific sport and power lifting. However, it is not a simple ”do this”-type of system but a genius way how to apply scientifically proved facts in to power training. What I do varies quite a lot, but to give you some picture of what works for me I have included samples of my training weeks and what max effort exercises to do. Not knowing the facts disables many to use the system correctly. I was surprised to amount of information and it really opened my eyes to how little did I know. Now I write regularly training articles and have published one book about how to train the bench. I will publish a new one next spring. It will include all power lifts and some overall strength training.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank Louie Simmons for all his help and support. This sport needs more men like him.
In closing, I would also like to thank Pete Alaniz and all the others at Titan Support Systems for the finest power lifting gear in the world.
Contact information:
Address: Riippakuja 5 Phone: +358-14-423 856 home, +358-14-425 155 work
Zip: 43100 Fax: +358-14-423 856
Town: Saarijärvi Cell: +358-50-5354 106
Country: FINLAND Email: powerpro@nic.fi
Sakari´s Westside Barbell Workout - Sample Training Week:
Monday ( max effort sq & dl ):
1. good morning max triple with straight or cambered bar, sometimes with chains
2. glute ham raise 4-6 sets of 5 to 15 reps with dumbbells or band
3. abs power wheel, standing abs, or seated on incline 5 to 8 sets
4. extra reverse hypers, sled work, pull troughs, lat and upper or neck work
Wednesday ( max effort bench ):
1. hanging bar press max single with moderate or close grip, sometimes 1-2 down sets
2. dumbbell tri extension 4-7 sets of 6 to 12 reps, flat, incline, decline or lying on floor
3. extra tricep work tate press, pushdowns on lat machine or with bands, sometimes even dips
4. lat work seated rows, lat pull downs, barbell or one arm rows 5 to 8 sets
5. extra couple of sets of upper back, bicep or forearm work
Friday ( speed sq & dl ):
1. box squat 10 to 6 doubles on 12” box with 140-170kg/ 305-375lb bar weight. I use bands with
10-40kg/ 20-90lb extra resistance on bottom and 30-100kg/ 65-220 pounds at top.
2. reverse hypers 4 to 8 sets of 6 to 15 reps, try to go as heavy as possible before the meet
3. abs same as Monday
4. extra same as Monday
Sunday ( speed bench ):
1. bench press 8-10x3 @ 80-90kg/ 175-200lb plus 10kg/20lb tension on bottom, 30kg/65lb top.
2. jm´s press could be sets like 5x5 doing some kind of pyramid or all sets with same weight
3. extra tricep work same as Wednesday
4. lat work same as Wednesday but usually less, 4 or 5 sets of pull downs usually
5. extra usually some kind of delt work
Sample Max Exercise Chart:
week SQ&DL exercise BP exercise
1 regular gm 6” rack lockouts
2 safety bar sq 6” box moderate grip press
3 bent over camber bar gm hangbar press close grip
4 2” box dl`s floor press moderate grip
5 combo gm 4” board press close grip
6 front sq 10” box chain press moderate grip
7 regular camber bar gm close grip press
8 regular gm with chains hangbar press moderate grip
9 8” box squat floor press close grip
10 the meet week !
