The phrase I heard more than any other in powerlifting, "Come on folks, Billy needs this to stay in the meet, let's get behind him" ...always a great way to start a meet .
- Billy Mimnaugh
This took me back
This took me back because of how many times I heard the same phrase with my name. I'm not afraid to admit that in a couple of cases, I made sure my handlers went to the MC to let them know I needed that third attempt to stay in the meet. This would help get the crowd to support you while also trying to appeal to the sympathy of the judges. I can't say if it worked or not because I still bombed out more times than I would like to admit.
Bombing out sucked! You spent months, or in some cases a year or more, training for a meet and it was all over in a second. For those who are not aware, it used to be that when you bombed out, your meet was over. If you bombed in the squat, you didn't bench or deadlift. If you bombed in the bench, you were not allowed to pull and your squat wouldn't count. You had to actually finish the meet for any of the lifts to count. Many times you would see world record being broken in the squat and then that lifter would open their bench and deadlift with 135 to make sure their squat WR would count.
The Loser Table
I remember one meet I bombed in the squat. It wasn't just being out of the meet that I had to deal with. I trained at Westside Barbell from 1990-2005 and while bomb outs happened, they were frowned upon by the rest of the club. At dinner that night, the handful of us who bombed out were not allowed to sit with the others at the table. We had our "loser" table and not only had to listen to others talk about how great of a day they had but had to endure their shit about how we "choked," were "scared" and simply were just tweads™.
The next morning they all got the shuttle back to the airport and us "losers" had to find our own way. This was my first bomb out while at WSBB so I had no idea if I was kicked out of the club or not. I had no idea what to expect the next day in the gym.
What I learned was we were all only as good as our last meet
I learned to take better attempts, listen to my handlers, and do all I could to not let it happen again (and it did - but that's powerlifting). What I didn't hear was "it's ok, you will do better next time". I was never told that because it wasn't fucking okay. I bombed out and put myself in a position that would not allow me to display what I spent months or years trying to improve.
I still don't see how this is all ok today. But it is and times change. The sport changed as do all sports. Doesn't mean I have to like this aspect.
What's makes this worse is, I've been told, someone who bombs can still go on and break records and place a total. Think about that. A great lifter who posts no squats, but benches great and pulls great will have a larger total than an average lifter who posts numbers in all lifts. I'm not stupid and realize the guy who didn't post any squats would still have beat the other guy, but the fact is he didn't! He didn't do what should be a minimum requirement of the sport, posting a total, and can still win.
The Age of Participation Powerlifting
- We are now in the Participation Powerlifting Age where everyone wins, everyone totals, everyone ranks, and everyone can hold a record. Not a "personal record" but an "official" record.
Normally I don't care but we are getting very close to lifters no longer competing but validating their lifts by number of likes, not by ranking against others. Somewhere along the line people lost sight of the fact that it's not ok to suck. It's supposed to motivate you more to NOT suck.
I just pulled a sample entry form and calculated how many first places finishes there could be if you look at all the divisions and weight classes. In a meet with a 70 lifter cut off, there could be over 66,000 first place finishers. 66,000! That's just one federation and one meet.
So many champions!
I will go out on a limb here and say that each main federation is about the same and in any given month, they all have at least one meet - sometimes in multiple states. Just off the top of my head I'd guess and say well over 500,000 people, per state, in one month can say they were a Powerlifting Champion. Here is the kicker, that's over 25 times the number of individual powerlifters who competed in 2016.
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Just go to the table and pick what you like best
I wonder just how many World Records there would be if I calculated all the federations and every division. I have a feeling there would be over a million
I've been around the sport a long time, maybe too long. I still remember the pit in my stomach and how pissed I would be if I didn't place. Starting as a teen, I remember busting my ass to not be in the bottom of the round robin (this was used before flights came into play), and then busting ass to be able to enter an open meet. These were initially class 2 and below meets. This drove me to get my class 1 total so I could lift in the same meet as the others I trained with. Each time I got to a better meet, I got pushed back down to the bottom of the order again and had to start working my way back up. This pushed me to get better.
17 Million Winners A Year!
I just looked at Powerlifting Watch and noticed there are 214 upcoming meets. We are only 3 months into the year, and I am sure many events have not been posted yet. So it's fair to say there will be around 350 meets in 2017.
If I lower the number of potential winners reported in my last blog post from 66,000 to 50,000, this would equal 17,500,000 possible first place spots. Here is the best part: from what I have seen, lifters can't bomb out anymore.
If you are the only one in your division and don't post a total do you win or do you lose? If you were at the meet and missed all squats, all benches, and all deadlifts would you still get the award?
I also counted over 100 federations. The 66K divisions we calculated were only one federation. Would this mean there are 6,600,000 World Records?
To put this into perspective, we calculated just over 18,000 total competitive powerlifters in the USA (*excluding high school feds).
By the numbers, this would give every lifter in the USA 9,722 first places and 366 world records.
My competitive days are over so I will never hear, "Let's get behind Dave to help him stay in the meet" again. But unfortunately, neither will anyone else.
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