Powerlifting Stories

“Misadventures in bench pressing”

By Ian Smalley

In  high school I weighed  a buck 35 soaking wet and didn’t care about weight lifting whatsoever. Soon after  though, I discovered the gym and like most young guys just wanted to look good for the ladies. I put on about 30 lbs and made it to 165. I was rockin my 15 inch guns(?) and a sweet tan, and stayed in a holding pattern in fitness model/bodybuilding land for about 6 years until I realized that at a certain point your arms just aren’t going to grow anymore unless you gain some weight...and guess what else…nobody cares that you have abs because your skinny. I didn’t eat hardly anything and partied a lot so I hit the wall like most guys do who train for the wrong reasons….

Then one fateful day I heard about this “secret gym” that only a select few even knew about, the place were only the strongest and most badass dudes lifted. I showed up the next day to a totally non-descript building next to an ice factory and a bread making company. There was only an open door and the stink of sweat, which nearly overpowered the smell of the bread baking next door. I walked in to find a powerlifing gym. Because I was so used to commercial gyms I was a taken aback at first because it was dark, had low ceilings, didn’t smell great, and didn’t have one piece of cromed weight anywhere. But what it did have was tons and tons of old, worn out weight…everywhere.  A power rack, a deadlift platform,  dumbbells up to 170, bins everywhere with chalk in them. I was instantly in love. It occurred to me immediately that this was where someone would come to train, not work out. #1 because of the atmosphere, and #2 because no girl would set  foot in the building. It’s amazing how your training changes when there are no women around to distract the process. Some guys would say that having chicks around motivates them to lift more…those guys are douche bags.

So as I wandered around the gym, I noticed it had an upstairs. I went up there and found 3 stationary bikes, a versa climber, and some miscellaneous ab benches. All circa 1985.This was clearly ment to be the “cardio” room, which being that it was a powerlifting gym explained a lot about the condition of it. In the corner was a giant stack of Powerlifting USA  magazines dating back to the mid 80’s. It was at that point that my course would be altered forever, I decided then and there to learn everything there was to know about powerlifing, oh yeah, and since my bench press form sucked I would make that the focus of my training.

There was literally 20 years of PL USA sitting there, 200 plus issues, so I started with the earliest one and started reading. It took me 2 months to read all those things, but I got to see the sport evolve from issue to issue. By the end I felt I had a firm grasp on the training, so like most newbies I decided to train….wait for it… Westside.  I bought some bands, the baddest multi ply shirt I could get a hold of and went to work. I did my max effort work, my speed days, worked on my bench press form...I even bought the Westside bench press video and watched it religiously. Everything was so new that my body responded really well. After 8 months of training I hit a 500 lb. bench in the gym at 185lbs  in my multi ply super necked Phenom.

I was pretty impressed with myself and was throwing around “state record” and “American record” quite a bit in the gym. At the time, guys were still only in the upper  5's at 181 so I thought I would surely be among  the elite in the sport in no time. What I didn’t know was that I was actually horrible…. I had poor bench press form and technique, and was relying on brute arm strength and luck to move that much weight. But being self taught and having no one with experience around you can tend to multiply your chances at failure, so it’s really a question of how and when you’ll melt down rather than if. I would learn this the hard way at my first meet.