Lessons From The Hall Of Fame
5 Mistakes Made In A Career Of Powerlifting
In 2022 I was inducted into the British Powerlifting Hall of Fame.
Due to the changing of the guard at board level I wasn’t able to receive my award. Historically the award would be given to you at the AGM (I wouldn’t be a prolific attendee of these!) or at the next competition you compete at, for me this would be have been the Arnold Classic UK which was 5-6 months after. I was reminded of it when I attended the British Open Classic and saw the Best Lifter awards on the table, they are of the same design as the HOF awards, so in true spoilt athlete fashion I demanded to the CEO that I receive my award. When I say demanded, I mean sheepishly asked him if I could get it!
I’m very pleased to say the award arrived in the post the other day and its really nice! Thank you to James Brincat-Smith for organising.
This got me thinking about my 20 years in the sport.
From the 78kg 23 year old lifter stepping on the platform for the first time wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, rugby shorts and a pair of Mizunos, it was 2005 and the sport was much more accommodating if you were underprepared! In my opinion it was still a better look than the all white A7 singlet and you can’t convince me otherwise. From then to the now 42 year old 93kg lifter who has somehow managed to win British and International titles, break and hold British and International records, been privileged to compete all over the world against the best in the world and most importantly make some incredible friendships along the way.
Something you realise as you get older, its not the destination but the journey that really matters.
The sport itself has changed so much since I stepped on the platform.
The rebrand of unequipped (which was a stepping stone to Equipped and International lifting) to Classic has revitalised Powerlifting and really lowered the barrier to entry for so many. And it really is the future of the sport. In the mid 2000’s you could only compete internationally in equipment and that held true until around 2014 and it likely drove many away from the sport as equipped lifting is similar to F1, you need an entire pit crew to really succeed. Now it’s possible to train almost completely alone and become a top International lifter and earn a living as a Powerlifter. Look at the two male World Champions British Powerlifting has produced and they both train alone in their garages. This would be, and from first hand experience, is incredibly dangerous in equipment. Supramaximal loads, very fast failure points and no spotters tends to end badly.
In short thought the progress of powerlifting is astounding and will only get better in the next few years.
In my reflections I was thinking of the 5 biggest mistakes I made that limited my progress, could I have been better? No doubt, but I have loved the experiment of becoming the best Powerlifter I could be, and with all experiments the hinge on repeated failure and learnings.
My 5 biggest mistakes are as follows.
Mistake 1 - Not Having a Coach
The online coach wasn’t a thing when I started out, I had a great group of friends and we all helped each other to get as strong as possible, it was an incredible training environment which I still really miss.
But if you wanted a coach you would likely need to live near them and train in their gyms. I was also a young Strength and Conditioning Coach working in elite rugby and my ego was a little too tied up in that, “I should know how to do this” and not losing face likely cost me faster progress earlier on in my lifting career. I was at the top of Mount Stupid.
An expert opinion is what I needed, someone who had made the mistakes I was currently making and could provide support and guidance alongside an honest appraisal of technique. Your friends can create a great environment but they may not tell you honestly when your standards are sloppy. Lastly a coach would have given me an outlet for any fears or anxieties I had around training, competing and creating that all important balance. you not to succeed.
Mistake 2 - Always Pushing Too Hard
When you are climbing up to the top of you potential you believe you need to always push hard.
I made this mistake more times than I care to remember, not listening to my body and believing I could will myself to push the training even harder when everything was telling me I shouldn’t. Overtraining is often a misused term but one of the early signs of overreaching or overtraining will be disrupted sleep, and as sleep is a cornerstone of all recovery practices there is only really one way the training and outputs will go if you stay there too long. My answer at the time was more caffeine, more intensity (shouting) and to keep pushing. The worst part of all of this was the timing, it would always be at the critical point of the training process and you would drag yourself to the competition praying you could deliver, most often not though.
Always listen to what you body is telling you, no whoop band or app can compete with it.
Mistake 3 - Believing You Are Bulletproof
Ignoring signs of overuse injury, wear and tear and pain held me back no end.
I, like many, believed that most ‘niggles’ would clear up on their own. It’s what happens when you are younger, you bounce back so quickly. But as the training intensity and volume increases and you start getting closer to you genetic potential you place so much more stress on your system. This can lead to athrogenic issues, muscle, tendon overuse injury, potential bone stress. By ignoring these small things they will always become big things in the end and before you know it you will be adapting training to the point that it may no longer resemble a Powerlifting program or in worse cases you are stoping training completely to rehabilitate these issues. Both are bad ways to reach your potential.
For myself I would have suffered with chronic elbow pain, hip pain, knee pain and shoulder pain. my view was to train through, it always ended badly. Lots of missed opportunities by not taking care of the issue early.
Some injections, acupuncture, soft tissue etc etc etc, I would have done most things to find a solution, I worked with some incredible Sports Doctors and world class Physiotherapists in professional sport and applied a lot of that experience to the athletes I coached alongside myself. In rugby, this philosophy of ‘Stopping Small Things Becoming Big Things’ led to us having the highest availability of our starting XV compared to the rest of the league over 2 seasons in the Gallagher Premiership.
Ultimately that process has an enormous influence on my own training and those I currently coach. It ties in with consistency and potential.
To reach your potential you will need a consistent specific training stimulus delivered over the course of years. i.e. Training the powerlifting movements at the correct intensity week after week, month after month, year after year. In 10 years you will be right at the top of your potential.
Mistake 4 - Equipment
Not squat suits, bench shirts and deadlift suits. I mean the correct bars, plates, racks and benches.
I would have come to this realisation far to late and it has definitely scuppered some progress on my deadlift over the years. Competition grade equipment is very bespoke, bars of a specific diameter, correct PSI (flex), and knurling depth, benches of a specific height and grip, steel calibrated plates, height spacings of combi racks. All these things are important to have trained on consistently. Some have a greater impact than others, I believe a competition Eleiko bar is a must have piece of equipment for any lifter and metal plates, this changes the feel of the loads through the flex in the bar and the distribution of the weight with the thinner plates closer to the centre.
If you want to be judged on your competition performances you must use the right equipment and if you don’t make sure the alternative is of a very similar quality and spec to what you need.
Mistake 5 - That Is Why No One Will Remember Your Name
Time passes quickly and years roll into one another. This may be my biggest regret.
Looking back and with the benefit of hindsight I wish I competed more often, as most who may read this you will be balancing training and competing alongside work and potentially a family, as time passes these things will only have a greater demand on your time and resources to train and compete. I should have lifted more often when I was early in my career and before I had a family, I had the choice and I decided not to take it, now that decision is made for me as I would rather spend time with them than compete. Could I have won more? Its easy to look at results and say “I could have won this” and “I could have won that” but if you don’t turn up you will never know. The flip side of this is not competing due to your perception of what will happen, where people will place, where you will place.
All I will say is enter, train hard, turn up, give it everything, see where the chips fall. Don’t live and wonder “what if” because before you know it you may not have the opportunity or the inclination.