Sponsorship from Nutrim and being a test subject for VyoMax!

Nutrim and Tukkumyymälä.fi sponsorship

I am glad to announce (although a bit late, as usual) that I am a sponsored athlete as far as my supplements go! Tukkumyymälä.fi sponsors me for my supplements, thank you for their trust in my marketability and capabilities.

Tukkumyymälä.fi, a Finnish internet supplement distributor of Nutrim, and also the fight gear Farabi, has agreed to sponsor me on the supplement side, and for the last three months I have been trying out their line of supplements. Henrik Ås is a Finn that is currently the head of distribution of Nutrim and Farabi in the Scandinavian countries, and it is not impossible that he would be coming to UK also with some part of his company.

I will be going through some of his supplements on a competitors point of view now and also on later ionstallments in my blog, and I will be honest about them no matter what. In my mind there is no point in being sponsored by a line you do not trust!

So far I have had the best experiences on the high-class proteins, and also have used some non-stimulant preworkout protein/carb/mineral supplements, namely the Forte powder containing mixture of minerals and vitamins and carb/protein sources to give you endurance during workout. I have been pleased with this, in conjunction with some fast carbs during training, and really feeling the difference of added carbs pre-, during and post workout.

After training I have been having when possible the Pro Whey, a very high quality and easily absorbed whey protein with added vitamins in real quantities, not only for show. It  is the single msot easily and the most quickest absorbing protein I have used, and 100% no gastro effects. Not for a snack, night or morning protein, because easy absorption means it does not keep the hunger away, but really good for after training. And easy for stomach is a bonus always, at least in my wifes opinion!

Day as a guinea pig

My wife has a sponsorship from the UK based company Vyomax, which sells its supplements across the globe and has a wide range of supplements. The last time we visited their superstore, they had a wedding gift for us! The new Max Force NOX preworkout. The owner of the company, Samir, asked us to try it for the evenings workout and give the feelings about it.

It was a good pre-workout, containing high caffeine (300mg per serving), some pump inducing and blood flow enhancing ingredients and beta-alanine (2g) and creatine (1g). All in all, a very potent formula without the problems of concentrating or off-your-face feeling that ephedrine etc. gives you. I don´t use a lots of stimulants or pre-workouts, so for me that is a better choice. Workout was great, and Emma had to go and take double serving, which just further proved that the recommended dosage (for once) was sufficient as she was tingling, over-caffeinated and all that goes with it!

So thumbs up from me, and I hope my own sponsor Nutrim doesn´t provide me with something similar so I wont have to compare!

Here is a full video minidocumentary on the training session:






The training has been going well, weight fluctuates between 112 and 116kgs, and the added carbs around training have made a difference. I am slightly in deficit in calories, but not notably. Steadier lifestyle and constructed training have paid off, and I am pleased with the slow body composition changes happening now. I am also hopeful on accelerating that and then if all goes as planned, put that new muscle mass into good use in the WPC Worlds!

Recent training week:

19.7.
Saturday back training:
Emmas partials 20x60, 10x100, 8x140, 8x180, drop set of 10x220, 10x180, 10x140, 10x100, 10x60! That felt like hell! I was not expecting to be so gassed out, this really took the wind out of me!
Bent-over rows 4x10x100
Chest-supported rows 4x10
Pulldowns 4x10

Here is a link to Emmas partials, 77kg woman handling 220kg without straps or belt, bite that!
https://www.facebook.com/emmajamesnlp/videos/10153081908487972/?pnref=story

21.7.
Bench in Leeds at Ralls gym with Andy Bolton and Tom Griffin among others also lifting with a bench shirt. Lots of stretching exercises to loosen up the shoulder girdle
Bench: 12x70, 8x90, 5x110,3x130, 3x150, 3x165, raw with stops
Bench with Metal Pro 56: 3x200, 2x2x220, 6x220 Felt good, really good line with the shirt! Easy and no touches, just keeping the feel of the shirt up
Dumbbell press: 10x40, 10x55, 10x55, 7x55. Run out of steam, meant to do easy 3x10 with 55kg dumbbells but strength was sapped and it turned out not to be easy!
Dumbbell flyes 4x12x16kg
Chest flye machine 4x12
Low cable flye: 3x12
Pushups: 1x30

22.7.
Lockouts and arms at Olympic:
Lockouts from low pins, about 6 inches off chest, with a stop 20x60, 10x100, 5x140, 160, 180
Dips 3x10 for the stretch again
Pushdowns: 10x50, 10x65, 10x80, 8x95 (actually 6 clean, 2 last ones looked like drowning somebody to a hole in the ice...)
Abbas tris: 3x15
Biceps with straigth bar warm-up plus hard set: cheat curls with slow negative 5x80, then dropping to normal set of 10x50 and finishing with 20 reps on the bar alone.
Biceps with Ez-Bar: 3x12 reverse, 3x15 normal
Stretching cable bi exercise: 3x10
Concentration curls from the edge of a bench: 3x7+7 (normal and hammer) 15kg
Quite a pump and a good workout, combined fast carbs, Nutrims Forte and Vyomas pre-workout NOX!

Cheating technique from me...

And very clean technique from Emma!

23.7.
Lazy shoulder workout
Behind the neck standing to stretch out: 2x20x20, 10x40, 3x10x50. Could actually without pain touch my traps with the bar, lowering it so low behind my neck!
Light bench: 10x40, 5x80, 2x110, 6x2x130
Arnold press: 4x10x20-30, standing and seated both
Lateral combo: 10xbent over, 10x sides, 10 hammer grip to the front, 3x10+10+10
Shoulder finisher, 100 reps with 10kg dumbbells, 10 second rest between sets: took 5 sets to finish!

24.7.
Legs. This was hard day, as I was for some reason completely wiped out. I feel a lighter training week coming because of overall fatigue:
Squat: 10x1-10x60-190
High bar: 5x100, 5x120, 5x140, 1 min. rest between sets
Single leg squats with rear foot elevated, to strengthen the knees and stretch hip flexors: 4x10xBW
Leg press: 4x12-15x??
Extensions: 4x12
Curls:4x10
Calves, again 100 reps with 10 second rests on seated machine, took 5 sets
The special 12/12/24 on standing, 3 drops from ful stack to half and then a quarter


25.7.
Back training, pushed it through as the last hard session before two days off the weights and an easier week ahead!
Emmas partials: 12x60, 10x100, 5x140, 5x180, 5x210, 5x240PR
Pullups, wide, some behind neck and some front: 4x5-7xBW
Bent over row: 3x10x100
Chest supported row: 4x10x20-60
Pulldowns: 4x10
Pulldowns behind neck:2x15 to stretch
Pullover: 1x12 to stretch

Looking towards an easier training week. Easy doesnt mean lazy, justno intensity techniques and more stretching and prehab. Then back to hard and heavy!

Honeymoon at the BPU Powerlifting National Championships

Photo by Riku Ritamäki

So, as mentioned couple of posts ago, I got married. I said at some point I will not be sharing personal stuff in my blog, but when one is this loved up, he must do a little bit of an update on a topic like this. I will be getting on to the BPU British Nationals soonish, so no caramel poisoning or pink pictures to be expected to my rugged readers

From the church, on the left my cousin Juha, one of the best men among Maria and Pommi. Photo by Riku Ritamäki

Wedding was quite a surprise to the vast majority of the close ones of us both. On both sides the common conclusion was that neither one of us would propably ever get married! But as it is many times proven, in life is nothing certain. I will not go through our common trek here, I will just say that it has been a long trip in a short amount of time, and only in its beginning.

Walking together. Photo by Riku Ritamäki

Wedding was held in a small church in the Finnish countryside, in my hometown of Paimio. About 65 of my family and friends were in attendance, Emmas sister was the bridesmaid and her very old friend Duncan was acting on behalf of her late father and gave Emma away. She walked down the aisle in the tunes of "Im going home" of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and that was indeed the happiest moment of my life.

Afterwards we had a reception very casually, and everything went picture perfect. In a Finnish way of course, involving bottles passing around, drunkenness and some non-British themes of behaving

The husband is being talen away by dangerous bandits! Horrible situation

I also have to say huge thank you to my sister, mother, father, Toni, Tiia, Rosu, Juha, Arttu, Atte, Jani and Jetta. I whipped up the wedding in three weeks, and without their help it could have never been pulled off! My father fetched the drinks from Estonia and gave them to us as a wedding gift, and my mother and sister worked even a bit too hard to make everything happen. I can not think them enough!

Also, the presents we received were overwhelming, and we are very grateful for everybody on those. Among the most peculiar one was a Quran and a box of matches from my National Socialist cousin ... Well, in good humour though, inside the pages was the real present, substantial amount of money.

Arriving at the venue, with one of our wedding presents from Emmas sister Louise, and the bouquet I picked myself. One wouldn´t believe, huh?

What about the honeymoon?

That was the question I got asked a lot. Well, our honeymoon began two days after the wedding, and took us to Manchester, Scunthorpe, Folkestone and Andover. Why? To arrange the BPU Nationals of course!

We had probably one of the roughest weeks after the wedding that anyone can imagine. The two of us with a help from the Cleggs in the Olympic Gym of Manchester, Simon Norcup in Scunthorpe, Allan Collins and Darren Hammond in Folkestone and the BPU and Andover Leisure Center crew retrieved 3 monolifts, 3 benches, 8 bars, 600kg of weights and everything needed for a powerlifting comp, hauled it in Andover, built the venue and ran a competition of 120 lifters. And then took the same trip back!

On the way we encountered roadworks, huge traffic congestions, backroads too small for the van, problems with the hotel, few bleeding cuts and on top of it all 7.5 hour wait in the emergency to get Emmas head checked after a 80kg steel beam from a monolift hit her in the head and she got concussed. Not knocked out mind you, even though I surely would have. All in all, we slept 3 hours on average on the four nights and worked on through all the days, arranging, hauling, reffing, announcing and whatnot.
Well, a stiff test to the new marriage at least!

The end product of blood, sweat and almost tears!

How do you feel about that?

And what was the feeling after that? Well, it was worth it! Seeing all the lifters and the competition running smoothly, and managing to pull that off as a newly wed couple filled us both with immense sense of pride and accomplishment. And when on the Sunday we started to be a bit irritable and almost had a domestic in the cafeteria, came the one thing that warmed the hearts to the utmost.
Mitch Horrocks demanded us to the platform, and presented to us the BPU crews wedding present! Champagne, chocolate, and for me some cleaning aids like rubber gloves and a towel. Hmm...

But it was not just a present. Inside, the whole committee acknowledged and thanked Emma for all the hard work she had put in to the federation and the competition, and after those days we had been through it was truly well deserved! Thank you on my behalf one more time.

The competition

BPU Nationals itself was a two day competition that was held in the Andover Leisure Center. The venue was great and the help we received was immense. Also Matrix providing platforms was a huge help and the platforms worked like a charm. First day was all females, teens and juniors and masters up to 90kg, The second was all open male lifters and masters 100 and up. Both days saw almost equal amount of lifters and both days ran nicely. Even with all the hardships behind the scenes, the competition went excellent and left a really good aftertaste.

Happy lifters, the girlpower squad

First day was one of the most inspiring powerlifting competitions I have seen, purely because of the shear enthusiasm expressed by the females, teens and juniors. The place was literally buzzing!
Second day was the Opens and the platforms got a real test for their durability as 300kg mark in the deadlift was surpassed more times that can be counted. All in all great days.

There will be a more thorough update of the comp coming up in BPU website, so I wont go in detail about who lifted what, sufficient to portrait my side of the comp. That was once again behind the announcers table, and I had great help there from Sue Middleton and Paula Norcup. And of course Paulas and Simons son, Jesse who even co-announced for a while.

Cliff Richards, best lifter

Darren Hammond after all the equipment hauling got the best masters lifter award, and BPU secretary Steve Middleton won the best lifter of the ABPU, so the committee members showed they do more for powerlifting than just administration. The best open lifter of all was the hometown favorite, amazing lifter Clifford Richards, and the best ABPU bench press award went to a man who actually lifted in the open category as a disabled lifter Andrew Whitaker. Damn, there´s some disability for you, beating even the able bodied! Too numerous were great deeds to be all mentioned, here are the results, even though they never tell the actual story!

Emma, Steve and Darren

Results:
http://www.britishpowerliftingunion.co.uk/category/results/

What has been going on after that?

Well, luckily a little less. We haven´t been stale, no sir, but finally some time for ourselves. Did I say no fluff and all that? Well I take it back. Damn, it ain´t every day you get married! She was and is the most important thing to me, and I wake up every morning thinking that it was the best decision of my life! Thank you Emma just for being yourself. I love you.
And she didn´t even force me to write that, we haven´t yet reached that stage in our marriage.
I will close this piece with a training update of the recent 7 days, and a quote from late British comedian Les Dawson under one of Rikus best photos from the wedding.

"I can dimly understand why some people get married. Well, otherwise they would have to fight with strangers" -Les Watson

12.7.
Back training at Olympic:
Emmas partials: 5x5-20x60-220 6x230PR

Partials on the go, photo by Roger Shelley

Barbell row: 4x10x100-120
Dumbbell rows 1-arm: 10x30, 3x10x60
Pulldown, 3x10, 1x10xwhole stack, two drops
Pulldown behind neck: 3x20
Pullovers with 30kg dumbbell, just stretching: 2x15

New angle to dumbbell rows, photo by Roger Shelley

14.7.
Monday, Ralls gym in Leeds:
Bench: 10x70, 8x90, 5x110, 5x130, 5x140, 5x150, last set all with stops
Dumbbell bench, light and stretchy: 4x10x25-52.5
Chest flyes with dumbbell: 4x12x16kg
Cable crossover: 4x20
Push-ups: 1x40

15.7.
Arms pumping at Olympic
Lockouts: 20x60, 10x100, 5x140, 5x170, 5x190, 5x205PR
Hammer curls standing: 5x10-15x14-22kg
Some chins
Pushdown: 3x10+10+10, superset with superwide, wide and close grip, alway superwide and wide with 50kg and 60kg on close
Biceps with barbell:reverse 3x10, normal 3x12
Overhead extensions:3x15
Abbas tris:2x15
Stretch curl: 2x12
One-arm curl: 1x14


16.7. 
Morning: 20min walk, 30min stretching, 4 runs, 6 sprints, 200 abs

Night:Shoulders and technique bench at the Olympic:
Behind the neck standing barbell press, loosening and warming:5x10-20x20-55kg
Bench:10x60, 3x100, 6x2x130
Rear delts: 3x15
Standing Arnold press: 3x12x20-28kg
Lateral raises triple drop: 3x10+10+10x 20kg,15kg,10kg
Later raises with 10kg dumbbell, 10 second rest between sets until 100 reps, took 5 sets, first one 45 reps

17.7,
Legs at the Olympic
Foam roll and stretch 20min
Squat without belt and with stops: 10x60, 5x90, 4x110, 3x130, 3x150
Normal squat: 3x170, 3x190, 5x140, 5x150, 5x160
Triple drop set of doom: 15x140, 15x100, 15x60, no rest between sets
Good mornings to stretch calves after yesterdays sprints: 5x5x20-60
Extensions:4x12
Curls:3x10
Calves: 100x45kg seated, 10 sec rests. 52 reps on first set, 4 sets to complete 100. A set of three drops on 12/12/24 special standing calf killer! I have to film this some day.

18.7. Today just a 90 minute session of rolling, little bag work, abs and stretching.


So that is how training looks nowadays. 4 days of weights, then lighter overall athleticism day, some sprints and walks in the morning sometimes, after the light day back, and then Sunday complete rest before Mondays benching.

More updates next week, and hopefully some training videos. Finally the blog is up to date!

From Olympic Gym Ashton, with Emma and a promising young lad Jorden Farrington, soon to debut in powerlifting

Happiest I have ever been for a silver medal

WPC European Championships in Riga, Latvia 9-14.6. 2015

Non sooner than the BodyPower comp was through, I visited Finland and then it was time to fly off to Latvia with Emma, team UK and my fellow Finns!

It was a hard week in more ways than one, but also a very rewarding one. It was great to see that our relationship actually holds under weight cutting, dehydrating, timetables changing and hunger! And I had the privilege to spend the week with great lifters of team UK and the Finns of course. Team management and mutual help was indeed needed, as the Latvian timetables changed and information flow was as it tends to be in big comps like this. To many first timers this help was invaluable, and also to many of the seasoned veterans.

Especially remarkable was the first days timetable change that resulted Finlands star bencher Allan Jokinen rushing to the venue as his class had already started lifting. What happened then was nothing short of phenomenal. Allan, 106kg bodyweight pressing machine, outshone most YouTube videos ever posted. In the time it took to go through 13 lifts on platform, he did 7 warm-up sets and ran to the stage to blast a 230kg unequipped bench press opener, and it was a good lift!  That was a show of strength not to be forgotten easily.

Allan and Niina in the gym, place where the magic (and selfies) happens.

The most memorable moments for me were Emmas lifts though. After witnessing the hardships of traveling, injuries, bodyweight loss, stress and inconsistency, she pushed up a perfect series of lifts, 170, 180 and 190kg. All good lifts, single ply under 75kg class and completely unrivalled overall victory of the female bench. Seeing that she was about to pull out of the competition after her 130kg warm-up backstage, I think that could be seen as a rather good proof of her mental coaching skills to psych herself onstage to a world record after that.

Emmas lifts first on the video:



Other memorable moments from the top of my head:

Tapio Laine at masters 5 age category benching clean 256kg for a world record.

Konstantin Konstantinovs pulling 405 without a belt and having a speech in the upright position, holding the bar.

200kg bench at 67.5kg raw, and 210+ good lift in raw bench at 75kg
450+ squats and 400+ benches from equipped lifters and 360+ squat at 120kg bodyweight, no knee wraps, no suit,

Oleg Bazylevich is always a pleasure to meet, and he did a comeback to competition in Riga, more to come from him in December at a Russian comp!


UK:s Dave Gibson battling it on the bench as his first WPC international. Dave is a disabled lifter who also competes in the open class, one of the nicest chaps you can hope to meet and an absolute inspiration.

Anthony Giddings and Steve Plunkett were true powerlifting nomads and came 3 days after lifting in the GPC Euros to lift in Riga at WPC Championships!

Tony and Steve, an old couple from England

Artur Schrczacz did a remarkable job at single ply 125kg class, smashed all and every one by 400+ squats and a 280 bench, and even with an unfortunate lootrip making him miss his last deadlift, still totaled over a 1000kgs! Polish Powerhouse indeed.

410kg in single ply for Artur

And although the memorable people and lifts are too many to list here, I can´t go without mentioning my trainee Arttu Wahlström who was in his second official comp, and fared well despite flu and sorts. He followed instructions to a letter, cut down from 83 to 75kg weight class, which done the first time could go ten different types of wrong! He had a good go at PR weight of 150 still, but this time it eluded him. He also got bitten by a geared powerlifting bug after seeing Emma bench 190 single ply in the 75kg class, so now he is after the same. We  will have to see what happens in the future, will my trainee outbench my wife or not!

Arttu Wahlström, up and coming Finnish bench presser

On top of that the huge enthusiasm expressed by the lifters all around the world, in my eyes especially Portugal and UK rose high in the team spirit scale! I was witnessing that daily among the UK lifters, and saw it firsthand also on the team Portugals action-packed week filled with camaraderie. It is truly what sports in general are about. Help, being helped, overcoming obstacles and growing as individuals and as a group. Sounds like a cliche, but that is the way I see it nonetheless.

Some of team Portugals guys

Didn´t you lift?

My own competition was shadowed by a tricep tear 10 days prior. Tore it in the last bench session, and the whole arm went funky coloured and also rather postmodern shape took on the arm region.

6 days to competition

I applied tried and true, albeit a bit harsh, Finnish injury healing methods. I trained every day, until 3 days prior to comp I gave it rest. I benched through the pain and was already handling 100kg a day after the injury. I also trained rest of the body heavy, stretched, aggravated and moved the arm around every opportunity I had. On top of that everything that has healing properties from flax seed oil to garlic was consumed, and lots of heat applied.
Also got some magic lotion from Rikard Erlandsson to apply on it come competition, and that herbal concoction of his certainly helped also!

I did assure everybody that the arm was OK, but as anyone could see, it was not. Still warm-ups felt incredibly good. Until I put the benc shirt on...



190 felt like the arm is going to explode. There was some more bleeding, but we proceeded and Emma made sure the feeling did not get any worse, so I warmed up until 230. I played it safer than safe, and as I knew that loose Metal Pro I wore would let me touch 250, so I opened with that and it was easy as it should be, tricep tear or not.

After round 1, Bruno Alves from Portugal was at 240, I 250 and the gold was in with 287.5 only, two others had failed their firs attempts. Next round saw Bruno going for 255, me doing 262.5 and Israeli lifter doing 260, and gold still out for grabs at 287.5.

Bruno Alves, a true fighter

At that point I entertained the idea of putting on a tighter shirt and going for 290-300. Luckily for me, Emma said I was an idiot, and Ano Turtiainen of Metal Sports stayed calm and said that Bruno as a firm and talented lifter might well go past me for the silver, he also did not really believe on the Israeli. So we raised my last attempt to 272.5, enough to defeat Bruno if he got his 270 in, and that would secure the bronze at least, even if the Israeli got his lift.

Ready to lift

Every lift as I was pushing the weight up I felt the tricep, and was afraid a bit. But before the lifts I had managed to gather myself and my thoughts, although lowering and pressing was very careful.
On the round went, and the medal contenders came up. I was in two minds about what to hope. I wished Bruno good luck, but somewhere in the back of my mind I hoped he would fail so I would not have to lift as in that case there was nothing to gain as far as placings are concerned.  For once I truly didn´t want to lift as the tricep was constantly on my mind.

The Portuguese looked confident as he had looked the whole comp, and his team was behind him. He went on the stage fueled by cheers and Portuguese superstrong ammonia. And inch by inch he pushed the 270 for his own competition record and as the lift came to a lockout, he also locked himself to the silver medal.

 All hopes of not lifting washed away, and it was game on. I was feeling triumphant on being able to lift anything, and for some reason I was sure, as was Ano, of Israeli lifters failure, so I could have been content with bronze.

Well, I am glad I haven´t got that much common sense, and I am glad that even injured I have the desire to push further than a bronze. And that desire sparked up something inside me that I haven´t felt in a competition for a while. I had the livestream shooting up at the platform, my wife with me, the man who sold me my first bench shirt coaching and my own trainee watching. And those short seconds it took for the loading crew to prepare the bar, even that was washed away.

It is hard to describe to someone who doesn´t compete in sports, or has not faced expectations (mostly from yourself), fears and wishes, how it exactly feels when after all the buildup it all boils down to the fact you have to perform then and there. There is always the next time, but tomorrow disappears for a moment when you hear the words I heard once again for my last attempt in Latvia.

"THE BAR IS LOADED".

I took a walk around the bench, felt my adrenaline shoot up, and then and there made a decision. I sat down, did my setup and felt my position was good and firm laying on the bench. Anos handout was perfect as it always is, and as he let go off the bar with an ease of a man who has spent the last 20 years handling weights up to 400kg.
The bar was light as a feather.

One goes through a lot during the descent of a bar, it is like a roller coaster. Thousand thoughts and ideas try to invade your mind, but they all get blocked with the singleminded fixation on the lowering bar. I lowered it carefully, but before reaching my chest I felt the control of the bar so perfect I let it come down faster. And soon as I heard the command "PRESS", it was over in an instant.
The bench shirt of mine, Metal Pro, although too big for me, worked like a charm with the faster descent. I also had such a mental buildup that it actually made the last of my lifts the easiest.

Brunos lift second on the video and mine to follow right after that, 270kg and 272.5kg respectively:

I was overjoyed, never thought I could feel that good at lifting only 600 pounds in the 110kg weight class, but this felt better than most of my 300kg+ lifts ever have. And the first competition I have ever in my 10 year competition career had three out of three good lifts. So numbers aside, excuses on injuries aside, and even putting aside the fact that on the last lift I felt good for 20kg more, I was one happy man. And maybe more importantly, unscathed.

Me and Sami Huhtala

So even though thank yous bore any and all readers, great thank you to Emma, Ano and Minna for helping on the day, thanks to Arttu for cheering and filming, big thank you for Bruno Alves for pushing me with the injury to fight and lift head to head with him,  shout out to all the lifters who showed up and walked courageously to the platform and great thanks to Team UK and Team Portugal for showing what team spirit is!

Ano at the Metal stand

Part of team UK

That is my brief overview of the European Championships, sorry for all the people I did not mention by name, met just too many great people to mention all of them! More updates to come to catch up on the really recent events, so stay tuned!

Long due update to the blog! Bodypower Expo and all that goes with it.

I seem to start most of my blog updates with the fact that I have not been updating in a while. 

Well, this time my excuses are numerous. First off, I got a supplement sponsor, and delayed update until I had added his links to my page. Then suddenly Bodypower Expo (biggest fitness expo of UK) offered BPU a deal to host a powerlifting comp there with less than 3 weeks notice. Working towards that, arranging my own competition due to be held on 27th of September, then heading to compete in the European Championships and taking my referees exam also during the Championships in Latvia. During all this deciding to get married with few weeks notice one could say it has been busy!

But I will start an autopsy of the recent 2 months  now with a delayed report of the BodyPower Expo, and who knows, maybe I will get back on track with my updates!

Bodypower Expo

This was a devastatingly hard work for me, Emma and rest of the BPU people. On a few weeks notice we had to whip up enough competitors and activities to last through three days in a fashion worthy of the biggest fitness expo of the UK. Reason for this short notice was that the man usually holding the comp has been deemed a cunt by most of the powerlifting community and could not really pull it together. But desperate for preventing anyone else getting their hands on the comp, the sorry excuse for a man was promising to hold the meet up until the end. 

No examination of the size of his penis needed after that kind of behavior.

Well, at the last minute the Bodypower people realized that he is not able to arrange a mug of piss for them and  they need their attraction powerlifting there, so they contacted the only person able to pull it off with that notice, Emma James, president of the BPU (OK, most of you know she is also my wife, but even unbiased, it has to be admitted that propably none other in UK could have done it). 

The next step involved on top of all the normal competition arranging lots of personal messaging, e-mailing and general talking about it, because as a non profit organisation there is not a million dollar marketing budget to be used. So that was done with long hours sitting with a laptop and everything from cunning updates to chatting with lifters-to-be.

Besides that, it was the third weekend in a month for BPU to host a comp, so the men who AGAIN dragged the equipment and their arses on the venue were also taxed to the limit, so one more dealyed thank you to everyone involved, especially Darren Hammond, David Jenkinson and Dans Sharrett and Evans. 

So we worked hard, got a spiffing competition together and also attracted new lifters and crowd members to participate in the fun!

Andy Bolton did his share, and no small share was that! He put on a workshop for participants, and gave solid advice to a select small group. One of the most amazing results was a chap who pulled a 40kg PR in deadlift under Andys coaching! I also participated in hopes of getting tips for my crap deadlift.

Here am I being coached by Andy

And here is Rhianon Lovelace. Notice the crowd and the change of perspective by the photographer Hammond!

Competitors truly ranged from the best of the best (UK best ever under 110kg RAW lifter, David "Executor" Jenkinson" and over 1000kg total owner Artur Schrzazcz who met in a deadlift showdown which saw David pulling 350 to beat Artur and win their personal wager)

to first timers, some of whom made a huge impact.

Holly Caddy, first time competitor pulled a 170kg deadlift:

To media sweethearts, teenage superstars Bronwyn and Cosmo Taylor:

And everything in between disabled lifters like Terry Smith with artificial leg benchind AND deadlifting with the able bodied people, Scottish strongmen like Andy Cairney, and a first timer Alan Wilson who pulled a 250kg deadlift in his first ever comp, currently under chemotherapy and a cancer survivor!

!

I competed also, even though the training or the energy level was not really up for anything special. I had a wager also for best bench on points with the best equipped junior in UK, Jack Chambers. Not to rub it in (no pun intended) but I WON! Measly 262.5kg was my bench, but as we both did not so well, that was enough to beat Jack. Next time boy!

Jack Chambers and his favourite assistance exercise for the squat...

But tro be fair, me and Dan Evans sharing the announcing resposibilities, both of us participated and also had a wager, my bench against his deadlift. I lost a beer to him on, which he won by a 2.5 kilo margin! Damn you!

So that and much more was whipped up in 3 weeks, just wait for next year. We will have the European championships in Juneand Bodypower will serve as a single lift qualifier for those also. and with a full year to plan, it is going to be better than ever, that is a promise!

So that is the first installation of my catching up, hopefully more catching up later on in the week!

PS. Many people ask me about being married. well I skipped honeymoon to arrange at the BPU British Nationals, am sleep deprived, worked long days and had crap to eat. Still, every morning I think I have made the best decision of my life. So there is the answer to that.

And Mike Sweeney in his blog gave me the moniker of boytoy! Not bad either!

http://irnmike.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/cheersto-emma-and-boy-toy.html

Till next time, be strong!