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