George Strait's on the boombox, and a haze of chalk dust and Biofreeze hangs in the air.
A squat rack dominates a wall of the one-car garage, surrounded by a weight bench, leg press, and other miscellaneous equipment slotted into the room like chunks of a heavy-metal jigsaw puzzle. Heavy steel plates rattle in off-key syncopation to the country music, underscoring Jim McCarty's chant:
"Down...down...downdowndowndown...UP!
"Down...down...downdowndowndown...UP!"
McCarty, aka Superman of the Century, crouches beside me, urging me to squat "below parallel." In powerlifting competition, the crease of the lifter's hip has to be lower than the top of the knee. I lived for 53 years without that information--yet here I am with more than 2/3 of my body weight lying across my shoulders, struggling to get down, down, down, down and down, and then back up.
In the late 1990s, Powerlifting USA magazine put McCarty's name at the top of a list of athletes who had set records in both Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting during the century--thus the "superman" title.
He started out in 1974, competing as a 93-pound teenager in Olympic lifting. Now 48 years old and weighing in at 185 pounds, he coaches everyone from athletes hoping to get an edge to boomers looking to lose weight. When I met him last year, I was working out, but not getting stronger. I asked for his advice, and that's how I ended up in his garage training for a powerlifting meet.
McCarty immediately started overhauling my workout routine and techniques. Bench pressing, I kept my wrists too straight and turned my elbows out--adjusting that brought more muscles into the lift. And I had been taught to lower and raise the weights slowly--McCarty wanted me to "explode" through each movement to build the shorter, fast-twitch muscle fibers needed for heavy lifting.
At 53, I didn't expect to gain much strength. But many people give up on their bodies long before their bodies are ready to give out, McCarty explains.
"With good training, you can keep increasing strength for a long time," he says. "A man age 45 to 55 is at his strongest. I trained a guy who when we started, could hardly get out of his car. But after two years, at age 81, he could deadlift 300 pounds."
After a few months, I started breaking personal records I had set in my 20s. My flexibility also improved. Because of knee and back problems from an old accident, I could barely squat below waist level at first, but to my surprise, my squats went deeper every week.
McCarty knows a lot about recovering from injuries. He was hit by a truck in 2003 and spent three days in a coma and another 12 days in intensive care. A year later, a stomach disorder sent him back to the hospital. Both times, doctors told him he wouldn't lift weights again. Both times, he went on to set world records.
"At the beginning, I didn't think we had any hope of getting you able to powerlift, because of your knee injury," McCarty says. But you've increased the flexibility in your legs a lot--plus added about 4 inches to your thighs."
"I'm putting together a team to go to a meet in Georgia," he said. "Want to compete? You'll have fun."
I have a new mantra: "You're going to be a little sore from that workout."
In powerlifting, competitors squat, bench press and deadlift. The winner is the one with the highest combined total. McCarty explained that we would lift in an "old school"-style American Powerlifting Committee meet with a "raw" division, meaning we would compete without the supportive Kevlar clothing some lifters use to add pounds to their lifts--and of course we would compete without performance-enhancing drugs.
"I like that much better," McCarty says. "It's not about whether you can afford a $500 suit that makes the lift for you, and it's not about ruining your health with steroids. It's just the lifter against the weight."
When he started competing, McCarty explains, virtually all weightlifters and powerlifters routinely took steroids--at the time, there was little information about their negative effects.
"We were getting them from the doctors, from the Olympic training center and everything," McCarty says. "Now people know how bad they are for you, but they still take them. I've had several friends die at 55 and younger, and I've had some health problems I think were probably from steroids."
We moved away from "remedial" work to focus on the power lifts. I counted 13 sets of bench presses one workout. I stopped counting sets after that. Muscle soreness became a lifestyle. Steroid-deprived though I was, my strength gains continued--I'd fail to make a 200-lb. deadlift one week, then easily make a 235-pound lift the next.
Powerlifting isn't necessarily the best way to build general strength, McCarty says. "It's great if you want to be a powerlifter," he says. "And some of the movements are good if you just want to stay strong throughout your life."
"For good quality of life, all you need is 45 minutes to an hour three days a week of weight training, plus cardio and a good nutritional program," McCarty says. "If you want to compete in a sport, that's a little different--find a coach that can help you attain your highest ability."
"One of the most useless things you can do is sit on a bunch of machines four or five days a week," he adds. "I've been in gyms all over the world, and probably 85 percent of people aren't working out properly."
There were some really big guys at the Moose Lodge in Buford, Ga., some of whom would lift the equivalent of a 1964 Volkswagen.
Taking my turn in the erstwhile warm-up room, I felt like a 198-pound weakling while bigger, younger guys did multiple 200-pound-plus squats to get ready for the real thing.
During the course of the day, however, I completed 8 out of 10 attempts. My three bests for the day totaled more than 600 pounds--a lot less than a Volkswagen but more than a deluxe refrigerator. But even though it was my weakest lift, I was happiest about the squat--a month earlier, we worried I might not manage a legal squat with an empty bar.
After I finished my last lift, I sat in the audience smelling of Biofreeze, my hands still caked with chalk and my legs still covered in baby powder, which is used to keep the deadlift from hanging up on the thighs.
I had won my class and even set a record--accomplishments perhaps made less remarkable by the fact I was the first and only 53-year-old, 198-pound male to lift in the federation's raw division. Those who follow will no doubt thank me for setting the bar so low.
I watched the weights go up as the big guys took their turns and reflected on the day. After all my years of striving, I had finally found the key to winning: get the best coach you can find, train hard, and be in a class by yourself.
For more information about powerlifting, visit the American Powerlifting Committee at americanpowerliftingcommittee-usa.com or visit Jim McCarty's website, supermanofthecentury.com.
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