The Cathy Chronicles

"The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows," Robert Frost once wrote. In the past year, my friend Cathy Cox has achieved amazing facts in the sport of powerlifting.

On March 14, 2009, Cathy deadlifted 240 pounds at her first meet, the R.A.W. United South Florida Open in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Her best deadlift before the meet was 215 pounds for three reps after training the deadlift for a few months:



On April 18, Cathy competed at the USAPL Europa Show of Champions in Orlando and deadlifted a new PR (personal record) of 253 pounds:



Cathy qualified for USAPL Raw Nationals in Charlottesville, Virginia at the Europa meet. On July 24 in Charlottesville, she increased her deadlift to 275 pounds:



I wrote about the courageous circumstances behind Cathy's 275 lb. deadlift in this article. She also totaled 540 pounds in Charlottesville. (In a powerlifting meet, a lifter receives three attempts in the squat, bench press, and deadlift. The sum of the best squat, bench, and deadlift attempts is the lifter's total.)

On Saturday, Cathy competed at Eric Talmant's Raw Unity Meet in Tampa. Her goals were to PR her total, deadlift double her body weight, and then deadlift over 300 pounds. Cathy weighed in at 137 pounds and PRed her total on her first deadlift:



Cathy deadlifted over double body weight on her second attempt:



Cathy's best deadlift in training before Raw Unity was a tough 300 pounds:



She selected 303 pounds for her third attempt and crushed it, increasing her PR total to 55 pounds:



"In something that you earn, there's a tremendous pleasure," Rabbi Eli Mansour observes in a lesson on The Path of the Just. Cathy earned everything she achieved on Saturday. She earned it at one of the most prestigious meets in our sport. And she's not finished.

Was Apollo Creed a Jew?

"Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring," King Solomon counsels in Proverbs 27:1. Did Apollo Creed study Proverbs before saying these classic words in Rocky III?



Perhaps more directly to King Solomon's message, powerlifting great Larry Pacifico recounts the mood before 1980's Men's National Powerlifting Championships in Champion of Champions:

"I remember several top lifters sitting around before the contest talking about what they would lift. After 6 or 7 made ambitious predictions someone asked Dave Waddington what he planned on lifting. He said he didn't make predictions but if he did he'd be saying only 'sh*t he could do' and not all this crap he's been hearing. He then got up and left."

Waddington placed second in the super heavyweight class. In 1981, he made history by breaking the 1,000 pound barrier in the squat.

Tommy Didn't Study His Bible

The other day I was studying Proverbs 26:27, where King Solomon observes, "He who digs a pit will fall into it." One of my favorite movies illustrates this wisdom:



"What is it, the first hole I dug?" Tommy says after murdering Spider. Fateful words given how he turned out:



The ArtScroll edition of Proverbs comments:

"R' Saadiah Gaon cites the case of King Darius's officials who were cast into the lion's den into which they had thrown Daniel. Perhaps the most prominent example of a man who 'dug his own grave' is Haman, who was hanged on the very gallows that he had built for Mordechai."

To express this theme in Hebrew, "Midah Keneged Midah" (Measure for Measure).

Tenacity on the Platform

I don't think I've seen a squat as tenacious as Priscilla Ribic's 546lb. world record in 2006. Then I recently saw Tony Cardella squat 826.7 at the 2003 IPF World Championships. (To watch, go here and click on the 125kg squats. Cardella's is 1:50 in.)

It wasn't the heaviest squat of the day for the 275s. Great Britain's Clive Henry squatted 925.9 (starts at 5:06), which had a remarkable context as well. (Henry was on the verge of bombing out, missing his first attempt at 881.8 and second at 925.9.)

But watch Cardella struggle for nearly six seconds to lift the weight, and you will see what tenacity is.

For a Free Marketplace in Sport

So steroids are in the news again.

This time the spotlight is on 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis, who admitted using steroids and other drugs during the 90s. Champion cyclist Erik Zabel subsequently admitted doping before the 1996 Tour.

Given the colossal rigor of the race, is this really a surprise?

As a powerlifter who competes in a drug-tested federation, steroids aren’t my thing. My health and hairline matter to me, so I pass on the needle.

But here’s the thing that many people don’t seem to grasp:

Athletes use steroids because they work.

If steroids cause organ damage, physical deformities, and behavioral problems, they also cause marked increases in recovery ability, training intensity, and strength. This translates into improved athletic performance.

If steroids didn’t work, athletes wouldn’t use them. It’s that simple.

Some top powerlifters have been admirably candid about steroid use:

• “When I reached 40 years of age, it seemed like I just was not retaining enough protein to rebuild my muscles. I wanted to stay on the top, so I chose steroids…I work hard for my power. Steroids gave me the chance to work harder.” (Ernie Frantz)
• “There's no possible way I can train the way I do without taking anabolics.” (Louie Simmons)
• “…I'm not going to be hypocritical and say that I haven't done things.” (Ed Coan)

Numerous elite powerlifters don’t use steroids, however, and the sport has found an elegant solution to the issue: a free marketplace of competition.

Powerlifting has drug-tested federations like the International Powerlifting Federation and non-tested federations like the World Powerlifting Organization. There are also federations with tested and non-tested divisions like the American Powerlifting Association.

That’s how it should work; private organizations arise to accommodate certain athletic preferences. Instead of coercive homogeneity, there is a spectrum of choice.

And those private organizations also have the right to establish certain policies. To cite a policy that to my knowledge has caused no controversy, my federation requires a t-shirt beneath the required singlet during the squat and bench press and prohibits t-shirts with “pockets, buttons, zippers, collar, or vee neck.”

These are the rules of performance. If you show up for squats with a Polo shirt and no singlet, don't expect to participate in a meet.

To extend this to the more controversial issue of steroids, the problem with Riis and Zabel isn’t that they used steroids—it’s that they used for an event they knew prohibited steroids, violating the rules of performance and honorable competition.

The principle of self-ownership means that athletes should have the right to pursue their fullest potential with Deca, HGH, EPO, or whatever. That doesn’t create entitlement to compete wherever they want.

But steroid-using athletes are entitled to form organizations where use won’t be an issue. The evolution of powerlifting shows how this can be done.

Releasing Dissidents Doesn't Mean Reform

There's a scene in Syriana where the CIA agent played by George Clooney presents at a meeting about Iran. An official refers to "students marching in the streets" and "Khatami making the right sounds," to which he responds:

They let young people march in the street and then the next day shut down fifty newspapers. They have a few satellite dishes up on roofs, let 'em have My Two Dads, but that doesn't mean the Ayatollahs have relinquished one iota of control over that nation.

This exchange comes to mind with the Castro regime's release of seven prisoners of conscience including Jorge Luis García Pérez, imprisoned since 1990.

Certain knobs, forever eager to soft-pedal the brutality of the regime, will cite the releases as proof of reform in Cuba. There are four responses to this:

1) Jorge Luis García Pérez and his peers shouldn't have been imprisoned to begin with. They are owed restitution for their immense suffering, and those who perpetrated this suffering must be held accountable for their crimes.

2) The "crime" García Pérez was convicted of, "enemy propaganda," remains. Nothing has changed institutionally.

3) Many more prisoners of conscience remain in Cuba.

4) This month, human rights activists Rolando Jiménez and Oscar Sanchez were sentenced to twelve years and four years for "disrespect" and "social dangerousness."

In 1976, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed of the Soviet Union after the Helsinki Accords, "They're released Plyushch, but continue to lock up others. There you have detente and the spirit of Helsinki."

Now Cuba releases some while locking up others, in this case to end European Union sanctions. The EU's likely response brings to mind another observation by Solzhenitsyn:

The Soviet Union and the Communist countries know how to conduct negotiations. For a long time they make no concessions and then they give in just a little bit. Right away there is rejoicing: "Look, they've made a concession; it's time to sign."...They give one one-thousandth of what natural law should provide--things which people should be able to do even before such negotiations are undertaken--and already there is joy. And here in the West we hear many voices that say: "Look, they're making concessions; it's time to sign."

There are still many voices like that.

Emersonian Israelis

"People in the southern town of Sderot have a choice," begins a recent article in Ha'aretz, "obey the law, or protect their homes against constant Qassam fire [from the Gaza Strip]."

See, municipal regulations prohibit construction of shelters in homes.

But some Israelis, stubbornly concerned for their lives and the lives of their families, are building shelters anyway.

"Good men must not obey the laws too well," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. This truth is urgently apparent in Sderot.