Marilia’s Powerlifting Blog

Weird year – too dense in gains and losses. Far my best, in performance. Far the best, in the development of sports projects for social inclusion in Brazil. Far my best in networking with other lifters around the country and around the world. Far the best in the development of media initiatives for the strength sports here. And pretty hard on personal losses. 

Federation wars have taken a heavy toll on friendships and fair play in our sport. Fear and the illusion of failure have aborted projects and potential relationships of unlimited potential. 

Envy, perverted notions of competitiveness and resentment generated a huge amount of pain. It is not yet the 31^st of December, but the year has virtually ended here. Nothing can be effectively decided – neither in business, nor in sports. Competition calendars are loose or unfinished. Projects sit on decision-makers desks gathering dust. All we can do is wait. 

It has also been a year of injuries for me, one of witch I barely survived. My joints need care. Maybe the whole body needs some shift in emphasis. So I am restraining myself from squatting, benching and deadlifting. Ah.. Actually I just decided that now – it is just too tempting to see a bench and not press anything. And then it gets tempting not to load the bar… And so on until I sc**w up with heavy training when I should be recovering. I am practicing Tai-chi, which I am particularly enjoying. The good thing about these “different practices” is that you can do them without the risk of overtraining and injury, so when sadness and pain are too hard to endure and you can’t bench them away, you may as well meditate them away. Or at least try it. 

I made friends here – Maddy, Jason and others. I will write again before the year ends, but I preventively wish them the best of what can be wished and intentioned, which is basically serenity and a sense of fulfillment. That probably includes heavier loads, less bodyfat – whatever is the person’s goal. For now, I wish my gains and losses curve shrinks back to smaller ranges of variation. 

Yesterday, our country lost one of its best lifters, whom I have nicknamed “Angel” – my angel. The athlete, the transcendent lifter who became a myth among the community, respected by all federations for his excellence in the sport and impeccable sportsman attitude, is dead. Along years of a conventional marriage to a sedentary house-wife who has always hated our sport, he has tried to compromise. Sometimes he would be defeated by her aggressive opposition and disappeared for a few years, but always came back. This time, things changed: he came back with too much enthusiasm, partly provided by his partnership with me. We developed a number of projects in the sport, we trained together, we explored new techniques, we won championships. And above all, we connected at a higher level. 

Yesterday he has given up resisting and conceded his wife his irreversible abandonment of the sport. He has quit. He will never lift again.

Angel is the most focused lifter I have known, and also the most generous. I owe him the best part of my recent improvement in performance. Angel taught me to focus. Angel has invented my white chair ritual. Angel has been my angel, protecting me from external hostility and from my own instability. I admired the athlete, the man and the human being. I loved him. For us, power-freaks, powerlifting is much more than a sport. It is a path to transcendence, it is fun itself, it is our life. No real powerlifter gives up powerlifting. Powerlifting can be only taken from us if life itself is taken as well. Angel is dead. In his place, a broken shadow of what once has been one of our best lifters. A ghost that will haunt his own dreams, but a sweet memory in the name of which I promise to keep going… forever… until the day my heart stops pumping blood through my triceps as I lift heavier and heavier weights, for him. 

I will dedicate each improved mark on my lifts to Angel; each new athlete drawn to powerlifting in this God-forsaken land will be partly his merit; each new step towards wisdom and excellence, I offer to the lifter and man I learned to admire. His loss, I will mourn forever. My opposition to the criminal hypocrisy in conventional marriage arrangements has only grown stronger, and my bitterness towards domination, harder. But the memory of the man that has once loved me so deeply and given me his best, will eventually erase these feelings. In the end, all that matters is this – love and lifting. 

Saturday, December 1^st, we had a WABDL Bench Press Cup at Atibaia, State of São Paulo, Brazil. Vilmar Oliveira, WABDL vice-president for South America was present and actually giving me special support, since about a week earlier I had suffered a rather important accident and broken my nose. 

We drove Friday afternoon to Atibaia and were received by the organizers. This is the second WABDL meet I take part on and I feel they keep the standard: organized and hospitable. I wonder if the atmosphere was not one of complete support and attention to every athlete’s needs I would have accomplished what I did: I had a sore throat because my broken nose prevented me from breathing well. Friday, I developed an intestinal flu. I slept very little and woke up feeling quite sick. At the weigh in, my weight was only 53kg (116.6 lb). It made no sense to keep on the 56kg (123.2 lb) category. I was going to the bathroom every 10 minutes and losing weight fast. As soon as I reached 52kg (114.4 lb), we stopped weighing, but I never stopped “emptying” myself. I received all the support I needed and felt specially cared for. 

It is not easy to pass the bar to me: I am a very small lifter, with extremely short arms and a wide bridge. A local lifter with the organizing committee, Diego, volunteered to do it for me. He did so in a perfect and controlled manner. The white plastic chair, my special focusing device, was immediately provided. I sat there and waited for my turn. The president of the State Federation, Mr. Andre Souza, managed my weights on my request. Knowing that I was somewhat debilitated, he calculated the minimum increase necessary for record breaking purposes. I trusted him completely and I didn’t miss a lift. Juliana, a coach from Peruibe, “adopted” me and stood by me during all my lifts. On the movie, you can hear her strong commands for me not to stop pressing. 

I could add a few scatological comments on my permanent concern with my diarrhea and with a possible embarrassment an “accident” on this line could cause. But let’s leave that for some other occasion.  

The last lift was calculated to be 0.5kg (1.1 lb) heavier than the previous record for my weight category. And I lifted 100,5kg (221.1 lb). I broke the world open record. 

Saturday was my special day – a day I will never forget. As far as I know and have been told, I am the second Brazilian to break a world open record in powerlifting, in any federation. Today is Wednesday and this fact is still slowly sinking in. It is hard to describe exactly what I feel: a mixture of sense of accomplishment, happiness, gratitude (a lot of gratitude), perplexity, awe and some sadness. I hoped to share the happiness of my deed with many fellow countrymen, but I think this is when you discover that not everybody is glad with the advancement of the sport, or the victory of a team, or any collective action. Collective “things” are complicated entities. They involve contradictory feelings, interests and behaviors. 

But for now, I wish to shove all these thoughts aside. I want to live this moment – my moment – in plenitude. And share my happiness with those who can, express my gratitude to those who deserve and live on, since this is just the beginning of a very long journey. One that makes everything else meaningful. 

One good thing of writing about this on this space is being able to express my understanding that we are a WORLD brotherhood and sisterhood of the Iron arts. My first e-mail concerning this meet was directed to Jon (from Powerlifting Watch, who gives me a sense of responsibility in writing sober analysis about the sport), to Shawn (Lattimer, who coaches me as he can, thousands of miles away from me) and to Alan (Thomas, from APTProWristStraps, my sponsor, who has provided me with everything I have ever needed in terms of equipment, who publishes my articles and gives me all the support he can offer). I owe a lot to them and to many other people from all over the world who write to me and give me this essential sense of belonging we all need. 

This mark is dedicated to you, my brothers and sisters, and may it soon be overcome by some other stronger woman, showing that the road to strength and power is an endless one. It is a great honor to have built a small step on it. 

Marilia