USAWA

By Eric Todd

In the year 1997, a drama/adventure picture titled “The Edge” was released by 20th Century Fox.  The stars of this show included Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, and Elle Macpherson.  Baldwin and Hopkins’ plane crashed en route to a photo shoot of a hunt.  They become the target of a killer Kodiak bear which stalked them for a spell, killing one of their friends and resulting plenty of other close, harrowing encounters.  Hopkins’ character, Charles, decided the only way they are going to get out of this predicament is to be proactive rather than reactive.  They had to kill the bear. When trying to motivate Baldwin’s character, Bob, that it is the correct plan of action, Charles repeatedly said “What one man can do, another can do.”  When Bob finally got on board, Charles enthusiastically cried out “Today, I am going to kill the mother @&*%^!”  I always kind of liked this movie, but this particular scene and the ensuing one where they did, in fact, kill the bear always kind of pumped me up.  Here is a clip of the scene: What one man can do, another can do.

So, whatever does this have to do with all-round weightlifting you may ask?  Well, in early 2018, his majesty, His Highness, the President of the USAWA and the Protector of their Liberties, Denny Habecker made public the events for the postal series to be contested for the year.  I noted that in the second quarter postal, we would be competing in the Bench Dip.  When I looked it up in the rule book, it became clear that it was a lift designed by which no mortal human could complete within the confines of the rules.  It must surely be a lift designed for the gods!  However, I had to give it a shot.  When the fellows came out to do the first quarter postal, I had them eyeball me as I gave it a shot.  I cannot remember if I was using bodyweight or just a small token weight, I just wanted to see if I could get to depth.  I began the slow, excruciating descent.  Deeper and deeper I went, as my shoulders were slowly removed from their sockets.  I got absolutely as deep as I could go, then fought for just a little more.  When I felt there was no more to give I pressed up to complete the lift.  I got off the benches and looked to my confederate, and level 2 lifetime certified USAWA official, Lance Foster and asked how it looked.  You can imagine my chagrin when he, in his grumbly deep voice reported “about 6 inches high.”  It was then that I resigned myself to only being able to complete 2/3 lifts when June would come.

That same year, I was promoting the Heavy Lift Championship in May.  I gathered wind that Dean Ross was completing his postal events during the course of the meet.  Now, we all know how athletic Dean is, but he does have like 12 decades on me, so I just assumed that he would not be able to complete a bench dip.  Then I hear a murmuring from the back.  Dean HAD successfully completed a bench dip.  And even though I did not personally witness it, Denny judged it, so you just knew it had to be legit.  I thought to myself “What one man can do, another can do.”

So I started training this lift a little, mostly in an effort to increase my flexibility in order to complete the lift.  Though I was not convinced, I knew I had to try.  I had no means by which to know if I was getting deep enough, I just kept pushing the flexibility, trying to get deeper and deeper.

On Sunday we have a rather old fashioned, but marvelous tradition.  After church, a large contingent of my family gathers at my folks’ house for Sunday dinner.  As always, my mom had prepared a feast.  My brother Leroy and I started discussing lifting.  He said he had his son, Leroy, come to the basement with him to film him completing a bench dip on his tablet or such.  My brother had successfully completed a bench dip within the specifications outlined by the USAWA rulebook.  “What one man can do, another can do.”

I kept pushing it until the day we scheduled to complete the lifts of the 2nd quarter postal.  When the day came, I was able to go 3 for 3 in the bench dip. It was still painful to get to depth, but I did, and felt as though strength wise, there was still some in the tank.  I won that particular postal, and ended up posting the second best bench dip currently listed in our rule book.  The 350 mark put up by 65 kilo lifter Mark Baldassarre back in 1989 is a bit of an outlier, and substantially more than my record of 235.  It may be a bit out of reach.  However, who knows?  Because, as it turns out, what one man can do, another can do.