We had 34 lifters compete in this quarter’s postal: 22 men and 12 women. Barry Bryan was the top lifter this quarter. Thanks to all the lifters that took part.
Dates: April 1 thru June 30, 2024
Lifts: PUSH PRESS FROM RACK, HACK LIFT- ONE HAND, and PULLOVER- BENT ARM
Results are below.
By Al Myers, IAWA President
MEET ANNOUNCEMENT
2024 IAWA WORLD POSTAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
The IAWA World Postal Championships has been announced! It will still be the “Andy Goddard Memorial”. Andy was a great friend and supporter of the IAWA and as long as I’m involved promoting the World Postal Championships it will be done in Andy’s memory. As it has been the past few years, the lifts for this World Postal will be the first day lifts of the upcoming Worlds. Read the the info sheet as it outlines the “rules of the competition”. Send your results to me at amyers@usawa.com. Also, please send in the official entry form with your club results. If you have more club entries than on the entry form just include extra entry forms.
INFORMATION SHEET (PDF) –
ENTRY FORM (PDF) –
PLEASE READ THE INFORMATION SHEET
by Sanjiv Gupta
The teeth lift is a USAWA Special Equipment Lift which originated from old-time performing strongmen. Per a USAWA website article, Warren Lincoln Travis performed a 350 pound teeth lift with his hands behind his neck.
The current record list shows 15 USAWA athletes with records on the books. Mary McConnaughey leads the women with a 130-pound lift in 2005, followed by RJ with a 54-pound lift in 2017. The somewhat more crowded men’s field has Steve Schmidt in the lead with a 390-pound lift in 2005, followed by Eric Todd with a 300-pound lift in 2023. The other 11 athletes in the books have records between 13 and 203 pounds dating back to 1999. Art Montini has the most records in the book with 8 records (all 100 pounds or more) set in the 70-90 year old age classes.
The last time it was contested in a meet was the 2022 Dino Gym Challenge, where among the 4 athletes participating only one had a successful teeth lift, Dean Ross at 39 pounds.
The teeth lift is essentially a neck exercise, but you still have to be hold onto the weight with your teeth. Similar to a deadlift, your grip may fail before your posterior chain can no longer lift the weight.
The teeth bit is a very personal device. Not because of the design or the shape of athlete’s choppers, but more because it is difficult to sanitize and kind of familiar to share un-sanitized. Most of the designs I have seen are made from leather. Leather is pliable enough to bite your teeth into, but also sturdy enough to hold 300 pounds.
I fabricated one based on the classic dog-bone template, folding the leather back on itself, gluing the two halves together to secure a D-ring and adding some additional leather and rivets for more security. I did not use any specific medical grade of food safe glue. I just used whatever Tandy Leather had on hand that I could borrow. This seemed to be the traditional design. If I made another one, I would not include the riveted section. On one teeth lift, the bit slipped in my mouth and put a lot of pressure on my front tooth. It would have been better to have the bit just freely escape my mouth.
I have heard horror stories about people having so much pressure on their teeth that they felt the roots of their teeth shifting or worse. Alternatively, the USAWA website claims that Art Montini’s 107-pound lift in 2013 at 85 years of age was successful even though he has false teeth. Personally, I am not the picture of dental health. I have had wisdom teeth removed, teeth removed for braces and three teeth removed and replaced with two implants due to gum disease. That said my oral surgeon could not endorse teeth lifting but did claim my implants were stronger than my natural teeth.
Whether or not you want to set records in the teeth lift, this might be worth playing with just to appreciate the grit it would take to lift over 100 pounds. Here is a youtube video where I used a washcloth as a teeth bit and loaded it to 25 pounds. I feel like the washcloth I was using could hold over 100 pounds, but I have no intention of finding out.
Hey everyone! Beth Skwarecki here, the new Secretary of USAWA. At our 2024 national meeting, the membership voted in a new rule that splits the Secretary/Treasurer (formerly one position) into two, a Secretary and a Treasurer. I’d like to explain that change, and include some information on how members will interact with these two roles.
Briefly: because the Secretary/Treasurer did a ton of work. While the bylaws list five duties performed by the President, four performed by the Vice President, and three performed by At-large board members, there are a whopping fourteen duties assigned to the Secretary/Treasurer.
This may be a suitable workload for some people in some circumstances (honestly, I am impressed by everybody who held this position in the past!) but in 2024 we are a growing organization. Due to this growth, our Secretary/Treasurer has had to deal with increasing numbers of meet sanctions, concerns from membership, etc, while still doing the work of keeping our finances in order.
Eric spoke to me earlier this year to ask if I would be interested in the Secretary/Treasurer position if he were to step down. Upon discussion, we decided to make a proposal to split the roles. This proposal was presented at the national meeting and passed unanimously.
I’ll give an overview of the proposal here, but you can read the full thing in the 2024 national meeting minutes. Several items in the rulebook and bylaws had to be amended, but the most important ones were Article 5, defining the board, and Article 9, defining the duties of the Secretary/Treasurer.
The Executive Board of the USAWA was, and still is, a group of five people. Under the old bylaws, the board contained these specific five positions:
With the change, passed during the 2024 national meeting, the board still contains five people, but the four officer roles are separated so that the Secretary and Treasurer are no longer required to be the same person. Any two roles may be combined, so that in the future we could go back to having a combined Secretary/Treasurer if the membership so desires. Or, for example, we could have a President/Secretary and a Treasurer/Vice President plus three at-large members. Any board positions not filled by officers shall be filled by At-large members. There must always be at least one At-large member.
After the membership passed this change to the rules, Eric Todd stepped down as Secretary, while retaining the role of Treasurer. He then nominated me (Beth Skwarecki) to become the new Secretary. (This vote also passed unanimously.) I was already an At-Large member of the board, so the five board seats still belong to the same five people. Next year will be an election year, so this could change. Currently the board seats are as follows (and the positions are elected in this order):
The section of the bylaws describing these duties has now been split, with financial duties going to the Treasurer and duties relating to forms, applications, and communication being the purview of the Secretary. Both positions still serve on the board and attend meetings as described in the bylaws.
These are pretty straightforward, but as a member, here are the major things you need to know:
Any appeal, grievance or complaint by a member must be directed in writing to the USAWA Secretary, who will then present the issue to the Executive Board to be decided by majority vote. Failure to follow this protocol will result in appeals, grievances and complaints not being officially recognized.
The rulebook will be updated soon with these and other recent changes. I also plan to write a few more articles explaining other changes that were (or, in the case of knee sleeves, were not) passed by the membership. Please direct any questions or official communication to me at bethskw@gmail.com.
I. Meeting called to order by USAWA President Denny Habecker
II. Roll Call by USAWA President Denny Habecker. The following members were in attendance: Jeff Wenzel, John Carter, Tony Lupo, Allison Lupo, Bill Clark, Abe Smith, Beth Skwarecki, Sanjiv Gupta, Philip Marlin, Eric Todd, Chris Todd, Randy Smith, Dave DeForest, Lance Foster, Denny Habecker, and Clint Poore.
III. Reading of previous meeting minutes by USAWA Secretary Eric Todd: Sanjiv Gupta made a motion to waive the reading of the minutes in interest of time, since they have been available to the membership to peruse for some time. Beth Skwarecki made the second. Motion passed unanimously
IV. Report of financial status by USAWA Treasurer Eric Todd: Amount in account: $14, 370.87. This is up $2411.80 from 2023, when our account totaled $11,959.07. Major expenses: Website update, USAWA Awards, MRO contract. Sanjiv made the motion to accept the report; Beth made the second. Passed unanimously
V. Report from Website Director Eric Todd: Website was updated and has some nice features. Still looking for Authors on the website. Denny Habecker made a motion to accept the report. Philip Marlin made the second. Passed unanimously
VI. Report from Awards Director Al Myers: The awards program provides awards to recognize outstanding performances and contributions within the USAWA. The big part of this award program is the annual awards presented every year at the National Championships. The awards given are the Athlete of the Year, the leadership award, the sportsmanship award, the courage award, the newcomer award, and the club of the year. These annual awards are chosen by the membership. It also includes any “special awards” given out on a selected basis. This year there were no special awards given out. It also includes funding for the Hall of Fame Awards. Money used for this program is budgeted from the USAWA treasury.
I want to thank the membership for allowing me to be the Awards Director for the past 13 years, but I think it’s time for me to step down and let someone else have the opportunity of this position. It’s an enjoyable role, as it always made me feel good seeing the lifters receiving awards to recognize their contributions to the USAWA. Beth made a motion to accept the report; Allison Lupo made the second. Motion passed unanimously
VII. Report from Records Director John Strangeway: To echo a post I did on the site last week, a big thank you to Sanjiv, he has done a phenomenal job of taking the website result data and cleaning it up for me.
The meets are growing and so are the record updates.
Bill Clark’s Gym holds the first inaugural Record Setting Award. I do not encourage any gyms to try and beat this record! lol
Bill holds the top 3 places with a total of 357 record updates from 4-7 to 5-14
In first place with an impressive 173 record updates in one day for his Bench Press heptathlon + record day meet.
Second and third place were taken by two of his record days, updating 94 and 90 records.
Honorable mention of 4th place for Sanjiv’s Colorado Spring Fling with 54 updates.
Currently there are 17,689 record lines.
For every row added, 8 columns are needed. This isn’t an issue currently while updating the sheet. But I have noticed it getting bogged down when I create extra columns for data checking or stat finding. One project I was doing slowed it down so much that every change to a cell had a 4-7 second delay. Food for thought as the list grows.
Future considerations
1) Move towards IAWA form of record keeping.
2) Remove location column, it’s nice to have but non a necessity, especially if we end up switching to consideration 1, removal will free up some data space especially if you are wanting to manipulate the data.
2) Allow Weaver stick to be kept track in more fractions, maybe in 5ths, .20# jumps, or quarters .25# jumps.
3) Next one is a biggie….remove left and right hands designations.
My reasoning is that it should be one lift and the most dominant hand should hold the record, irrelevant of which.
I could see a point if only right handed people existed, this becomes a record for who can do the most with their “weak” hand. Currently a righty only has a lefty record because lefty’s are in minority and haven’t done that lift yet.
4) When I new lift is voted in, an old lift needs to be retired. If it’s a historical lift, possibly we could have an exhibition lift section which are non eligible for records. I believe we currently have too many lifts recorded for records, so maybe eliminate 2 😉
Sanjiv made the motion to accept the report; Denny made the second. Motion passed unanimously
VIII. Report from Drug Enforcement Director Chad Ullom: Eric Todd made the presentation of the Drug Report: We have conducted no drug tests since the last national meeting. The team has searched long and hard for a new supplier since our last one stopped doing them. We have had leads that resulted in dead ends. We now have an account with Abbott. We have a contract with an MRO (Medical Review Officer) to handle our positive tests. There was some discussion on other organizations and some discussion on other avenues. Sanjiv Gupta said that we trust our drug enforcement officer. Eric Todd said this was not the time for a discussion on our drug testing policies, but merely the report from what has been done. Clint Poore made a motion to accept the report; Phil Marlin made the second. Motion passed unanimously.
IX. Report from Officials Director Joe Garcia: Turns out I won’t be coming to the National competition. Hope everyone has a great time, wish I was there. Don’t have a real big report about the officials, however, the state of the officials really took a nice bump this year. Starting out, we have 3 officials in training. At level 1, there are 9 officials who are either new or renewed their certifications and we also have 2 new Level 2 officials. Our new list of officials now also include a pair from Canada, so congrats to them. Exciting to see both our membership and officials expanding to different parts of the country and beyond.
Clint made the motion to accept; Allison made the second. Motion passed unanimously
X. Report from Postal Meet Director Denny Habecker: No report given
XI. Report from IAWA Technical Committee Chairman on upcoming IAWA events and other
technical issues that are being discussed by the IAWA Technical Committee: No report given
XII. New Business
1. Proposals from the Advisory committee
a. Discuss Changing uniform rules-equipment-knee sleeves:
8. Braces or supports on any part of the body are not allowed. This would include neoprene elbow and knee sleeves. An exception to this rule may be made by the officials if the lifter has proof that it is medically necessary.
Change to
8. Braces or supports on any part of the body, except the knees are not allowed. This would include elbow sleeves. An exception to this rule may be made by the officials if the lifter has proof that it is medically necessary. Knee sleeves may be worn on the knees provided the sleeves are no thicker than 7mm, single ply, no wider than 30 cm and can be pulled up by the lifter unassisted.
Lots of discussion on this one. Eric Todd spoke on the fact that Knee wraps are allowed on a few lifts, while knee sleeves are not, as well as the fact that knee sleeves are not currently allowed in the IAWA. Clint Poore spoke in favor, stating we are losing out on many new, younger lifters when we do not allow their use. Bill Clark said that the USAWA was built on the idea of raw lifting and using equipment goes against the ideas it was founded upon. Beth Skwarecki said that meet directors already have to denote what lifts are eligible for IAWA records due to our discrepancy in the number of officials required. There was much discussion over whether or not they add poundage to lifts. There was discussion over allowing their use, but not the use of other equipment and where do we stop. Phil Marlin was asked his opinion as a younger lifter. He said the use of equipment was what pushed him away from strongman, and the lack of equipment drew him to all-round. Sanjiv Gupta made a motion to table the proposal. There was no second. Clint Poore made a motion to call the question. Sanjiv Made a second. A roll call vote was taken. The motion failed. There were 4 members voting in favor with 13 members voting against.
b. Discuss modifying Rules for level 2 certification:
9. There will be two levels of classification for Certified USAWA officials.
Level 2 – The official has passed the USAWA Rules Test and has completed the practical training sessions, and has the experience of officiating in 25 or more competitions or events.
Change to
Level 2 – The official has passed the USAWA Rules Test and has completed the practical training sessions, and has the experience of officiating in 25 or more competitions or events. An aspiring Level 2 official may substitute officiating experience in another federation for up to 15 competitions or events. It is the applicant’s responsibility to certify substitute experience to the Officials
Some discussion here. The history was presented here where there was an outfit who passed the test, but they had no practical knowledge or experience in judging a weightlifting meets, so lifts were getting passed without commands and such. It was discussed that having practical experience in different federations gives you the foundation, and any respectable official in the USAWA is going to have to reference the rule book before officiating due to the sheer volume of lifts. Motion was made by Sanjiv; Randy Smith made the second. It passed unanimously.
c. Discuss moving lift from one section to another-Deadlift-Inch Dumbbells
Some discussion. Clint commented that the IAWA is working to make official the Old time strongman lifts, so he made a motion to table this item until they had ruled. Eric Todd made the second. Motion passed.
d. Discuss clarifying uniform rules-shirt
It was discussed that we had no rule prohibiting long sleeves currently. It was discussed that the English Language has evolved, and we have to allow the common understanding of the word shirt, including T-shirts. The rule was written very specifically, outlining exact dimensions. Through the course of the discussion, it was determined that such precise wording was not necessary. Beth reworked the rule to read as follows: “the upper body must be covered by a one piece suit, shirt, or both. If a one piece suit is worn, the straps must be over the shoulders. The elbows must be exposed. Eric Todd made the motion to accept the new rule as written. Bill Clark made the second. Motion passed.
e. Discuss modifying lift rules-saxon snatch
The proposal was to allow steel bars that are more readily available for purchase. A couple members spoke on their experience using the steel bar for this lift, and how it made the lift less safe then when using a wooden bar. Eric Todd called the question, and the motion failed.
f. Discuss adding lift-Bavarian Deadlift
The proposal was for a new lift. That lift is the Bavarian Deadlift, and the rules read as follows:
The lift starts with a bar/handle no greater than 12 inches above an elevated platform and a T-bar is used for this lift. The lift begins at the lifter’s discretion, in their own time. The elevated platform design is at the meet director’s discretion. Weights are to be loaded onto a loading pin directly below the lifter. The T-bar may be a rigid connection or chain. The T-bar shall be the same as that used in the Hand and Thigh Lift. The lifter must have the bar in front of the legs, as defined by the rules of the deadlift. The lifter’s legs must be outside the hands (SUMO STYLE). The outside of the hands should be no further than 12 inches apart. Lifting straps or any other gripping aid is not allowed. A one-minute time limit is allowed for the lifter to make a legal lift, during which time a lifter may make multiple tries. Once the lifter is upright, legs straight and the weight motionless, an official will give a DOWN command to end the lift.
After just a little discussion on this one, Eric made the motion to accept the lift as written, Beth made the second, and the motion passes
2. Discuss Proposal from the video committee
Beth gave the presentation on what the committee had discussed, the pros, cons, and methods that we could use if we proceed with this in the future. At this time it was just being presented for the consideration of the membership. Eric made the motion to table the proposal; Chris made the second, and the membership voted to table the item.
3. Discussion increasing membership fee to $35
Eric Todd explained the reason for the proposal. While our finances are currently stable, we are going to incur a significant cost in our contract with the MRO. We discussed how our dues have remained unchanged for many years, and compared them to the dues of other organizations. Bill made a motion to pass the item; Beth gave the second. Motion passed with one member dissenting.
4. Discuss Proposal to add the IAWA gender adjustment to USAWA official scoring
Beth presented a proposal that would allow the USAWA to utilize a gender adjustment that would allow females and males to compete against each other. Proposal is as follows:
This new rule would give female lifters a 33% adjustment. Beth explained that this is not an untested idea, but has been utilized in the IAWA for some time. Clint made the motion to accept; Eric made the second. Motion passed unanimously.
5. Discuss addition of Saxon Deadlift
The proposed rule reads as follows:
The bar (3” rectangular) must meet the following specifications. The width of the bar
must be a minimum of 2.9 inches. There must be no rotation to the sleeves of the bar.
There must not be any knurling on the bar. The weight of the bar must be clearly
marked. The bar must be straight. The rules of the Deadlift apply.
1. A metal rectangular bar of 3” must be used.
2. Time starts when the bar is loaded; the athletes have 60 seconds to complete the
lift.
3. No grip aids other than chalk are allowed. Ordinary chalk (magnesium carbonate)
may be used on the lifter’s hands, but nothing else is permitted (tacky, for
example, is specifically disallowed).
4. The bar must be gripped with the knuckles on both hands facing forward (away
from the body) with a double overhand grip.
5. The athlete must complete the lift with knees locked, awaiting the referee’s down
command before returning the bar to the platform while maintaining a grip on or
in contact with the bar.
6. Resting the bar on the thighs will disqualify the lift, as would failure to await the
down command or dropping the bar
There was some discussion on whether we need to continue adding new lifts when we have so many as it is. Particularly when there are lifts that are hardly contested. Clint made the motion to accept; Beth made the second. Motion passed by majority vote with three nays from the voting membership.
6. Discuss addition of Bench Press-2 dumbbells
Rules are identical to the Reg Park bench press with dumbbells being used instead of barbells. Similar discussion as above on the need for new lifts. Clint made a motion to accept; Beth made the second. Item passed by majority decision with three dissenting votes.
XIII.Discussion of New Business brought forth by the membership
Beth made a motion that we allow knee sleeves in any lift where knee wraps are already allowed. Clint made the second. Motion passed.
XIV. Discuss restructuring of Secretary/treasurer positions
Proposal is as follows:
Clint made the motion; Eric made the second. Passed unanimously.
XV. Discuss filling vacated officer positions
XVI. Accept Bids for the 2025 National Championships
There was one bid for Nationals in 2025 by Clint Poore to hold Nationals in Kentucky. Eric made the motion to accept the bid; Beth made the second. Motion passed unanimously.
XVII. Meeting Adjourned-Sanjiv made a motion that we adjourn the meeting. Meeting was adjourned.
Correction, made 7/13/2024: The proposal for the Bavarian Deadlift was modified before voting to note that the bar used shall be the same as in the Hand and Thigh lift. This was the version voted on. (The original proposal had specified a 12″ bar.) Beth Skwarecki and Abe Smith both attest to the correction. Additionally, when the uniform rule was discussed, the membership agreed that our understanding of the meaning of the word “shirt” includes T-shirts. Beth and Abe also both attest to this being what was discussed at the meeting. The minutes have been updated to accurately reflect what was discussed.