USAWA

by Beth Skwarecki

I’ve never hosted a meet before, but I thought I’d invite some lifters from my weightlifting gym to try out some USAWA lifts and set some records. Thus the HGGRD was born—Heavy Gym being the name my kids gave to our home gym long ago, and “Garage” in the name to be clear this would be a very informal meet. A few friends came over on 10/12/2024 to join in the fun and we had a blast setting records in some of USAWA’s silliest lifts. 

On the morning of the meet, I got an email from Bill Clark inviting my lifters to do his record day as well, so that we could each do 10 lifts and send five to Bill. Some of his lifters would be doing the same and contributing to my record day. So I’ll tell the story of the day as it unfolded, but some of the lifts will be officially recorded on Bill’s scoresheet, which will post soon.

We started with the Hackenschmidt floor press, and then did a team version of that lift, finding that it worked best if the two lifters lie in opposite directions—although the lift is much harder with two people than one due to the crowding. Nicole and I made up one team for the day’s team lifts, while Diana and Pierre formed the other team.

Next was the Anderson squat, which some of us did individually, and then we also did it in teams. Pierre and Diana managed an impressive 501 pounds on the team Anderson lift.

Then we attempted the new 2 dumbbell bench press, with our lighter lifters happily setting records—but Chris needed heavier dumbbells than the rest of us were able to hand to him as spotters. He set a respectable record with 109 pounds per hand, but I told him he’d have to make a trip to someplace like Buffville to find his true limits in that lift.

We discovered that Nicole posesses the superpower of having enough hamstring flexibility to do a perfect Mansfield lift. Her record today at 71 kilos (156 pounds) is the heaviest women’s Mansfield lift of all time. 

We then did some of the sillier Olympic lift variations: the Kelly snatch, Judd clean and jerk, and the Ziegler clean. My Kelly snatch of 63 pounds is another all time women’s record. We also did some team Ziegler cleans.

Finally, we finished out the day with some finger lifts, including what may be our silliest lift of all: a team left pinky finger lift of 50 pounds.

Correction, 10/14/2024, 7:23pm – Buffville’s results weren’t included in the original result sheet I posted. They have been added below.

Correction, 10/20/2024 – Diana’s weight class was listed incorrectly. She is in the 80, not the 75.

The latest Buffville record day in Kentucky featured 13 lifters in four locations. The lifts included several Weaver Stick lifts, Bavarian Deadlifts, and Jefferson deadlifts. The day also included an all-time record in the foot press: 1,505 pounds by Jeff Wenze.

(Beth Skwarecki would also like to note that, thanks to her daughter’s participation in this meet, four out of five women’s records in the James lift are now held by a mother-daughter team.)

Results are below.