Discovered a lifting gem, close to home.

[Dastardly]

I just discovered that there is a pretty awesome sounding powerlifting club just outside my city. I heard about it extremely vaguely by word of mouth and jotted down the phone number.

It turned out to be a guy called Stan Macrow, a 60 year old competitive powerlifter who runs a powerlifting club in a community centre.

Talking to him was amazing, he didnt even know me but talked to me for a whole hour passionately about lifting, giving me tips about lifting/life and telling me about the club and competitions. He started out doing olympic lifting but unfortunately they didnt have Oly stuff at the club.

He reminded me a LOT of tommy suggs, in the excited, positive manner he talked about everything.

Anyhow, he started telling me by just how much he manages to improve peoples lifting numbers. the numbers he told me I could achieve were very exciting.

I wonder how much difference coaching actually makes? The gym will be a bitch to get to for me (about a 10mile bike ride on 60mph road), but im tempted to get down there ASAP. All this time of envying awesome training environments like WFAC and dealing with silly bullshit at the gyms I got to. It looks like I might have something like that for myself. And an authority figure somewhere between Tommy Suggs & Rip to yell at me.

This Stan Macrow has hoardes of European & World powerlifting titles, even some from last year aged 59. He holds powerlifting meets at the centre, and trains people of all ages/sexes to compete and takes them to international meets.

He said I should come to the British Champs (being held at his gym) in a couple months to help out.

Really rather excited!

Moral of the story, dont limit your horizons to the internet, really cool stuff might exist on your doorstep, you need to talk to people to find out about.

[Kyle Schuant]

Good to hear, hope you have fun and get good results.

Good coaching makes the world of difference.

[imnotbncre8ive]

That sounds like an amazing opportunity. Never underestimate the benefits of having a very experienced guy (or girl) yelling at you to bring out that crucial last bit of effort. Tell us how it goes!

[gordonrumble]

If I had that chance, I'd be there in a second. 10 miles is like your warmup, kind of.

[ColoWayno]

Hopefully the ride home is downhill.