16 Feb How Thick Is This Ice And What’s On The Other Side? Looking at Life After Powerlifting
By Derek Wilcox
Walking across an ice covered lake is a simple analogy for analyzing risk and weighing it against a potential reward. That is exactly what I find myself doing currently in regards to competitive powerlifting. Forever, I have heard the old adage of “You don’t quit the sport, the sport quits you” and when I was younger it just seemed like one of those catchy phrases that sounded extreme and “hardcore,” but these days after watching strength sports in general chew up and spit out several great athletes and friends it’s something worth considering.
[wa-wps]
I fell in love with lifting weights and competing in various lifting disciplines early in high school and that rush of real competition has consumed most of my life for approaching two decades now. I started resistance training around the age of 12 or 13 and was exposed to my first lifting competition as a freshman in high school. We hosted another school from a neighboring county for a simple bench press and power clean competition. It was the single greatest rush of excitement that I had ever known (that didn’t involve a race car) and I really wanted to continue doing it as much as I could.
This type of introspection may seem premature as I am only approaching my 30th birthday, but there are some circumstances that I’ve known all too well that forced me to consider life without competitive powerlifting. Through high school I accumulated injuries due to a genetic “gift” I was handed called joint dysplasia. Being extra skinny on top of that caused me to have very unstable joints, fatigue and contact sports caused my joints to be heavily abused with subluxations and dislocations of my shoulders and hips. I took a trip to see an orthopedic surgeon when I was 16 and he informed me that surgery was basically useless because after being laid up for six months recovering from the potential procedure I would have the exact same chance of these injuries happening again due to the structure of my joints. On top of this great news, he also informed me that if I did not cease contact sports and heavy lifting that I was looking at shoulder and/or hip replacements by the time I was in my mid-30’s. The same gift that allows me to hit more advantageous squat positions than most others is the same curse that will likely keep me from being a healthy powerlifter for very much longer.
Last summer I made a trip to Nashville, TN to go see a hip specialist who has worked with US Olympic teams and is currently the team physician for the Tennessee Titans to see what my options were for the future after suffering a substantial cartilage tear in my left hip a few years ago. It wasn’t too much of a different story from the first surgeon I saw when I was 16 as he told me that the joints were just getting ground down and I would likely accumulate arthritis much sooner than normal in the joints. Thankfully technology has come along for me to avoid a full hip replacement for me. A hip resurfacing surgery would be a much better option in general, but that would still mean the end of squatting numbers with commas in them. Taking in the reality of this situation forces some retrospection on my part and questions that need to be answered honestly.
What are/were my long-term goals and what do I have left to do?
In high school I carried around the all-time world records list for powerlifting that included every sanctioning fed and every weight class in the sport. This was my gold standard for accomplishment in the sport. With this list there were no reason or excuse why anyone in some other division or circumstance had lifted more than what they did. This was the absolute top standard of performance that everything else was compared to. I understand some people would disagree with that but it was my personal opinion that the people on this list had accomplished a feat that no other human on the planet could have claimed to have done in a judged competition and I always want to be on the list for something. This would mean I would have a claim to say that I was the best in the world at something regardless of what it was. Many of the people on that list lifted in the WPO meets that culminated at the Arnold sports Festival. The first chance I ever had to go see this meet I jumped at even though I was completely broke. By the time I got back as I was left with $13.00 in my bank account! Giant behemoths (at 155lbs everyone was a behemoth to me) like Andy Bolton, Jeff Lewis, Chuck Vogelpohl, Brian Carroll and many others were squatting routinely over 1,000 pounds and a couple even ventured over 1,200 pounds. Women like Laura Phelps-Sweatt, Becca Swanson and Jill Mills were completely redefining everything I thought was possible for women in strength and truly changed every conceived notion I had about strength. Oleksandr Kutcher especially blew my mind in 2006 breaking every record there was to break for him and capping it off with one of the greatest lifts ever by deadlifting 793lbs in the 165 class. I swear I watched him pull it for 5 minutes before he finished it! It seemed completely worth it at the time to be penniless as I got to see all the people I idolized and I knew that I had my second goal for a powerlifting career. I had to be on that stage at the Arnold sports Festival.
I have now accomplished both of those goals after making the list for the All-Time 181lb squat record and competing at the Arnold in the XPC meets twice now. I can honestly say I’ve done everything I set out to do in the sport and much earlier than I thought I would. With that said I feel like I have one more run at a record squat and I feel like this one could very possibly mean more than anything else. However, every time I perform a lift that’s heavy in the last year or two I can feel the sands of time falling through the glass with each rep.
To what level of detriment will it still be worth chasing more goals?
The options to be weighed for me are; am I going to be damaging myself to the point where I will not be able to carry out my life to the level I should in my career of coaching/teaching as well as being able to physically play golf and other things that I intend to transition into to hopefully satisfy my competitive nature? This goes along with all the family oriented goals of being able to play with my nieces or potential children in the future. These are things that I will be valuing in my post-powerlifting life and I certainly don’t want to shoot myself in the foot and limp around on it for the next several decades!
I know many other people have had to contemplate the risk and reward of following this lifestyle and chasing big numbers in the sport but I do feel somewhat unique in that I’ve spent the last half of my life with a timer running out after that first trip to see a surgeon in high school. The general trend of how my body is reacting at this point in my career doesn’t lead me to think he was overly wrong on that timeline of life altering surgery being inevitable. Both of my hips pop and crack and stay sore constantly. My shoulders are in the same shape while seemingly becoming less stable as time goes on opening me up to more serious injuries very easily.
With all of these considerations for the future weighing heavily on my mind for the last year or two it brings up the question of whether this should be my last meet or not. If it goes well and I can leave with the accomplishments I feel like I could rest on, I don’t feel I would have any issue calling it quits at that point. I also don’t see it being quite that simple and just turning off that drive to push farther and heavier either.
I feel any serious competitor regardless of sport is forced to consider these things in one shape or another and only time will tell for sure how this story ends up for me.
Derek Wilcox
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