Here it comes again. Old Man rant. . I was just talking to Dan as he drank some pre training whiskey in my office about this and decided to write about it. . 
. Yes, Dave Tate has talked about this as have many others, but here is my two cents. . As a meet promoter running Strongman and Powerlifting meets for many years, I’ve seen pretty much everything, and this one thing bugs me. Not too much else does. . Everyone gets a trophy.
. Do You Really Need a Trophy? Or do you just want to lift?
. There are so many classes and divisions, it’s almost impossible to not get one. . Let’s look at how this works. . If you look at a meet entry form there are: .
Divisions: .
- Raw
- Raw with wraps
- Single Ply
- Multi Ply
.
Follow that up with classes: .
- Amateur
- Pro
- Police/Fire/Military
- Military Pro
- Military Am
- Masters
- And more
.
And then there are the age classes. .
And many of these have age brackets. .
On top of that there are a ton of weight classes. . So, you have an almost unlimited variety of ways to get a trophy. You can enter a meet with 75 lifters and have one or two in each class. .
If you are a trophy hunter this is awesome. You are virtually guaranteed one. . But what if you actually want to compete against someone, or against 10 or 20 people in your class to see who is the best? It’s almost impossible. . And no, I am not referring to one federation. This is systemic. . When I started competing in Strongman, there was one class, Open. That’s it. You went, you competed against everyone and if you sucked you didn’t place in the top 3. . Yes, that was me many times. So what. It made me want to get better. . In Powerlifting it was different but not so much. We had far less classes years ago. And there was a ton of competition. . You’d got to a meet and lift against whoever was there. I remember many years ago I showed up at one of Russ Barlowe's meets in Maine and was pretty sure I had the win in the bag. I knew who was in my class (308 Open) and I was confident I was going to win. .
And then HE walked in. . Billy Mimnaugh. He was a BEAST and I knew he was a LOT stronger than me. . Well, there goes my win. Did I let it get in my head and not compete? No. I was prepared to do my best and hoped there was some way I could at least place second. Second place is first loser, but against Mimnaugh, I’d have taken it. . Well, to my surprise, one of my friends looked at the roster and saw he was in a different weight class that day, I think he cut to 275, but I am not sure. My spirits went right back up, and I ended up with the win. .
My point? Go to a meet and compete against whoever shows up. Go to a meet and pray there is competition in your class. Pray there are 20 people in it.
Why? That’s how you get better. After all, it is a competition right? .
Here is what I’d love to see. . Redesign the format and make it like this.
Three Classes Three Weight Classes Two divisions Now you’ve got a meet. . I’m pretty sure this will never happen, but it’s something I’d love to see. Competition makes us better. It makes us strong(er). Isn’t it why we do this? . And before you start giving me hate mail, I acknowledge 100% that the people currently lifting are playing by the rules and divisions, and if this allows them to win a meet, great.
It’s not the lifter’s fault that everyone gets a trophy. . And I understand, at least I think I do, why things are done this way. Running a federation, or a meet is a business. Doing it this way seems to make more people show up and makes the sport grow. Feds make more money and promoters do too. . I am not in the meet running business for the money personally. Every single meet I’ve run has been to benefit a charity, so my voice on the business side is probably not valid. . I’d love to hear your thoughts on my ideas about changing the classes and divisions to make things more competitive. . Leave a comment below. .
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And, one the meet promoter side, on November 16th we are running the RPS Boston’s Strongest Push Pull at TPS and we have 7 spots left open for lifters.
. This show will benefit the Claddagh Fund (the Dropkick Murphy’s charitable organization) and the Everett Pop Warner Football organization. . If you want to have a great morning benching and deadlifting for charity, go to:
Totalperformancesports.com/registration
. And sign up now! If you don’t want to lift, but want to support the event please come by and pay the $10 spectator fee on the 16th and watch some great lifting. . I hope to see you on the platform or in the audience. . Did you miss last week’s log? .
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Read it here . . Oh, yeah, follow us on Instagram too. @TPSMalden @tpsmethod DM ME QUESTIONS THERE TOO! You might be featured in a Coaching Log And @tpsmethod SHARE THIS! #bostonsstrongest
Vincere vel mori C.J. Murphy
October 3, 2019
