You can’t choose your potential, but you can choose to fulfill your potential.
In the chapter of his autobiography titled “The Vigor of Life,” Theodore Roosevelt discusses his youth as “a sickly boy, with no natural bodily prowess.” He had a pivotal experience after being defenseless when two boys bullied him. Roosevelt took up boxing, which led to wrestling, horseback riding, and other athletic endeavors. While he never attained elite success in these sports, Roosevelt was a passionate athlete. He later reflected on his ability and success:
“There are two kinds of success, or rather two kinds of ability displayed in the achievement of success. There is, first, the success either in big things or small things which comes to the man who has in him the natural power to do what no one else can do, and what no amount of training, no perseverance or will power, will enable any ordinary man to do.”
In powerlifting, one finds such natural power in elite sportsmen like these:
“I started weight training at age 18. Right from the start, I was strong. The first time I ever lifted, I squatted 500 lbs and deadlifted 600 lbs. Lads from the gym thought I had trained before, but no, it was my first time.” —Andy Bolton
“At the age of 16 and a body weight of 135 lbs, I benched 165 lbs and squatted 285 lbs raw.” —Priscilla Ribic
“I was able to bench 315 pounds by my senior year in high school weighing only 150 pounds.” —David Ricks
“My enjoyment of the bench press began in 1988 when I was 14-years-old and a freshman in high school...I felt at home in the school gym. Upon my first visit to the cramped musty space, I was able to bench 135 lbs. You may laugh and think that is nothing, but when you are only 5 foot 3 and 98 lbs, it was everything.” —Brian Schwab
“I was doing 225 for reps when I was in the 8th grade.” —Nick Winters
In addition to their natural power, these individuals train with immense rigor. It’s not in the cards for 99.9 percent of people to bench triple body weight raw (like Rick Weil), deadlift 683 lbs at 132 lbs (Lamar Gant), or pull 920 lbs like warm-up weight (Bolton at the 2007 Arnold Classic). However, those whose bodies can sustain and overcome these weights still labor for years to reach their unique potential. To attribute their success only to genetics is spiteful inaccuracy. (Gant deadlifted 623 lbs to win the 1978 IPF Worlds. His 683-lb pull at the 1988 Worlds meant an average increase of six pounds per year. Consider that tenacity.)
Regarding the second kind of success, Roosevelt observed:
“…much the commoner type of success in every walk of life and in every species of effort is that which comes to the man who differs from his fellows not by the kind of quality which he possesses but by the degree of development which he has given that quality. This kind of success is open to a large number of persons if only they seriously determine to achieve it. It is the kind of success which is open to the average man of sound body and fair mind, who has no remarkable mental or physical attributes, but who gets just as much as possible in the way of work out of the aptitudes that he does possess. It is the only kind of success that is open to most of us. Yet some of the greatest successes in history have been those of this second class…”
Two exemplars of such success are Jennifer Thompson and Mike Wolfe.
Thompson has benched a world record 280 lbs raw in the 132 lb class, but the former long-distance runner didn’t always have such astounding strength. “When I first started benching, I was doing three sets of five at 65 pounds,” she remarks. “I couldn't wait to get to a 135-lb bench—now I warm up with it.”
One of three women to bench double her body weight raw, Thompson ranks highest in both relative and absolute strength.
When he graduated high school, Mike Wolfe could not bench his body weight. “No way was I one of those guys who could bench 315 lbs the first time. I started lifting in high school for football but was a slacker and did not try hard. When I graduated, I weighed 270 lbs, wore size 44 pants, and could not bench 200 lbs.” Wolfe is now one of less than fifty men to bench 600 lbs raw, and he benches over 800 lbs shirted.
How did Thompson and Wolfe reach this extraordinary level? Intelligent and steadfast training for starters. While others might be sleeping in on Sunday after a late night of drinking, Wolfe drives two hours to be at Westside Barbell by 7:00 a.m. Thompson’s training is likewise systematic.
They do what needs to be done—week after week, month after month, year after year. Thompson and Wolfe never knew their “genetic ability” limited them to X amount of weight. What splendid ignorance!
I think Roosevelt would have admired powerlifting. He noted about boxers, “Powerful, vigorous men of strong animal development must have some way in which their animal spirits can find vent.” Getting on the platform is certainly a way to do that.
When he’s not writing about places like Cuba and Israel, Myles Kantor (myles.kantor@gmail.com) competes in the USAPL and is a CFT with the International Sports Sciences Association.