What you are about to read is a truly loving portrait of a powerlifting legend, written by one of the few who knew him best (and a great powerlifting coach in his own right).

The legendary Frantz Gym was the place where the top powerlifters trained, where the collective whole was greater than the sum of its parts. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” can often be tossed around, but that was a large part of the magic that was Frantz Gym.

To this day, that month-long experience of a geology class at Yellowstone helped shape how I look at duration, time, patience, and longevity. That experience helped me apply the view of time to virtually all facets of life, including strength training.

You see lost lifters jumping from one diet to another or from one program to the next, thinking they bought a long-lost ingredient to the stew that is strength and power. But the actual missing ingredients are right in front of them: consistency and an understanding of the basics.

There is a huge list of things the sport of powerlifting has produced over these seven decades. Within this sizable list, the sport has consistently produced two specific items over and again, each and every single decade.

Your future in this sport deserves to be worked on not only at the gym and with your physical strength and power, but outside of the weight room as well, with your mental focus and contemplation.

There is often hope that the future is the timeframe where many problems and questions of humanity will be solved. But sometimes the questions have already been asked, pondered, explored, researched and answered.

In this first part of the perspective series, I share five perspectives for you to consider as you make your initial steps into the journey that we call powerlifting.

Longevity in the sport often reveals which competitors are driven by false confidence.

Large? Not good enough. XL? Not quite there. 2XL? Now you're talking.

When your elders say “eat your veggies,” you young'uns better listen.

It is pretty much true, you are what you eat…or you will be.

One size does not fit all. Not every guy is going wear the same tuxedo to the prom.