I do agree with this statement - I'd still rather lift in a drug tested fed (and the 'official' one), but it is painful to have to get the right gear, become a member of PA etc to compete even once
Not only that, but the drug-testing. Those who have never taken nor would ever contemplate taking drugs, and who are newbies to the sport, will think it's all a bullshit waste of their time. I have to let some guy from ASADA interrupt my Sunday night dinner, go to the toilet with me and watch my penis while I urinate so I can prove my 100kg bench was not tainted by drugs? Seriously? That's how the newbie thinks.
WoodyAllen said:
How does it compare to soccer or football? Don't they have to buy gear to compete? Same with other sports, from water volleyball to basketball. Pretty sure you would have to join any team in order to compete. Not just rock up in your grungies and hope for the best.
It depends on the level. You can join social leagues and the cost is fairly minimal, and you don't have to buy gear from a few selected US or EU companies. As you go up levels it becomes more formal, but people understand that. They just don't understand why a newbie lifter has to act like they're at the fucking AIS or something.
Of course they don't realise that with just a few hundred active lifters, there simply aren't enough people to make it worthwhile to have lots of different levels.
WoodyAllen said:
I'm pretty sure that if a few gyms got together for an informal comp, that would not prevent the same people from competing in an "official" PA comp.
I think it would. From the PA regulations,
"any person who is a Member of P.A. and,to the satisfaction of the Board, is found to have taken out a membership or participated as alifter, coach or official in the activities of any powerlifting organisation which does notadhere to an Anti-Doping Policy substantially similar to the Anti-Doping Policy of P.A. maybe deemed by ruling of the Board to have forfeited their membership and that membershipmay be cancelled."
People from GPC and CAPO run novice meets. At these meets there is no winner declared, nor can records be set. When my wife went, her bench press, had it been in a GPC meet, would have been a submasters record. It didn't count, it was a novice meet. She joined GPC, went to States and set the record.
Recently my lifters asked about going to PA - they don't like knee wraps and the ubiquity of drug use, they understand "drug-tested" does not mean "drug-free", but hope that testing would at least make it less blatant. So I talked to Wilks, President of PA. He said that any PA member may not participate in a novice meet, whether lifting, coaching, spotting, scoring or whatever. If my lifters go to PA, I can't go backstage to coach them unless I'm also a member of PA. So if my lifters join, I have to join.
He further explained that if I'm a member, then if they go to a non-PA meet, if I go and coach them on the day I'd be binned from PA - even if they themselves are not (yet?) members of PA. And if I'm binned from PA, my lifters who are members of PA will then come under investigation until they stop training with me. If they're kicked out for some reason, I can't have them in my gym. In an email after the conversation he said, "[...] if you were a good & loyal PA member & say a lifter you were coaching went off the rails & got themselves suspended or booted you would have to disown them for the period of their suspension."
He also looked at my website, and said that I would have to remove all mentions and photographs of people lifting in other federations' meets, establishing records in them and so on. He said, "the sins of the past can be forgotten."
PA is like a jealous girlfriend who wants to pretend you're a virgin and will never even look at another woman. I laid it all out for my current lifters, and asked some past lifters too for balance. One of them said, "It's all rather a big hassle just to come last." That's the newbie perspective. Of course, we all know that if they keep coming then eventually they won't come last. But you have to get them started before they can keep going.
All this is to do with ASADA and government recognition. I don't believe there's malice on Wilks' part, though of course anyone in charge of an organisation for a long time will have it go to their head to an extent. This is the price you pay for dealing with government. Nonetheless, the result is that PA does not make it easy for newbies to just give it all a go.
Which is why I say that GPC, and to a lesser extent CAPO, have the good aspect that they make it as easy as possible for new lifters to give it a go, and PA does not. There are aspects I don't like, but welcoming new lifters is something they do well. And since the people who walk into my gym are not people with 10 years of serious lifting behind them, how newbies are treated is most important to me.
