I propose the following competition to determine which lifter is the strongest:
Mendez vs. Cyc
Exercise: Full paused squat, pause at least 1 complete second at the bottom. Three attempts for each lifter. Order on each round determined by a coin. Maximum of 15 minutes between each attempt. The lifter who goes first decide the weight he wants to use. The second lifter in each round can lift on the same weight, or a weight to his choosing, however the weight must be increased for each consecutive attempt, or in the case of a failed attempt, the weight that was missed can be retried. Three misses in the first three rounds means the lifter loses the competition. If equal after three lifts, a fourth lift will be made. First lifter to go for fourth attempt chose the weight. If just one make it, he is the winner, if it is still a draw, then increase the weight with 2.5kg if both made the weight, or decrease it with 10kg if both missed it. Continue in this fashion until there is just lifter left.
Equipment allowed: Only a belt and shoes. An ordinary weightlifting suit or power lifting suit must be used. The suit can have no effect on the amount of weight that can be lifted, as it must be thin fabric and have no supportive properties. No supportive underwear allowed.
Reason for this selection of competition lift: No single ply gear means that it is raw strength that will be tested, and the pause at the bottom will eliminate the stretch reflex, thus the weight that a lifter can hoist will be less, but it will be a more honest display of their true strength. Excellent technique using very fast tempo will have no effect on this competition, and the famous rebound effect of the soft weightlifting bar will not be able to be used.
Bar and plates for the competition: A neutral powerlifting venue. Eleiko bar and eleiko plates or other equal equipment. Since there will be a pause at the bottom of the lift, a weightlifting bar would most likely give no rebound effect, but to totally eliminate this factor, a rigid powerlifting bar will be used.
There will be no weigh in, as this will be a factor that will not be calculated in. There will be no doping tests.
What do you think about this proposal, if you have anything to add, or any other set of rules to suggest, then feel free to do so, but the point is to check who is the strongest, and using an exercise which will be neutral to both lifters, and which will determine raw brute strength, and not who is the best at using technique.
Obviously I think the best would be for CYC to travel to America, and then there will be arranged in advance with a powerlifting club to set up this man to man meet. However, for the lifters to be interested, there should be an incentive to compete. Of course pride and honour is important, and for John Broz to claim that Pat Mendez is the worlds strongest teenager is a very bold claim. He might be, but there just might be someone else that’s stronger as well. CYC is 20 years old, but that’s close enough if you ask me.
So I just see what kind of interest this post will spur, and provided people will like this idea, I could contact both lifters and see if they are interested. Obviously there should be a pot of money awarded, so they would have a bigger incentive to go through with the head to head. I am sure it would be possible to get some sponsors for this event, and there could also be set up a website with the aim of collecting money for travelling expenses for a lifter and a companion plus prize money. If enough people found this interesting, I think we could with the help of a few internet sites and enough donors raise enough money for this to happen. If we said that the winner would get 10 000 dollars, and of course the loser would get nothing. Say travelling expenses for two persons travelling from norway to the USA would be 2500 dollars, we would need to raise at least 12 500 dollars.
Say we had 1000 contributors who gave 12,5 dollars each, we would have a total of 12 500 dollars. I think this would be possible, as there is such a huge interest for these two men.
However, if Pat vs. CYC was to become a reality, both lifters would have to agree on the rules in advance, and there should also be set a prize that had to be reached to make the event happen. CYCs coaches do go easy on him, but he is a grown man and he decides himself what he wants to do, so if he wanted to go to America to compete against Mendez, he could do so.
There could also possibly be a bench press at this meet, but I think no more than two exercises is necessary. Putting in a deadlift would be unfair to Mendez, as he is less experienced in this exercise, and putting in the snatch or the clean and jerk, would be a joke as that’s something CYC never do, so that would not be a competition.
So squat only with the aforementioned rules, or a squat and then a bench press, and the biggest total is a winner. An overhead press could also be an alternative over bench press.
So what do you people think? Is this something that does ignite you?
Is Mendez really the worlds strongest teenager, or will The Viking from the North win the prize?
Many factors have to be considered to make this head to head competition a reality, but somewhere everything has to start. So I start with this post.