Topic: Please Introduce Yourself

[pergunnarsson]

Per Gunnarsson
37 years old
Male
Lives on disability benefits due to schizophrenia
Umeå, Sweden
Not part of a team
While doing normal weight training in my teens I tried snatching just to see if I could
keep the balance, and found it very fun
Sporadic, I now do normal weight training but one goal is to snatch my body weight
No real athletic achievements
My only role in weightlifting I guess is to be the dude who shows other people
what a snatch is. Olympic lifting is partially forgotten where I live. People in my
gym seem to believe that the squat rack is for doing an exercise which is a mix
between clean and biceps curl.
No coaching or educational credentials
Favourite weight lifter: I have no idea
Other than weightlifting I am interested in just about anything, except interior design
Other information I would like to share: I have tried (not intentionally) to be a bum without passport in a foreign country and I have mugshots from three countries.

[Funky_monkey]

Name: Yaman Mustafa
Age: 25
Gender: Male
Occupation: Personal Trainer/Gym Instructor
Location: London, England
Team: None
How did you get started/involved in weightlifting?: Inspiration from other weightlifters
Years involved in weightlifting: None, competed as a powerlifter since roughly 2003
Athletic achievements: 2x WPC UK Open 1st place, WPC British 2nd place, IPF London bench press and full three 1st place several times, Other IPF competitions.
Role in weightlifting: Just starting, some interest
Coaching/educational credentials: REPS level 3 personal trainer, BSc. Sports Science.
Favorite weightlifter: Ivan Chakarov
Interests other than weightlifting: Food, Music.

[LilJoe]

Name: Joe Littleton
Age: 58
Gender: Male
Occupation: Engineer
Location:Houston, Texas
Team: Not affiliated
How did you get started/involved in weightlifting?: Lifting to improve strength for wrestling
Years involved in weightlifting: 50 years
Athletic achievements: Wrestled in college, powerlifted, attempted, somewhat unseccessfully to Olympic lift, actually worked out with the Belgium Team in 1974, knew Serge Redding and the other lifters quite well,
Role in weightlifting: Participant
Coaching/educational credentials:None
Favorite weightlifter: Serge Redding
Interests other than weightlifting: Long distance precision shooting, all shooting sports, Motorcycles
Other information you would like to share:  I probaly posted this out of place, but have always been known as persistant, so I am looking for a Russian Weight Set. I believe it may have been called Stanga Zesta, not sure. I have a 200 Kg set of blue plates that I brought back to the US with me in 1975, and am actually just looking for the plates. This set is tightly machined and chromed, usually painted either blue or red. I believe it is the same brand of weight set used for many years in the olympic lifting competitions and used by Vasiliy Alekseyev to set so many records because it has plates down to 0.1 Kg.

Please contact me if you have any information on where I could get some plates or purchase a complete set

[Gary Gibson]

Name: GaryGibson
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Occupation: Writer/Editor
Location: U.S.
Team: Registered with Team Orlando, but usually lift with East Coast Gold
How did you get started/involved in weightlifting?: Dan John's internet writings saved me from HIT a few years ago, then I discovered Pavel and got obsessed with deadlifting. Past two years as a raw USAPL powerlifter, but I've made the switch to the much more elegant and athletic strength-speed sport of weightlifting.
Years involved in weightlifting: Less than one
Athletic achievements: Raw state records in USAPL  (recently beaten)

Bests all at ~180 lbs bodyweight:
raw low bar squat 418 lbs in competition
raw sumo deadlift 506 lbs in competition
raw paused bench 253 lbs in competition
high bar squat 164 kilos, no belt
front squat 120 kilos, no belt
snatch 71 kilos (one month of training)
clean 87 kilos (one month of training)
clean and jerk 82 kilos
standing overhead press 135 x 5
chin up + 100 for a single

Role in weightlifting: Student and admirer
Coaching/educational credentials: Starting Strength coaching certification; have written a couple of articles on squatting and assistive apparel for Rippetoe's Starting Strength site.
Favorite weightlifter: Pyrros Dimas

Pyrros Dimas-video

Interests other than weightlifting: Austrian economics, anarchocapitalism, piano, powerlifting
Other information you would like to share: I'm not built for this sport at all. I'm 70" tall with a 76" wingspan and a very short trunk. I was less than 130 lbs in my early 20's and struggled mightily to get to 180 and I'm still not very strong at all. But weightlifting is the only sport I really care about and follow and I'm going to do it till I physically cannot anymore. They'll have to pry the barbell out of my cold, dead hands.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Interests other than weightlifting: Austrian economics, anarchocapitalism, piano, powerlifting

Sweet, a fellow Austrian supporter of laissez-faire though I would call myself more a laissez-faire voluntarian than an anarchocapitalist, with an Objectivist metaphysics and epistemological base- if I had to take a label. ;)

I hope you enjoy the site. My interest in weightlifting is much diminished these days for many reasons but I get more so when issues surrounding liberty and proper economic strategies come up. ;)

[Gary Gibson]

Interests other than weightlifting: Austrian economics, anarchocapitalism, piano, powerlifting

Sweet, a fellow Austrian supporter of laissez-faire though I would call myself more a laissez-faire voluntarian than an anarchocapitalist, with an Objectivist metaphysics and epistemological base- if I had to take a label. ;)

I hope you enjoy the site. My interest in weightlifting is much diminished these days for many reasons but I get more so when issues surrounding liberty and proper economic strategies come up. ;)

I've read through a lot of this site in the past couple of days. Your Von Mises quote didn't escape my notice.

Voluntarian doesn't induce the willies in people the way "anarchist capitalist" does, that's for sure. I manage, edit and write for an Austrian economics newsletter for a financial company. In fact, my company just acquired Laissez Faire Books last week. Feel free to shoot me a PM to talk more.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

The reason I don't take the label anarchocapitalist or anarchist is because I do not oppose the theoretical non-aggressive state. If there was a state limited to the defense of individual rights and, to be repetitive, wasn't financed by robbing people, which the authoritarians call "taxation", but rather say a voluntary lottery, I would not oppose its existence. Of course, my support would also require the right of secession, right down to the individual property owner. Whether my ideal system is "anarchistic" or not becomes a matter of how you define the word and I find that debate to be worthless. For sure, I would prefer some chaos, let alone a free and peaceful anarchistic system if such is possible with the current level of education among humanity, to the tyranny of our present "free country", which at least temporarily makes me allies with anarchists in, for instance, my FIJA activism. To put it simply, it is not government I necessarily oppose but all aggression, coercion, and fraud- which I openly admit has and is almost always done and/or caused by government, so far. ;)  I will PM you. I don't meet too many liberty lovers outside of my facebook activities.... ;)

[Adrian Cadmus-Dixon]

Name: Adrian Cadmus-Dixon
Age: 18
Gender: M
Occupation: Student
Location: Courtenay, BC, CAN
Team: Lake Trail Weightlifting
How did you get started/involved in weightlifting:  Walked into a weight room at my old middle school, fallen in love with it because it was an individual sport.
Years involved in weightlifting: 7 years (on and off though)
Athletic achievements: 2009 Junior National Champion, 2010 Western Canadian Champion, 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games (12th).
Role in weightlifting: Lifter and coach (would be lifting, but have no time)
Coaching/educational credentials:  Working towards a degree in Computer Science
Favourite weightlifter:  Ilya Ilin
Interests other than weightlifting: Travelling, reading, wrestling (would want to be able to coach it eventually)
Other information you would like to share: None, but I shall end with a quote:  "When you live for a strong purpose, then hard work isn’t an option. It’s a necessity." - Steve Pavlina