British Powerlifting Federation &
World Powerlifting Union

I had the pleasure of meeting this great guy and witnessed the biggest strict curl 94KG, he preformed at the British Championships. He will be invited to The World Strict Curl event at The Olympia in Las Vegas.

I started lifting weights at 15 in my back garden. All I used to do were bicep curls, but I realised that I was really good at it and worked hard to get stronger. I was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia at 19 but I found that lifting weights made me feel better, so I started going the gym a lot more. I’m competitive so after 10/12 years of lifting weights (mainly Bicep curls), I wanted to start competing. I didn’t know there was a competition for strict curling, but then I found bpf. Their federation was the only one I could find that did strict curling. So I thought I would go to my first competition. After getting the British record in strict curling I thought I would try bench press even though I had only benched for a year or so. I found out I was strong at that too. So I now do strict curl and bench press, and have set British records for both.

I really want to be the strongest tested powerlifter in the world. I know that’s a big dream but I’m going to try my best to reach it. This year is a big year for me and I have been training really hard. I hope I can break new records.

A first time competitor with us at Mayhem Gym in Boston.

My journey with physical training, like so many people’s, has involved a gradually deeper plunge into the world of strength. Around the age of 12, I stumbled upon a set of dumbbells, in our loft. The heaviest pair weighed a mighty 4.5kg each and as such proved a stretch on lateral raises and several other exercises. Nonetheless I persevered most evenings with a mixture of basic dumbbell and bodyweight exercises. I soon started to love that feeling of getting stronger. As such, in my mid-teens, I was happy to give going to the gym a go when my best friend suggested that I went with him during the school holidays. It only took one session for me to decide to get a membership. I loved the thought of getting stronger to help my karate, which I still do today, and my rugby. One of the PTs at the gym wrote

a basic programme for me and, having done some research online, I promptly decided that I knew all that there was to know about training. I remember, like most of us do, seeing a little of the World’s Strongest Man on TV as a child. It was social media, though, which really introduced me to the worlds of strongman and powerlifting. I remember being both mind blown and humbled by seeing a video of Eddie Hall pressing a 200kg axle overhead, having felt that I

was strong as I was doing my strict presses with about 30kg which my school friends could not manage. From there I read more and more about the records in the strength world and the history of strength sports. My interest grew rapidly but it was a few years before I started thinking about the idea of competing one day.

At the start of 2020, having recently done my first 200kg deadlift, a relative made me aware of a local strongman competition which was being advertised on Facebook. I decided to sign up. That was it. The summer of 2020 would see me do my first strongman competition. I went and tried some of the events and then carried on training completely normally in the commercial gym where I had always trained. They didn’t have the kit. I didn’t have a clue. I felt fairly determined, though, and I thought that I was working hard. I was full of excitement and pride, being able to tell people that I was going to be a strongman. You can probably see where this is going. The Covid-19 pandemic struck and the contest was cancelled. I put aside any thoughts of competing for a while, knowing that that September I was going off to Durham University to study law. Unfortunately my time there was short lived, having openly struggled to adapt to the isolation with the university allegedly having the worst Covid rate of any in the country at the time and making the national news for its handling of students who were isolating. It was shortly after leaving that, as and when lockdown restrictions allowed, I forced myself back in the gym more than I had been able to at Durham. I know that I’m one of many who finds the gym is as much a benefit to their mental health as their physical one and looks to it for routine and normality when other things are going wrong in life. Having started getting back into training more seriously, I decided to give the strongman a go. I went all in and signed up for three contests that summer. I trained hard, bought the right kit, did my research and surely enough… they went terribly. I was inside the bottom four at all three contests. The fact that I had enjoyed them in spite of that and not normally being the best loser in the world told me this was something that I wanted to do more of, though. I went away, improved my training and recovery, planned my meals for the first time in my life and gained over 20kg in around a year. This paid off and in 2022 I competed in 7 contests, including the final of Britain’s Strongest Novice where I was the youngest competitor by around 5 years, and finished in the top three on three occasions. At this point I had thought about trying powerlifting many times but I didn’t do so seriously until Mayhem Gym, where I had been training for a few months, announced that they would be hosting a BPF competition. Sadly it was too soon for me after a busy summer of strongman, so I was excited to learn that this wasn’t set to be a one off.

Mayhem in Boston on 25/03/23 fell at the perfect time for me really, with most amateur strongman contests taking place through the summer months. I started training for it in early January. It was a strange experience, as a strongman, as normally bench press didn’t really matter for me in its own right, back squats were often shunned in favour of front squats or safety-bar variations and deadlifts took place with straps. I was firmly out of my comfort zone, yet I was completely in my element. My squat training flew throughout the prep. I’ve always wished that squats were more common in strongman, unlike bench press. Bench press continued to feel as unnatural to me as it always had. I actually found myself, someone who has always considered their grip a weak link in their strongman, loving deadlifting without straps, though. That was up until I tore a callus and half of each deadlift or SBD session was taken up by applying and fiddling with tape in a race against time to get both my hand to heal and my grip strength to increase before the contest. Having always been a fan of learning about different training methods and programmes and acknowledging that peaking for a powerlifting contest was surprisingly different to preparing for a strongman one, I decided to do some research to find a peaking programme which I thought would work for me. Yuri Verkhoshansky’s 6-week peaking programme seemed to fit the bill, so I settled on that. Powerlifters, my respect for you increased immeasurably. I naively and arrogantly, assumed as a strongman, that it must be easy to train for just three lifts all of the time. In fact what I learned is that it just means that the same muscles and movement patterns receive a hammering all of the time. I stuck to the plan, though, missing just one rep on bench press and none on squats or deadlifts in six weeks.

Contest week arrived. While I felt well prepared, I was unsure as to what numbers I really had in me. I was actually most nervous about the weigh-in day, though. Lifting weights competitively was something which I had already done many times before, but weigh ins and kit checks were new to me. I knew that I wouldn’t properly relax until I was on the platform and locking in for that first squat. Weigh-in day was a success, however. I made weight comfortably, which I expected, and all of my kit was acceptable. I did, however, have to make up my openers on the spot after forgetting that I would be asked for them. It was a relief to find out how friendly all of the organisers and referees were, I met a whole host of friendly and welcoming individuals. We were there to lift, though, and on that front I couldn’t really have been happier with what happened. All three squats felt comfortable, in spite of the last lift of 225kg being a 20kg increase on anything which I had squatted before the contest. I managed to grind out a 2.5kg PB on my final bench at 132.5kg too. I was confident going in to deadlifts that, if my grip would hold it, I would be able to deadlift 242.5kg for a nice round 600kg total. Fortunately the bar felt much better in the hands than the one which I had trained on and I was able to get the lift to go 9/9, with all of the lifts being British records. At that point I knew that I had put up the biggest total of the day however, not knowing what formula was being used to calculate the victors, I remained on edge up until I was announced as the overall winner in the male group. To go home with the trophy, a medal, the British records and a 600kg total is something which I genuinely don’t think that I will ever forget as, as I suggested earlier, I always felt that powerlifting really didn’t play to my strengths. As such, it was just as satisfying as any of my performances in strongman.

Along with the other accolades, I came home with an invitation to the British Championships in April. Competing there was never part of my plan for this year. Mayhem in Boston was meant to be my only powerlifting contest this year. I signed up as a chance to test the waters before potentially doing more in future years. It just so happens that I have found the waters to be those of a perfectly heated spa pool as opposed to the icy shark-infested ocean which I feared that they might be. I was completely taken aback by how much more I enjoyed the contest than I expected to. Whether it be at this year’s British Championships or next year with a push to qualify for the British, European and World Championships and total 700kg, I intend to do a lot more powerlifting in the future. Just to end, I just wanted to thank you all for being such a welcoming organisation for us newcomers. Also, if I don’t see you beforehand or there, good luck to everyone competing at next month’s British Championships.

Thomas is the proud owner of Mayhem Gym in Boston, and runs many successful shows for the BPF and raises a lot of money for charity.

He qualified for the Olympia this week and broke a British Bench Press Record 192.5kg

Although not a BPF competition Thomas runs this in memory of his father who sadly left us due to this condition. Thomas has turned this into a positive and raises money for the charity. Marcus and Lady Petra hope to see you here to support this event.

One of my favourite moments on sat with some of the BPF academy members and our amazing Coach, you only have to look at the picture to see how proud coach is and how proud each and every single one of us are too after the British Championship.

This picture right here shows passion, unity, respect, loyalty, love, trust and equality everything that the BPF stands for and all thanks to Mr O.

If only we can all stick to these values not only in the gym but any where and every where day to day, be patient and understanding surely we can lead by example and each person we pass these values on to can pass it on to some one else then before you know it the world can become a better place.

Thank you to The BPF president MarcusMro Griffiths for making his BPF dream a reality and leading the BPF family, thank you to vice president Lady-Petra Kent for all the amazing hard work you do keeping every thing running smoothly.

Thank you to all the refs, loaders who make the lifts possible for the lifters and most of all thank you to the amazing supporters who come, watch and cheer the lifters on this wouldn’t work with out your support so thank you.

The BPF is the only UK federation that qualifies lifters to compete at the Mr Olympia, so what are you waiting for? Come on down to the BPF academy and start your journey with the BPF family.