Anthony Martinez Records 700-Pound Deadlift at 44th NVWG
Powerlifting featured some major highs and a few frustrations during Monday’s second-to-last day of the 44th National Veterans Wheelchair Games (NVWG) in Minneapolis.
A third of the way into the night, Anthony Martinez made history with a record-setting 700-pound deadlift inside the Minneapolis Convention Center.
A Navy veteran, the 37-year-old Martinez couldn’t even believe he was trying that huge number. After making both his first two deadlift attempts at 525 and 625 pounds, he decided to go huge for his final one.
As he prepped for it with The Who’s Baba O’Riley playing in the background, Martinez focused in and put his head down, then waited an extra couple minutes as volunteers and officials re-racked the weights to balance the bar better. After sharing a laugh with an official, he gathered his thoughts, then sniffed some smelling salts and proceeded to lift the bar of red weights all the way up and down to completion.
Martinez, who was injured in a 2013 single-vehicle car accident in Lemoore, Calif., and is an above-the-right knee amputee, hadn’t done the deadlift event before. It was offered at last year’s NVWG, co-sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Paralyzed Veterans of America, in New Orleans for the first time for adaptive fitness. Athletes have three chances to complete one deadlift to finish their adaptive fitness event.
Martinez says he was very surprised — especially after his previous best deadlift was 625 pounds.
“So, that was a big, big jump for me,” says Martinez, who served from 2005 to 2008 as a parachute rigger. “I mean, I’m here once a year. Like go big or go home. And I was like, no better opportunity than the National Veterans Wheelchair Games to just go all out.”
Martinez was one of a handful of athletes who deadlifted more than 400 pounds. Later, he just missed out on a second personal-best in the powerlifting bench press event. He bench-pressed 465 pounds, just five pounds off his best mark of 470 set in New Orleans.
He had planned to only try 475, but one of the spotters suggested he go for 500.
“And I figured with them having the view of seeing how it moved, ‘Hey, why not take their advice? They think I got it. Why not attempt that?’” Martinez says. “I mean, that’s the furthest I pushed it before. Was getting it in about halfway up. I’m disappointed I didn’t get it, but I’m happy that I attempted it.”
Meanwhile, Army veteran Jacob Robertson was happy with the event, lifting 270 pounds. That’s 20 more pounds than he did last year in New Orleans. The 43-year-old Flora, Miss., resident says he focused more on the bench press during training and on keeping his shoulders healthier and gaining weight this year— and it paid off.
“I am [happy]. I’m just not far from where I wanted to be — 275 was where I kind of thought I was going to get,” says Robertson, who served as military police and a recruiter before sustaining a T12 spinal-cord injury Aug. 23, 2014, in a motorcycle accident in Jackson, Miss.
While Martinez and some of the other big-time lifters took the limelight, some of the women veterans felt they got pushed to the side waiting to finish their bench presses. Organizers split the women up into two groups at the end so they could finish their bench presses. And one other male veteran waited nearly three hours to get the chance to have his first lift, completed it, then called it a night after seeing he’d won his class.
Some of the women powerlifters left frustrated, according to Army veteran Centra “CeCe” Mazyck. Even though the 49-year-old Mazcyk was happy she set two personal bests — 120 pounds on the deadlift and bench-pressing 120 pounds on her third and final attempt — the Paralympian says she wants organizers to change the format.
“Sitting in a corner for two hours, getting cold. Yeah, even though we did the deadlift first — that was amazing — sitting for two hours and watching everyone else lift, it honestly discouraged one of the female athletes to not do it next year,” Mazyck says.
A retired sergeant first class, Mazyck sustained level L1 and L2 injuries in 2003 during a routine parachute jump in Fort Bragg, N.C. This marked her 20th year at the NVWG — with her first being in Minneapolis in 2005.
She says she liked the deadlift — doing that for the first time — and is glad organizers brought that in last year.
“Now that’s something else to work on in the gym. You know what I mean? It also strengthens your back,” Mazyck says.