Isabel Krupp and Victoria Schmidt travel across town to lift weights at the Mount Pleasant Community Centre, the city’s only public gym with the equipment they use three days a week.
Schmidt, 24, can squat up to 250 pounds, deadlift 285 and bench press 125. This summer she trained Krupp, who started bench pressing nothing but the 45-pound barbell and picking up 80 pounds off the ground in a deadlift. By summer she could deadlift 150 pounds. Now she can do 200 pounds.
“Being able to experience that change and see and feel myself get stronger is not like any other workout I’ve ever tried,” said Krupp, 25. “Powerlifting has improved my overall physical health and my relationship with my body, my self-image. This is the first time in my life that I have regularly exercised.”
The women purchased their own 1.25-pound plates in order to increase the weight they lift in smaller, manageable increments that won’t slow their progress, compromise form or cause injury. They otherwise use the community centre’s heavier plates, barbells and bench press, as well as the Olympic lifting platform, a specialized piece of equipment and the only one of its kind at the city’s 12 public fitness centres.
After next week, none of Vancouver’s community centres will have all this powerlifting equipment. Even the bench presses will be removed. The park board will invest $200,000 to refurbish the Mount Pleasant fitness centre after similar investment has gone into gyms at Creekside, Trout Lake, Dunbar and Kensington-Renfrew. Gym members have started a petition to reverse these pending changes at the Mount Pleasant gym, the last with a dedicated bench press.
Because space is at a premium in the 3,800-square-foot gym and exercise trends shift constantly, the gym at No. 1 Kingsway will no longer have the two bench presses or lifting platform, a rectangular dais made of rubber and hardwood that allows people to drop heavy weights when doing or attempting specific lifts, including a clean-and-jerk seen in Olympic competition. The free weights and barbells will remain, as will the three squat racks after users were initially told they’d drop to two.
The park board cited data that shows similar changes at other fitness centres have brought new users — 15 per cent at Creekside Community Centre, for example — to the city’s gyms, but it is at the expense of a smaller number of users who say repurposing other multi-use equipment adds to wait times and improper use.
The president of the B.C. Powerlifting Association said weight training is integral to an effective full-body workout and removing bench presses puts additional demand on other equipment that wasn't designed for the specific lift but will be used for it nonetheless.
"The BCPA on the whole is really unhappy with the situation," said Joe Oliveira.
He said basic weight training should incorporate four movements: a press, a pull, a squat, and a deadlift.
"Those should form the core of any strength training conditioning program," he said. "I used to train out at UBC, and all of the professional sports athletes here, be they with the Canucks or the Lions, they all get tested on the bench press. Why? Because it’s considered the No. 1 upper-body developer."
In place of the other equipment at Mount Pleasant, the park board is introducing a “multi-function training station,” called the Synergy 360 that can replicate CrossFit workouts.
“You can do a wide variety of exercises that can be tailored to individual needs,” said the citywide acting recreational manager Darren Peterson. “We’re getting away from a bench press, a piece of equipment you can do only one exercise on.
“We want to be as accommodating as possible. A powerlifting platform, it caters to a relatively small number of people and in terms of us maximizing use of our limited space, it is no longer a fit. It is not a fit for our approach in terms of being accessible and inclusive for everyone,” he said. “We will be able to accommodate many more people within the fitness centre as a whole and use a variety of other pieces of equipment.”
In place of the bench press, the park board suggestion is for people to move a bench into the racks, which are large, fixed structures used by people to safely lift their own body weight or more.
Schmidt said this is not a solution because it creates longer lines for less equipment.
By removing equipment that does not exist in any other public gym and which is difficult to find anywhere in the city, Schmidt added that the Mount Pleasant gym will become less accommodating and will disperse an emerging powerlifting community that includes competitive athletes and women, as well as powerlifters who dispersed from the Creekside fitness centre after equipment there was removed last year.
“One of the reasons we come to Mount Pleasant specifically, and the reason we commute here from Hastings-Sunrise, is because the atmosphere is so welcoming. The staff are really informed and approachable,” said the nursing student. “People have come from there to here for the equipment that they are now getting rid of.”
An increasing number of women are using the fitness centre, added Krupp, an HIV and Hepatitis C outreach worker. The social acceptance of powerlifting is not only changing but lifting heavy weights can increase muscle mass and bone density while studies show it may also reduce the risks of dementia and osteoporosis.
“There is a culture around it and a broader social message directed at women, telling us we aren’t strong, we shouldn’t be strong, we can’t be strong,” she said. “And I think that can pose a barrier to getting involved with something like weightlifting.”
Schmidt and Krupp said they will look for a new location to continue powerlifting and have also talked about opening a space of their own.
The Mount Pleasant fitness centre will be closed Nov. 19 and 20 while new equipment is installed.
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