Who has inspired your lifting?

[Rob Luyando]

With all the topics of who is the best I thought I would ask what lifter or lifters have had the most influence or inspiration on your own lifting.

For me I have been a huge fan of Powerlifting for many years. Since I am a bench only guy I will mainly concetrate on benchers. The guys that I have always looked up to are as follows:

Ken Lain, Anthony Clark, George Halbert, Bill Crawford, Sebastian Burns, Ryan Kennelly, Eddy Coan, Bill Carpenter, Kenny Patterson, Jeff McVicar, Bobby Fields, Vinny D, Andy Fielder, and Brad Hein

[smokinHawk]

Anthony Clark, Mike Wolf, Joe Mazza, Rick Wiel, Andy Bolton, Ryan Kennelly, & Kirk Korwaski.

[WillNoble]

Louie Simmons, Chuck Vogelpohl, Jim Wendler, JL Holdsworth, Kevin Deweese, Bill Kazmaier, Ed Coan, Fred Hatfield, Gene Rychlak, Matt Kroczaleski, Ben Moore

[ACaslow]

Because I'm still new to the sport, with only a little over 2 years into it. I lack the history and sadly I have not looked into all that much, atleast as much as I should to be appreciative of what this sport is. So, for me most of my influences are current lifters such as Matt Kroc, Frankl, Kennely, Luyando and Chuck V. I find these guys to be some of the most consistent but best of all genuine lifters out there. No over the top self promotion/propaganda filling up every forum with their Bio's of yesterday, today and last night..... What has really done wonders for me is seeing Kennelly, Luyando and Frankl hit the platform as often as they do, I have taken note of that and really put forth a strong effort to get out there and compete as often as possible.

[Travis Bell]

Louie Simmons, Chuck Vogelphol, Kirk Karwoski and Ryan Kennelly

[David_HoffWSBB]

CHUCK VOGELPOHL, Bob Coe , Louie Simmons , Jeff Gritter Adams, Andy Bolton

[brihead301]

No one really. I just kinda decided to start getting stronger one day about a year ago, and I've been doing it ever since then. Internet forums such as this one motivate me a lot.

[Unholy]

Bring the flames.........


.......Kevin Levrone, Lee Priest, BCC.

[Guido]

Kaz, Coan, Roger Ryan, Priscilla Ribic, John Hudson.

[shortguy]

jesse kellum and josh bryant huge inspirations

[PriestCometh]

Jesse Kellum, Vogelpohl, Coan, Gene Bell, Inaba, "The Big Chill" Childress, Isagawa, Joe Mazza, Garry Frank, Capt Kirk!

[JSully]

Bring the flames.........

Dorian Yates, Jay Cutler and dear old Ahnold!

[HP666]

This is a great thread, I was thinking the same thing. I was always a guy who lifted weights, and really liked lifting as heavy a weight as I could handle; but had absolutely no direction whatsoever; none. Then a few things happened. I found Bill Crawford and Sebastian Burns and the Metal Militia and realized what I needed to be doing. Then of course there's Louie Simmons, I mean what really can I say? I started reading Louie's articles from the beginning. Around that same time I bought a MonsterMuscle magazine and saw this maniacal ****ing guy with ripped abs who could squat like 10,000 lbs!! Of course that was Phil Harrington. I reads that interview with Phil and have looked up to him ever since. It was THAT magazine that made me decide I needed to start squatting.
And of course that all lead me to Chuck V. Chuck is the one guy that inspires me more than any other, and I'll tell you why. There are a lot of great lifters out there but to me Chuck is just the most bad ass mo fo who's been doing it for a loooooong time at a high level. I refer to Chuck routinely when training. When the **** hits the fan and I'm spent and have to dig deep to get that last rep or two, I always say to myself, "how the **** are you gonna beat Vogelpohl if you can't even lift this you pussy!", or something along those lines. And don't get me wrong, I'm almost 39 years old and I'm pretty new to powerlifting. At this point I couldn't even hold Chucks squat briefs, and I know that, but he's the bar I set for myself; if I can hang with Chuck someday, then I've arrived.

[Xellarz]

I'm gonna try to keep this list shorter and only the people who REALLY influenced me the most...

Kaz (watching him in WSM when I was little), Coan for sure, Blake Richards (got me into Powerlifting and definitely motivated me to lift hard, also taught me how to squat, deadlift, etc), John Hudson (can't say enough good things about John), Andrew Kim (mostly his benching), Richard Derengowski (his benching). Seems like I'm missing someone who inspired my squat. Eric Stone inspired me...but he was also out of my league. Maybe Ricky Dale Crain, I think he was around a 500# raw squat at like 148 BW, that's inspiring.

Thing is, guys like Bolton don't inspire me. I enjoy watching him lift, but I don't aspire to ever pull 1000#. So it's tough to get inspired by things like that.

[Guido]

Ha ha. Yeah, I forgot to say Andrew Kim. I aspire to have calves as big as his and to be that f-ing cool.

[Jaybird88]

Kroc was the first PL'er I really got to be a big fan of, as I'm still pretty new to the sport. Kaz, Coan, Aiches, Byrd, Wendler to finish the list.

[Chris Rodgers]

A lot of lifters inspire me. Many of the lightweight lifters(since I'm tiny) inspire me. The list would be long if I made one, but I'll just put down the two lifters who have inspired my powerlifting life the most.

Chris Taylor and John Bernor. I have been blessed with having these two freaks as my training partners for the last 5 years and it has been amazing.

[vdizenzo]

I was never inspired by those who came before me. I never really knew about or studied the sport much until I was already into it for a few years. My focus was trying to catch up to the big guys I trained with. I was on a second bench training by myeslf when I would watch Bobby Yitts 6'8" 365, Glen Chabot around 6' 310, Dave Fitzgerald 6'+ 300+, and Jay Pic 6' 300+. I was a 5'8" 220lb amateur at the time. All I wanted to do was to be able to get big and strong enough to get on that bench with them. Low and behold I got as big and stronger than all of them with the exception of Glen's raw bench. That is what inspired me. Whenever I saw someone bigger or stronger I trained harder.

Since that time I have been inspired by the following Ryan, Rob, Crawford, JM, Halbert, Patterson, Confessore, Mendy, Fiedler, Carp, and Hickey. I am sure I will add to this list. I am feeling inspired again. There is nothing more I would like to do than climb back up the ranks again. Maybe Rob will continue some online coaching for me. Hey Rob, I'll hit you back up with an email after my training tonight. Thanks for putting me on your list. I am flattered--not to be confused with fatter.

[Bill Carpenter]

I would say Kenny Patterson and George Halbert. I was always chasing there records. I really never paid attention to anyone else but who I wanted to beat. LOL! Seriously there is so many great ones that inspired me but Kenny and George would be the top two.

[TankOfTeamStone]

new here, i half to say Mendy (saw a newspaper article in sport section when i was junior in high school, he did 850 on bench at a local gym where i live for first bench america which got me into powerlifting), Briggs (young strong ass mofo), Kennelly, Luyando, Crawford, Coan, Donnie Thompson

[nhlfan]

As strange as it may sound, a lot of the younger guys on here throwing up big numbers has inspired me more than a lot of the pros.

[bigbadwolfe]

Rob Luyando, he is my Hero

[Detard]

Kyle Gulledge, Jim wendler, Matt Rhodes, and also any videos I see of guys my age lifting heavy. It just gets me jacked up to go SFW.

[Hazerboy]

Brooks D Kubiks. No Huge records there, but I loved his book, Dinosaur training. (even though it was a bit preachy sometimes)

[biglift]

myself...decided i wanted to get bigger and stronger.....then one day i bought my bench,built it and started pumping iron...