powerlifting | Dartmouth Folklore Archive

Title: Lifting Setup

General Information about item:

Informant Data:

E.S. was born in Boston, Massachusetts in the year 2001. He is currently on the tennis and powerlifting club teams at Dartmouth College. Eli is majoring in psychology with a minor in economics. His background is mostly European with family origins in Italy, France, and Ireland.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: Before lifters and powerlifters move incredible amounts of weight, they have techniques that help them focus. These techniques allow them to mentally prepare for the movement they are going to perform which have been proven by doctors to increase weight and strength. For some reason, when a lifter/sports player hits his or her pressure points in the correct way, their muscles somehow become more attuned and exceed their potential that the lifters could not do moments before.

Social Context: The powerlifting club meets a few days a week at an off-campus gym where the group gets together and powerlift. Powerlifter groups are formed to help members push each other and get to the next/higher weight class. They all scream encouragement to each other when they are going for their maxes.

Item:

The routine movements that E.S. learned from the team at Dartmouth are about the final setup. Every teammate always enters the machine/weight by going left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand. They believes this focuses their minds and prepares them for the lift because they enter the machine the same way every time. E.S. claims it felt weird at first to follow this tradition but now he feels off-balance and weaker if he does not follow this Dartmouth entrance routine. The team does not know who started this tradition, but E.S. suspects it was whoever started the powerlifting club.

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Transcript:

“If I do not enter left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand then I am off balance and fail a lot more than I usual do if I just follow the routine. It was weird to get the hang of remembering the routine but now it is second nature for me.”

Informants Comments:

He recommends getting into routine because he feels the consistency of the pre-game let also helps him consistently perform in powerlifting.

Collector’s Comments:

Sports routines are very common, but E.S. shows how important they can be and the consequences of not doing the routine or having it broken. He underperforms if the routine is broken and performs or improves from his last lifting session as long as he continues with his pre-game routine every week.

Collector’s Name:

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Dartmouth Folklore Archive