NOTE: I describe how I began participating in bench press competitions (and involvement with the sport of powerlifting in general), below. However, this is old stuff that does not begin to cover how I began actually LIFTING COMPETITIVELY in full power meets, and how I learned to train for squats and deadlifts to reach where I am today. That is a whole other story! And that great story will be added here in the near future. I look forward to sharing it... thanks for checking back!

First Person To Suggest It: Neal Anderson (my husband), former manager of THE GYM in Plymouth and Fridley and personal trainer

First Reaction: Laughed at the idea and thought: "I'm too little for this sport; isn't this for big people?" and "there's no way I would fit in, or could learn enough to do it right, or be strong enough to do anything worth trying." I didn't dwell upon this negative thinking, but I just shrugged off the idea of trying a meet.

Prior Athletic Experience: No involvement in any sports, except for some familiarity with weight training. I took weight training for gym class in 9th grade, in place of regular gym/health (I was one of three girls in there; the rest were the football and wrestling team!) My brother, Roy, bought me a free weights set for my 16th birthday and began bringing me with him to his gyms when I was 17. Then I finally began learning how to seriously train at THE GYM in Fridley, Minnesota, when I was 19.

What inspired me to try a meet: I saw a poster for what looked to be a fun bench press competition where some of my favorite professional wrestlers would be involved in the event. I wanted to not only meet them in person again but have them be the judges of whether I belonged on the platform or not. It was time to do something challenging and "off the wall" at the same time.

First Meet: The 4th Street Saloon Spring Bench Meet 1996, Minneapolis, MN

Training: 6 weeks of training, and some tips from a few powerlifters and bodybuilders along the way. Previous to this, the owner of THE GYM, Jim Yungner, had been substantially increasing my weight on the bench while I was learning how to lift weights. This was because my goal was to increase muscle mass when I initially joined his gym in 1995.

Weight Lifted and Bodyweight: Bench of 95 lbs. at 91 lbs. bodyweight

More Encouragement: Out of 5 women competing at the 4th Street Saloon Spring Bench Meet, I won 3rd place. Brian Howe, the head judge and APF Minnesota State Chairman at the time, left his chair to inform me that I matched a state bench record in the ADFPA with my 95 lb. lift. He urged me to do an upcoming ADFPF meet to break that record. (It was a full meet which was going to take place two weeks after this meet.)

The Rest of the Story: During the 2 weeks before that meet, I got a crash course in squatting and deadlifting, both of which I performed as token lifts so I could emphasize the bench. Psychological barriers kept me from pressing 100 lbs. to break that record. Four years later, I set a first time record of 110 lbs. for the single lift, and broke the old full meet bench record by 10 lbs. with 105 lbs. Five months later, I benched my all-time best meet lift (at the time) of 126.8 lbs.