Power-lifters and body-builders in Limerick are looking forward to successes at international competitions this summer.
Mr Jimmy Butler is preparing for the European Body-Building Championships in Minsk, Belarus, on May 17th. On a high-protein diet, he is aiming to lose three kilos to get to 70 kilos so he can enter in the lightweight category.
"It is kind of tough when your body weight is fairly low as it is," says Mr Butler. A winner at European level in 1997, he was unable to compete in the world championships when he tore a pectoral muscle.
A former weight trainer, he branched into body-building 15 years ago and now trains at the Olympic Gold club in John Street. Although body-building is not recognised as an Olympic sport, an Olympic committee does the drug-testing at the competitions.
Meanwhile, power-lifter Ger McNamara is training for the Irish Senior Power-Lifting Championships in Limerick in six weeks, where he expects to qualify for the world championships in Slovenia in November. It will be a demonstration event at the next Olympics.
A member of the Southill Power Lifting Club, Mr McNamara has been a world champion four times and a European champion eight times. An upholsterer by day, he trains three times a week and carries on the tradition of his great-grandfather, Jimmy McNamara, who he describes as a "strength athlete".
There are three types of power lift: the squat, the bench press and the dead lift. Mr McNamara broke the world record last year when he lifted 320 kilos in a squat lift with a body weight of 66 kilos.
"In 22 years, I have never had an injury. I handle 62 tonnes a week in training," he says.
His trainer, Mr Tommy Dillon, president of the Irish Power Lifting Federation, said there were three world champions in the club, which has 20 senior lifters. Its popularity grew from a Limerick tradition of weight training.
"One of the reasons that Limerick rugby has been so strong is that the players were using weights 10 years before any other club did them," he said.
Mr Dillon, now aged 59, is a former body-builder. He won two Mr Ireland titles, in 1975 and 1976. He has been a weight trainer for the past 43 years, ever since he got a present of a set of weights from his brother at the age of 16.
He is also a world record-holder, having broken the record for the bench press in his age group last November. He lifted 165 kilos on a body weight of 80 kilos.
"I have in the past held European records, lost them and got them again." As a coach, he is in the gym six nights a week, and trains before coaching sessions.
He insists on the distinction between body-builders and power-lifters. "There are muscles for showing off and there are muscles for strength. We are not in the habit of showing off muscles."