Nine months into his powerlifting career, Gerard Murphy was preparing to take to the stage of the Scottish Junior Championships. Four days before lift-off, his world came crashing down.
The 17-year-old from Shotts had only taken up powerlifting in January to freshen up his own training, having spent the majority of his childhood in boxing and other combat sports, but he soon learned new skills and fell in love with the sport.
Around the same time he began his journey in powerlifting, his mother Jane was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. With mum in his ear, Murphy dedicated himself to his training, qualifying for a first-timers event in August. It was the only time he would compete in front of her.
‘I lived with my grandparents but it was my mum who bought me all my kit,’ he says. ‘She wanted to take pictures of me in my kit. She went to my first competition with me and watched me compete.
‘She was excited, even though she was on the decline. After the competition, she had to go into the hospital, hospice care with Marie Curie.
‘She wanted to go see my next competition but she couldn’t because of her condition. I was going to get the live stream on my phone so she could see me, she was going to phone and all that stuff.
Murphy is making waves in the powerlifting world after the passing of his mum to ovarian cancer
Murphy’s mother Jane was a huge champion of her son’s move into powerlifting
Murphy’s 730kg total lift in the Scottish Junior Championships set a new record for a 16-year-old
‘Then, on the Wednesday afternoon before the competition, my grandfather was at the hospice with her and phoned me to inform me that my mother had passed away. It blew me away. She was my second-biggest supporter behind my grandfather. She was something else.’
Having placed second in that initial event, a first-timers competition up against two rivals aged 30 and 36 respectively, Murphy would go on to book his place at the Scottish Junior Championships on September 14.
When the call came from his grandfather that fateful Wednesday, however, Murphy went through the motions but decided there was only one thing he could do: compete.
‘Of course, I was gutted,’ he admits. ‘But I knew that she would have wanted me to compete and win for her.
‘On the day, I hit 730kg total — 275kg squat, 155kg bench and 300kg deadlift — making me, at the time, Scotland’s strongest Under-18 and the current strongest 16-year-old recorded in British history.
‘She still inspires me. Her and my gran, who passed away two or three years ago, they’re the reasons that I keep going. When the days are hard, I think that they wouldn’t want me to quit, they’d want me to keep going, better myself.’
Standing at 6ft 5in and weighing around 16st, it was no surprise that he eventually found his way to power lifting.
Working as an apprentice butcher, the flexibility afforded to him by his employer meant Murphy could dedicate as much time as he wanted to his new passion.
Having boxed during his childhood, the 17-year-old only started taking his gym experience more seriously in the last year or two, and at his last competition weighed in at just under 24st — 152.3kg.
Murphy only moved on to weights in a bid to slim down and help him with his boxing training
It has been quite the transformation for the youngster, admitting that he first went to the gym looking to slim down. Instead, Murphy has added muscle as much as mass to his huge frame.
‘I started going to the gym just after lockdown, I think I was around 14 at the time,’ he says. ‘So I went to the gym, just did a basic push, pull, legs split up until the start of this year.
‘It was my friend who actually got me into powerlifting and I loved it. As soon as I learned how to squat, bench and deadlift, I loved the sport.
‘At the time, I was going to boxing, I weighed about 16 stone. It was mostly fat, not a lot of muscle, I was feeling quite insecure to be honest. So my friend asked me to go to the gym with him, and I decided to start that.
‘Soon after, I quit boxing because my love for the gym was too much so I made the switch over.
‘Powerlifting is amazing. With boxing, it’s very fatiguing. Two or three days after training, I’d be completely sore. It’d be hard to move out of bed and was quite mentally draining. Whereas with powerlifting, the fundamentals are more laid-back. You go to a gym, you train two or three hours, you go home. It makes me stronger, that’s the main reason why I do it and enjoy it.’
Though he quickly fell in love with the sport, Murphy admits that he never envisaged a career on the platform. Now, however, the youngster has the next four years of his life planned out.
Now the young Scot has his sights set on a possible future career in Strongman competitions
‘When I first started, I got all the kit that I needed but I didn’t plan on competing at all, I just thought that it was a different approach to training,’ he admits.
‘It was learning the squat, bench and deadlift. They’re all hard to master — I’ve definitely not mastered them by any means.
‘But I’ve managed to get the form down to the point where I love going to the gym and training, even when it gets hard and some days you don’t want to go. But you need to go.
‘At the start, it wasn’t like that. I wasn’t on a programme at all, I just went, benched once or twice a week, deadlifted or squatted once or twice a week.
‘Now I want to become a full-time athlete. I’ve a couple of sponsors just at local level, one a kit supplier and the physio in my town as well.
‘But my goals in powerlifting are competing at the British Nationals in March, then hopefully land a spot on the Team GB roster, then the goal for next year is travelling around Europe competing.’
With the success of the Stoltman brothers in strongman, as well as the prestigious Rogue Invitational recently being held in Aberdeen, it’s safe to say the strongman community is thriving in Scotland.
Murphy eats over 3,000 calories a day as he primes his body for the rigours of his chosen sport
Would that ever be something that Murphy considered? ‘Strongman does appeal,’ he says. ‘As things stand, that’s probably my end goal.
‘All the great strongmen have started off in powerlifting as it’s a great base for the things you do in that world.
‘But at my current age, there’s a lot more opportunities for international competitions in powerlifting than in strongman, but I plan to make the switch in the next five years.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .