Heart of a champion LIFESTYLE
Calgary powerlifting champion finds new strategies for staying competition ready
Bryce Krawcyzk is a Calgary-based championship powerlifter, former IPF world record holder, trainer and owner at Calgary Barbell. PHOTO: IPF WORLD 2016 RECAP/YOUTUBE HALEN KOOPER hkooper@cjournal.ca
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algary-based championship powerlifter Bryce Krawcyzk has had to put many athletic plans on hold due to the pandemic. He’s still managed to remain in shape by training at home. But COVID-19 has forced him to change who he’s competing against and how he’s helping others bulk up. Krawczyk started to powerlift when he was 24 years old because he felt he was too skinny and wanted to put on some weight. However, bodybuilding never interested him as much. “The prospect of competing in bodybuilding really 14 MARCH/APRIL 2020 CALGARYJOURNAL.CA
didn’t appeal to me very much. And powerlifting was one of the other sports that was a part of the whole strength world,” said Krawczyk. In the nine years since then, Krawcyzk has amassed a number of accolades. He is a three time Canadian Powerlifting Union national champion, an International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) silver medalist and a former IPF world record holder. Krawczyk also now runs his fitness coaching company Calgary Barbell out of Andrew Bolinger’s Strength’s Edge powerlifting and strongman gym and hosts regular powerlifting competitions. However, the pandemic put an end to those competitions.
“I know there’s some that are still going on, but I don’t know that myself or Andrew are comfortable forcing the issue when the regulations are still pretty grey,” Krawcyzk said. Krawcyzk did a local competition last June and got to see firsthand just what is necessary to have these competitions up and running. “It was a very interesting experience in terms of rotating volunteers, and social distancing and sanitizing everything in between every flight, the number of lifters allowed to compete,” said Krawcyzk. “Even if you were coaching for the whole day, you’d have to leave between sessions every time and sign back in. There was a lot of tracking.”