Have you ever seen the “old guy” tooling down the highway in an expensive Euro road bike that cost quite a few thousand dollars and decked out his favorite team speed suit which shows much more than you would ever want to see on an old dude? I’m sure you have and you probably have seen the young kid, wearing his food service clothes on his way to work, riding an old beater Walmart bike blow right past the decked out geezer like he was standing still.

I may be “that guy”.

Whatever sport or recreation I have played in, I have always liked to have good foorwear. Good running shoes have always been a must. For inline skating, nothing less than expensive custom-molded Bont carbon fiber boots did it for me.

Now that I am Olympic lifting, squatting and pressing, I had to make sure I got some good weightlifting shoes. My first pair were Do-Wins and added a little flair by getting them in blue suede. It could have, and probably should have stopped with that because, after all, I am a novice lifter and what I had was good enough.

Then the 2008 Olympics came and Val had heard that Nike was introducing a weightlifting shoe called the Romaleos, specifically made for three national teams, the Chinese, the Ukrainian and of course, the USA. She was able to get a pair of these one week after they were made available to the public and they became a terrific birthday present. While excited with my gift of great footwear, I was slightly self-conscious walking into the gym and training with all my heavier-lifting, stronger brothers, but I got over it quickly as the shoes were significantly better than my more-than adequate Do-Wins.

Christmas 2009 and lo and behold, I have yet another pair of top-of-the-line weightlifting shoes, the defacto standard, Adidas Adistar. As you saw in the picture above, they are beautiful…and obvious.

I have become “that guy” who can never come close to reaching the upper threshold of his equipment, but looks damn good doing it, and even that is debateable. (make sure you are watching the shoes, not my technique)!. There is nothing like lacing up your high-performance shoes to get ready for a great day of training or competition. Have fun with it but remember, there is some cute, young babe that will be rolling into your gym with Nike cross-trainers who will use your max effort set for a quick warm-up!

 

 

 

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