Raising the bar

Al Speach plugs tiny white headphones into his ears, cranks up some Carolina shag music and twists his face into a nasty grimace. He plops down on a padded blue bench and shoves 300 pounds of metal toward the ceiling.

Speach holds the weight with arms extended before dropping it on his robust chest. His ribs flex under weight heavier than a kitchen refrigerator.

“Bbbrrrr,” Speach growls as he pushes. Forearm veins thick as pencils, his bloodshot eyes swell. His neck, flush with blood, turns a reddish purple.

As he slowly moves the weight skyward, a spotter reaches to help. Speach shoos him off like a stray dog.

“I got it,” he barks defiantly. Speach completes the lift, air bursting from his lungs like a surfacing dolphin. He stands up and adjusts his Navy blue Villanova cap.

“Let’s do 315,” he says.

Speach is one of the big guys at the Naples Community Hospital gym off Immokalee Road, one of the thick-necked weight pumpers in the far corner, past the rows of treadmills and Nautilus machines.

At 62, he’s the oldest powerlifter in the gym and clearly not the weakest. Some nearby men in their 20s and 30s struggle to budge half the weight Speach is pressing.

Speach already holds the state record for bench press in his age and weight class with 330 pounds, and he’s ranked No. 2 in the country in those categories by the USAPL, the nation’s top powerlifting sanctioning body.

Photo by TRISTAN SPINSKI, Daily News

Al Speach lifts 315 pounds during his chest workout with his son Nick. Speach plans on competing in the power lifting event in this weekend’s Sunshine State Games. “The biggest thing is to understand the weight in your mind,” Speach says, describing a lift. “I want to feel the weight mentally before I even touch the bar.”

This weekend Speach hopes to break his state record at the Florida State Sunshine Games in Miami, a 24-sport annual event that’s expected to draw 6,000 participants this year. His for goal Sunday’s competition is 340 pounds — and another overall victory in the 220-pound class for men in their 60s.

“He’ll win,” his son and lifting partner Nick Speach, 24, says. “He always does.”

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In his business and family life, Speach is a real estate broker building a retiree’s dream. He’s married, and all three kids are out of college. His first social security check is coming in November.

Sixty-two can be a sweet age, a much-deserved second life of sorts. Time to invest in a closet full of jumpsuits and a $1,000 set of golf clubs. But Speach is not that kind of guy.

For him, powerlifting is the answer, and in some ways Zen-like and soothing. It gives Speach a chance to abandon life’s concerns for 10 seconds at a time, and it helps him focus his mind and body on one painful and seemingly meaningless task: Drop 300 pounds on his chest and push.

When it works, Speach steadily shoves the bar up and rests it on the rack. When it doesn’t, a spotter, usually son Nick, grabs the bar and helps.

Some sports — like ballet and soccer — are renowned for beauty and grace. But that’s not lifting.

Photo by TRISTAN SPINSKI, Daily News

Al Speach, left, and his son Nick take a break during their workout at NCH Health Center gym in North Naples. Dad plans to compete in the powerlifting event in this weekend’s Sunshine State Games, where he holds the state record for the bench press.

Unlike team sports, there’s no Machiavellian manager flashing signals from the dugout. No string of football coaches cursing from the sidelines. No one draws up plays or argues with referees.

Speach says good technique can add 20 pounds to a lifter’s max, but there’s simply not much strategy in being flat-out strong. One quick burst, one simple compression. It’s not subjective. You either lift the weight or you don’t.

It is, however, a challenge, a symbolic exercise that pits Speach against 300 pounds of indifferent metal.

“The biggest thing is to understand the weight in your mind,” Speach says, describing a lift. “I want to feel the weight mentally before I even touch the bar.”

From there it’s muscle memory and consistent form.

“I put my hands on the exact same place on the bar every time. My eyes are on the same spot. I’m arching my back the same, and then I take it off the rack,” he continues. “If you’re off mentally at that point, it can ruin everything.”

Speach is a physical abnormality. He’s one of the strongest guys in Naples, even at retirement age. He doesn’t eat a strict, limiting diet — pizza and pasta are a main staple — and he doesn’t drink protein shakes or take supplements.

Football analysts call it “country strong,” someone who is just born stout and stays that way, lifting or not.

The music helps, he admits. He plugs the headphones in when he lifts anything, from a 5-pound plate to a 300-pound press.

“It’s soothing, stuff I used to listen to when I was a kid,” he says of his favorite band, Bill Deal and the Rhondels. He calls the genre Carolina shag, but the beachy rhythm and blues style goes by many names.

Nicks isn’t a fan and points and laughs as his dad talks about 1950s hits.

“You shut up,” Speach says jokingly.

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Nick Gandy works for the Florida Sports Foundation, sponsor of the Florida Sunshine State Games. Gandy says he’s always surprised by the fitness level and competitive drive of older athletes like Speach.

“He’s strong,” Gandy says. “It’s really amazing to see people his age doing what they’re doing. But people like Al come out every year, and it’s good to see.”

Last year, Speach competed against five other lifters in his weight and age class. He took top honors, and expects to do the same on Sunday.

“There are guys 65 years old who run marathons. I can’t run to my car in the morning,” Speach says. “I have a shirt that says it all, ‘I’m not that smart but I can lift anything.’”

His son Nick is pretty strong, too. He can press 300 pounds plus, but he can’t top Dad just yet.

“I have to get stronger all the time, because one day he’s going to beat me,” Speach says. “And that won’t be good.”

Nick smiles, already savoring the future.

For now, the elder Speach has bragging rights, although Nick is tops in one feat of strength.

“I can beat him at arm wrestling,” Nick says. “But it’s only the left hand, and that’s just because he blew out his shoulder. If it weren’t for the injury, he’d beat me in that, too.”

Training for events like the State Games also gives Speach a chance to spend time with Nick, who spent four years at Villanova University in Philadelphia before moving to Naples and working as an engineer.

Now the two are inseparable at the gym. Speach hopes to continue the powerlifting family tradition and his close relationship with his youngest son.

“He pushed me,” Speach says of his son. “And I hope to stay with it. Who knows, maybe this time next year I’ll be going for 370.”

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The Florida State Sunshine Games take place at the Miami Fairgrounds and Expo through Sunday. Events and times are listed at www.flasports.com.