Powerlifting Has Been A Gamechanger For Mike Mayo

Mike Mayo is clearly the type of person who once he gets into something there’s no turning back — he’s fully engaged and ready to go.

The 59-year-old New York City resident, who has spent the past three decades living part-time in Westhampton Beach, has used that type of mentality in all aspects of his life and has found success in it — the Wells Fargo Securities managing director was voted the number one bank analyst in Institutional Investor magazine’s highly respected All-America Executive Team two years in a row in 2020 and 2021. So when Mayo, a regular on CNBC and Bloomberg TV, decided to try his hand at competitive weight lifting — a somewhat new sport for him — in December, he did what he’s always done and dove right in, full speed ahead.

Only the results weren’t what he was used to.

Competing at his first ever weightlifting competition at the USA Powerlifting Long Island Winter Showdown IV at RX Fit in Rocky Point on December 4, 2021, Mayo invited a bunch of his family and friends and he was pumped up and ready to go, only to fault on his first three squats and was disqualified from the competition.

“And there I was, on the platform, staring out at a lot of people,” he explained. “This was all new to me, and I was far out of my comfort zone. I got stage jitters. I felt humiliated after telling all my friends and family to be there in person. I felt horrible.

“To get disqualified, though, and still say I had a great day was progress for me. That was part of my journey.”

Mayo actually called it the “Rocky Point Paradox.” He was a bit discouraged, but rather than harping on it, he instead got back to work and entered his second competition, USA Powerlifting’s “Squats and Science” meet in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on April 30, where he won his age group. He finished eight of his nine lifts clean — missing the one on a technicality — finishing with a total of 923 pounds.

Mayo lifted 402 pounds in his deadlift, 285 pounds in his squat and 236 pounds in his bench press.

“The second meet went much better,” he said. “Just having done it once I learned I had made a ton of mistakes the first time around. Like, I didn’t have caffeine for the second meet. During that first meet, I was thinking I needed to take ‘XYZ’ before a big meet, so there I was taking extra-caffeinated drinks and I come to find out that probably made me jittery which certainly affected my lifts. And I didn’t cut any weight. Again, before my first meet, I thought it would be a good idea to drop some weight for whatever reason, which is apparently a big no-no also. So I didn’t cut weight, I didn’t go on any special diet, I had no caffeine, all I wanted to do was have good form, have fun and do the best I can, as opposed to thinking I was Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

Mayo did a lot of his training specifically for competition at JDI Barbell in East Harlem, where he was personally trained by the gym’s co-owner and strength coach, Alex Hall. A former competitive powerlifter himself, Hall said Mayo’s improvement in just a matter of months between competitions was impressive, but not surprising.

“Working with Mike has obviously been awesome. He can be very in his head about the lifts and what he’s doing wrong,” he said. “He likes to sit down and take notes while I’m talking to him — he’s very, very serious at whatever he does. One thing that I’ve learned about Mike working with him for over a year now is when he gets involved in something, whether it’s powerlifting or any other sport, he’s putting all his effort into it, which is great for me as a coach because I know he’s going to do the work.

“But at local meets, competition is not huge and it’s more about the war of attrition, and if you’ve made it that far to get to the competition and have stayed healthy, it’s more than likely you’re going to do well, so I wasn’t really surprised with any of his lifts,” Hall continued. “With Mike, it’s more of a mental hurdle — he’s got the strength. When he gets on the platform he tends to second guess and it affects his lifts. We were able to manage that and he did great.”

Mayo appreciates how far he’s come in the sport of powerlifting, but he’s getting more out of it than just medals. One of the reasons Mayo got into weight lifting was something he read not too long that people over 40 start to lose muscle mass at a faster rate, which can lead to a number of health issues, such as osteoporosis.

For someone who had gone through more than half his life thinking cardio was the way to get and stay healthy — Mayo was a lifelong runner and then cyclist — reading, hearing and learning that weight lifting could be the way to a more healthy life was eye-opening for Mayo and he wants to spread the word.

“The degree of importance of weight lifting was just lost on me. I grew up on books like ‘The Joy of Running,’ and Jack LaLanne and your waistline is your lifeline. In the 1970s, it was cardio, cardio, cardio,” he said. “But the deeper I get into weightlifting the more I appreciate the benefits and the better my overall body health is. But it’s almost like changing a religion.”

Weight lifting is beneficial for both men and women, young and old. Mayo recently met a 65-year-old woman who is lifting heavy weights and she just started three years ago. At JDI Barbell, there are three women there for weight less than 115 pounds, but have squatted over 300 pounds.

“It’s really opened up a whole new world that I didn’t even know existed,” Mayo said. “ And I’ve sort of gotten evangelistic of the benefits of weightlifting as you get older. I just never appreciated the benefits of it, and frankly, the good feeling that comes from weightlifting.”

Dr. Larry Maile, president of USA Powerlifting, said last year that something very interesting happened when some female athletes had their bone density checked at a national event in 2010.

“Progressive overload training can reverse the clock on the loss of bone density. Powerlifting is the ideal environment to stabilize bone loss, but more importantly, reverse bone loss,” he said. “In 2010, USA Powerlifting studied bone density among competitive powerlifters. At the Women’s Nationals, the three highest bone densities were found among master’s lifters (competitors 40 years old and up).”

Hall is also a big supporter of Mayo’s new lease on staying fit.

“I think everyone should be doing some sort of strength weight-bearing exercise,” he said. “As you get older, muscle bone density effects are real. Mike first came in with osteoporosis and now he’s almost like a nonperiodic, which is a combination of a number of factors. But I have several older runners who come in all twisted. Running and a lot cardio is super stressful on knees and hips, those are typically the first things to go, so strength training in combination with cardio is wonderful. It can help offset the effects. Strong muscles make strong bones and together they can support those joints better.”

Mayo’s goal is to reach the first big milestone for any powerlifter of 1,000 pounds total and to compete in the USA Powerlifting Nationals in the near future. While he still gets in cardio by cycling — Mayo is part of the Liberty Riders, a group of 30 or so people from the Westhampton area who bike throughout the East End — he’ll continue to practice what he now preaches.

“This is a life-changing evolution in my workout routine,” he said. “After 45 years of cardio, that’s more of the appetizer now while weight lifting is the main course. I can’t say good enough things about it.”