Don Reinhoudt: Superheavyweight Power Champion - Manley J. Anderson (1976)

 

Don in his parents' basement home gym. 

National and world superheavyweight powerlifting champion Don Reinhoudt has traversed the iron game gamut to find his niche in the sport. 

Don began his serious love affair with the weights as a bodybuilder, managing a 32 inch waist at 250 pounds. 

The Fredonia, N.Y. native then turned to the Olympic lifts while majoring in accounting at Hamnel University in Akron, Ohio, as a transfer from Parsons College, Fairfield, Iowa. In the Buckeye city he came under the tutelage of the late Larry Barnholth, then the aging mentor at the American College of Modern Weightlifting. 

Don had competed in four or five Olympic meets as a 248-pounder when he found himself at the Junior Nationals in York in 1967. He had only about six months Olympic training under his belt and lacked the polished techniques of the finished lifter. 

Reinhoudt  found himself out-totaled by 165-pounder Fred Lowe. 

"It was humiliating, downright humiliating," Don recalled. It was his final Olympic competition. 

He might have dumped it all right there except for a chance meeting at a lifting contest in Columbus, Ohio, on Dec. 3, 1967. Don was competing as a heavyweight and an attractive girl was the scorekeeper.

Reinhoudt's coach kept running between them, urging his lifter to become acquainted with her. Don finally asked her name and address. He learned that she was Cindy Wyatt and both called the western New York area home.

405 @ 165

The distance between Fredonia and Williamsville, near Buffalo, wasn't that great and the couple was married in May, 1969. Don says of his wife, "If it hadn't been for Cindy, I never would have competed in powerlifting."

Cindy Reinhoudt has had and continues her own distinguished sports career, which includes weightlifting. She began lifting to improve her performance in track and now lifts for pleasure. 

Don describes her as "one of the strongest women in the world" and her accomplishments back his statement. At 17, she jerked 230 pounds overhead -- considered a world record for a person of her bodyweight at that time. 

Cindy now competes as an extra lifter in men's contests since organized women's events are almost non-existent. Her best competition lifts are: 385 squat, 205 bench, and 330 deadlift. Training lifts have reached 440, 225, and 360. 

Cindy has been a member of eight international teams as a shot putter or discus thrower and participated in the 1963 Pan American Games. She dripped out of competition from 1966-71 but was encouraged by her husband to return. 

Cindy was a member of the American team that competed against the Russians in Durham, N.C., and has represented the U.S. in her specialties in Germany, Russia, Poland, England and Brazil. 

Mrs. Reinhoudt has a long acquaintance with the iron game and some of its dominant personalities. While attending the University of Hawaii for three years, she trained with two of weightlifting's near-immortals -- Tommy Kono and Pete George. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of Buffalo and was studying for her master's in psychology at Ohio State when she met Don at the Columbus meet. 

The rest of the story has became powerlifting history. Don entered his first power meet in Erie, Pa., in 1970 while weighing about 280 pounds. 

He always has lifted as a superheavy and in his initial outing managed 670 in the squat, 440 bench, and 630 dead. The result was a highly respectable 1,740 at a time when the world record was about 2,020 pounds. 

Reinhoudt made steady progress in successive meets, totaling 2,005 within a year after his first contest at a bodyweight of about 300. 

He continued to improve and sewed up his first Nationals in Stillwater, Oklahoma three years ago and repeated again at Fort Worth, Texas last year. His latest success came in York where he was humiliated in 1967 but returned this year to cop his third powerlifting nationals with what for Don was a "low" 2,242.

As for his 832 in the squat, Reinhoudt explained, "I'm not comfortable with the lift right now." His best competitive lifts are: 914.5 squat, 606 bench and 855.5 dead, along with a 2,420 total. 

All are world records except the 914 which dropped by the wayside when Joe White of New York City managed 920 t this year's nationals. Reinhoudt, admittedly a very conservative lifter, took only what he knew he could make and needed to win. 

Joe White, Bruce Klemens photo. 

Don describes his best training lifts as a 900 squat for a triple, 590 for 2 in the bench, and 800 for a triple in the deadlift. 

The western New York native feels he has the potential for a 2,500 total, with a capability of 950-960 in the squat. Cindy Reinhoudt believes her husband is capable of 950 right now on a good day. 

Both husband and wife agreed on a deadlift potential of 900 and a bench of 650. 

Cindy pointed out that during all his lifting years Don has trained alone or with her as his training partner. 

He works out four days a week, two hours a session, in a gym in the basement of his parents' home. The ton of iron it contains is put to use almost exclusively on the power lifts. 

Don likes about 14 weeks to cycle for a contest, normally entering three meets a year. He feels his optimum competing weight is 355 but he prefers to drop down to about 330 following a contest in the belief he gains strength as he builds back toward the 355 level.

The Reinhoudts prepare charts to projet the levels Don would like to be at during certain points in his training regimen. These are maintained on a daily workout basis and as the time for a meet gets closer the lifter may exceed them, if possible. 

Don feels such an approach helps avoid overtraining during the early preparation. He usually reaches his peak about three weeks before a contest and spends the balance of his time maintaining this level. 

If there are points coach-trainer Cindy Reinhoudt faults her athlete-husband on during his lifting appearances it's his affability and availability. 

She explained he is too available to the hordes of autograph seekers, the well-wishers and the inevitable hangers-on during the competition. She feels this distracts him from his concentration and potential. 

Don agreed and said that some hideaway or secluded aria would take some of the fan pressure off and possibly contribute to an improved contest -- with time left at its conclusion for the expected social amenities. 

Reinhoudt credits four-time world champion and many-time champion Larry Pacifico with playing a major role in his lifting career. In 1973, big Don had a chance to return the favor. Pacifico was depressed and felt like giving up the sport. A letter from Don persuaded him to continue in competition and the Fredonia resident predicts that in England this year Larry will nail down another world title at 220 pounds. 

The Reinhoudts cherish the acquaintances and friendships they have made through their sport. Although their home is filled with Cindy's cased medals and Don's trophies as mementoes of their travels and triumphs, there is one plaque that is particularly valued. It is the one received from Larry Pacifico expressing appreciation for Don's concern when the Ohio lifter was ready to desert the platform. 

Reinhoudt himself initially gave some thought to retiring from competition after this year's world meet. Now, however, with three nationals and two worlds under his belt, he has set a goal of four championships at each level. If he can win this year's competition in Birmingham, he'll try to fulfill his objective next year. 

Don admitted he has no knowledge of who might try to wrest his crown from him at the English event. "I always train for competition against anyone," he explained, "and it's hard to say what countries will send men over." 

Although Cindy is a seasoned veteran of international competition, the big powerlifter's trip to England will mark his initial adventure abroad. He discussed it with the bubbling enthusiasm of a youngster heading for his first Cub Scout campout. 

Don normally has experienced only the routine aches and pains well known to the lifting fraternity but in 1974 he suffered his most serious injury -- a pulled groin. It kept him out of competition for most of the year and he was advised by his doctor to stop training. He was preparing for the nationals at the time, kept up his lifting and won the title. 

At 6-3, Don, now 30, has a chest measurement of more than twice his age. His arms stretch the tape to a full 22 inches, his tremendous wrists go 9.5 inches and his feet are size 15. 

He admits to eating frequently but not large amounts at any time. 

Don tried to eat well-balanced meals and supplements them with liquid and powdered protein along with B-12, vitamin C and desiccated liver. He's not much on sweets but admits a weakness for ice cream.

Big Don, who looks like he should be a standby in case a crane in an area factory breaks down, toils instead with adding machines, calculators, ledgers and typewriters. As a member of the Reinhoudt family accounting firm, which he joined in 1968 after completing his education, his responsibilities are primarily in accounting, bookkeeping and payrolls. Cindy is employed as a team leader in a unit of Gowanda State Hospital, a mental health facility. 

Don's father, also a county legislator, is a talented musician and vocalist but pursued no athletic interests. The lifter says his sister also is not athletically oriented, leaving it only for his mother to have such inclinations. 

Don was graduated in 1963 from Fredonia Central High School where he made all-league offensive and defensive end in football in his senior year at a weight of about 205. He feels he may have had potential for a professional gridiron career if a scholarship and additional coaching had been available.

He held all western New York records for the shotput with what Cindy described as "no coaching, football cleats and unbelievably bad conditions." Reinhoudt was all-league in basketball during his high school career and still was able to dunk the ball at a weight of 248 and touch the rim at 300. 

In his first acquaintance with the weights in a high school gym class, he managed a press of 240 at a bodyweight of 205. At the time, Don had no feeling for weightlifting and never had an inkling he would get into the sport. 

When he began lifting as an 18-year-old freshman at Parsons College it was to improve his performance with the shotput. He threw the shot for a year, with his best as a 53-foot toss with a 16-pound ball, performed in what Cindy referred to as "atrocious form." 

Don admitted that when he began lifting in college he had aa dream of being something real good. "I just kept getting bigger and bigger and the strength just kept on coming," is the way he described it. It seemed inevitable he eventually would turn to powerlifting as his specialty. 

The Reinhoudts are members of Fredonia Methodist Church where they taught junior high Sunday school for about three years. Don was a member of the local volunteer fire department but eventually gave it up. He found himself splitting the biggest jackets available and his size 15 feet presented a major problem. A special pair of boots was ordered for him but someone else usually climbed into them before he reached the fire house. As a result, he was often left behind without suitable footwear. 

The community is solidly behind Don and a fundraising campaign is being conducted to make the trip to England less taxing on the Reinhoudt budget. 

Don admits that while he expects to drop out of active competition if he realizes his announced objective, he never will quit training. "I'll probably be lifting weights on my deathbed," he commented. 

And while his dream of "being something really good" has been transformed from vision to reality, Don is loathe to take credit for the accomplishment. 

"My wife is the biggest backbone I have in my lifting," he observed, concluding. "REALLY, WITHOUT HER I COULDN'T HAVE ATTAINED ANYTHING I HAVE TODAY."

They add up to a great team and a credit to the powerlifting fraternity -- 

Don and Cindy Reinhoudt. 

Enjoy Your Lifting! 

and your friendships.