Westover athlete ‘presses’ to the top

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Timothy J. Huffman
  • 439th Airlift Wing
WESTOVER AIR RESERVE BASE, Mass --  A Patriot Wing maintainer recently placed first in a World Bench Meet held in Reno, Nev.
Senior Airman Rick F. Marrama, of the 439th MXS, won the November meet after bench pressing 556 pounds at a body weight of 198 pounds. Airman Marrama, who is ranked fifth in the country in the bench press, was also named best lifter in his weight class at the competition. 

Airman Marrama, 23, has been lifting for 10 years now, and has won many other weight-lifting competitions. In high school, he competed and won at the national levels four times. Since then, he has won a dozen or so local bench press competitions, as well as a national bench press competition held in Connecticut. 

It’s not easy to achieve these victories, either, he said. “In order to be better, you’ve got to work at it,” Marrama said. He says he spends approximately two hours every other day training for his meets. At the weight level he is training at, a gain of only five pounds takes a lot of work, he said. 

This Westover athlete is currently training for a national level competition to be held in March. He says his long-term training goal, though, is to be the first person to lift 600 pounds with a one-ply bench shirt at his current weight class. Airman Marrama also wants to break the 700 pound mark wearing a two-ply bench shirt. He says that if he breaks these two records, he will be ranked first in the country for his class. 

Airman Marrama, who grew up around the sport, says his trainer has been one of the key people in helping him get to his current level of achievement. “I owe him everything,” he says, of the trainer he has known since he was in Boys and Girls Club as a youngster.