Westover athlete ‘presses’ to the top Published March 17, 2006 By Airman 1st Class Timm Huffman 439th Airlift Wing Public Affairs WESTOVER AIR RESERVE BASE, Mass. -- An aircraft maintainer from here is pumped up for the Amateur Athlete Union National Bench Press Championships in Baltimore, Md., March 25. Senior Airman Rick F. Marrama of the 439th Maintenance Squadron lifted 556 pounds to win the single-lift bench press event in the 198-pound body weight class in a World Association of Benchers and Deadlifters meet in Reno, Nev. 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 Nov. 19. Airman Marrama began working out in the gym when he was 9. He started competing 10 years ago when he was 13. In high school, he competed and won at the national levels four times. Since then, he has out-muscled the competition in about a dozen local events, as well as a national bench-press competition held in Connecticut. It’s not easy to achieve these victories, said Airman Marrama. “In order to be better, you’ve got to work at it,” he said. Airman Marrama spends about 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. His long-term training goal is to be the first person to lift 600 pounds with a one-ply bench shirt at his current weight class. He also wants to break the 700-pound mark wearing a two-ply bench shirt. Bench shirts are often made out of polyester or denim. They help lifters perform better than if they were wearing a cotton shirt. Airman Marrama says that if he breaks these two records, he will be ranked first in the country for his weight class. (AFRC News Service)