RUSSELLVILLE — Fifth Judicial District Deputy Prosecutor Jeff Phillips of Russellville started lifting weights in high school to rehabilitate his back and discovered the sport fueled his competitive nature.
He kept hitting the weights while he hit the books as a student at Arkansas Tech University and continued through law school at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
“I was hooked,” he said. “I didn’t know how good I was at it, but I knew I really enjoyed it.”
Pretty darn good, it turns out. Phillips, 50, entered his first powerlifting competition in 1991, and since then has traveled the world while winning powerlifting competitions.
A few weeks ago in Pennsylvania, he competed with 1,200 lifters — many of them half his age — to qualify for his third U.S. Powerlifting World team. After he won his division — the Masters 145-pound weight class — he received a formal invitation to be on the team for the third year. The Classic World Championships will be in June in Killeen, Texas.
“We will all join up together. You train in your own area; you stay in contact on social media,” he said. “You’re on a U.S. national team, but you compete against the world.”
This year’s world competition was in Helsinki, Finland, where he won a silver medal. In Finland, he squatted 402 pounds, benched 255 pounds and deadlifted 505 pounds.
“A Great Britain guy beat me. It was the first time I’d lost to someone my age in 12 years, but he was a phenomenal lifter,” Phillips said.
“It was amazing; I was able to take my oldest daughter with me because she likes to travel,” he said. Phillips said he has to pay for the cost of travel, although equipment companies provide some of the team equipment. “It’s sort of like how the Olympics used to be before corporate sponsors took over,” he said.
Traveling the world is one of the perks of the sport.
Last year, he traveled by himself to Johannesburg, South Africa, for a 10-day event, “because I didn’t know how safe it was going to be,” Phillips said.
He won the gold medal for the United States as the oldest person in his class.
“I don’t think I could have gone to two more different parts of the world,” he said. “Finland embraced us, and so did South Africa.”
Phillips said he makes friends from other countries, and it’s interesting to experience the different cultures.
“The Australians are in the corner yelling and screaming; the Russians are standing off not talking to anybody,” he said. “It’s the most amazing thing.”
His teammates hail from all over the United States.
“I was the only Arkansas representative in Africa,” and there was one other Arkansan competing in Finland. Phillips will be the sole Arkansas representative in Texas, too.
He said the French, English and Australians “are great folks,” and his thoughts have been with his competitors in France since the recent terrorist attacks in Paris.
Although he’s been competing in national events since he started 20-plus years ago, he said the international competitions have been going on for only two or three years “because it takes so much coordination between all these countries.”
Phillips competes in the 145-pound weight class. He usually weighs about 160 pounds, so he drops the weight slowly but surely before competitions.
Gone are his days of doing “crazy” diets, he said.
“I go about six weeks out to where I just start losing weight in small increments. I’ll cut out sweets, and I’ll drop some weight from that, and then I’ll cut out carbohydrates, … then just cut the calories,” he said. Phillips said he starts craving carbs then and has to stay strong mentally.
“It’s as much a battle as the lifting,” Phillips said.
He works out after work with “the younger folks,” he said. “When I’m getting ready, I train three, four days a week.”
He said weightlifting has helped him stave off the normal aches and pains of age, and the sport helps him manage stress.
“I deal with stuff that can cause a person to have a lot of stress and anger,” Phillips said. He has a part-time contract with the state to represent abused and neglected children, and he sometimes handles those cases in his personal practice.
He said hitting the weights hard after a bad day helps. His family also takes notice that working out puts him in a better mood, he said with a laugh.
Phillips and his wife, Page, have three children: Jacob, 22; Molly Grace, 19; and Harper, 10.
“I think it helps me focus better, too,” he said.
Russellville Mayor Randy Horton said he thinks Phillips’ physique “plays well in his professional life. He has a presence that people take him very seriously.”
Horton said he always knew Phillips was “in shape and healthy, but I figured he was just another gym rat.” The mayor said he learned earlier this year about Phillips’ powerlifting accomplishments. “He’s serious and very good at it,” Horton said.
Phillips attributes his success in powerlifting to several factors.
“I think good genes are very important; I beat a lot of my competitors in my age class just by lasting longer than they do,” he said. “It’s trial and error more than anything. The more experience you have at something, the better you’re going to be at it.”
He said being relatively injury-free has been a plus, and he has “extreme amounts of technique.”
“Young folks are stronger than me, but if they don’t have the technique and form, I’m going to outlift them,” he said.
“I’m just going to try to stay healthy and compete and make the teams.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.