Lifting for a good cause

Chest heaving, eyes wide and unblinking like the centers of targets, Josh Schneider stared down at the barbell like he was silently brokering a deal with it.

I grab you, you become light as air. I grab you, you lose gravity.

His stout frame lurched forward, mitts seizing the bar and hoisting it upward, his twisted lips spraying a "huh!" before he dropped the weighted bar to the ground, sending a vibration through the floor.

He glanced at the clock. In three minutes and 43 seconds, he had lifted 115 pounds overhead 30 times.

He faintly accepted a high five from a bro as he stepped away.

"Like I want to lie down," he exclaimed between breaths about his status. "Glad it's over."

Lotus CrossFit in Coeur d'Alene looked like a den of masochists on Saturday, where men and women with daunting physiques engaged in self-propelled torture: The clean-and-jerk lift.

Before a crowd of supporters, competitors' taut muscles quivered under the stress. Veins bulged like licorice vines. Breath sputtered, sweat flowing free and sour.

And God bless 'em, they were doing it all for boobs.

"It's for a good cause," puffed Michelle Tufford as she knelt to the floor after finishing her lifts.

Along with CrossFits around the world, the gym was raising funds to benefit breast cancer detection through "Barbells For Boobs," a clean-and-jerk competition.

The roughly 40 contestants, mostly CrossFit members from across Eastern Washington and North Idaho, aimed to complete 30 of the lifts in the shortest time possible.

The clean-and-jerk looks like an easy way to hasten cardiac arrest. After sliding on weights roughly the size of Mini Cooper tires, lifters hoist a barbell to the chest, then heave it all the way up with elbows fully extended and legs scissored, looking like a pain-gripped cheerleader.

For Tufford, surrounded by a cheering crowd as she wavered in the final lifts, the agony was a small price to pay to help save lives.

"It's got to be better than what they're going through," she said of women undergoing cancer treatment. "Just being a woman, I want to support that kind of thing."

Rochelle Gleave and Alicia Caldejon were the shortest adult competitors in the room, looking like buff pixies as they loaded up 95 pounds on their barbells.

"That's CrossFit. It teaches you about self reliance," Caldejon said, adding that she wasn't nervous. "You see other people struggling to get through with you. You're feeling some pain, but you're finishing it."

She wanted to prove she could do it, she said. But beyond that, she hoped to raise funds to fuel detection of the disease that has affected both her grandmothers and her mother.

"One after the other, you don't have time to grieve in between," she said. "It's amazing inspiration you get out of these experiences. They were all survivors."

Nic Lowry had persuaded several of his fellow officers at the Coeur d'Alene Police Department to lift, though he was one of only a few with CrossFit training.

"For my line of work, it's really fundamental training," he explained.

He just thought the event was a good cause and a nice bonding experience for the guys, he said. He had personally prepared with his CrossFit training, which he pushes himself through five days a week.

"Mental fortitude," he said of how he completes the lifts. "Just fighting through it mentally."

It was advice even helpful for the several participants of single-digit ages. Some kids lifted plastic pipes, others like 8-year-old Dylon Moore hoisted a 15-pound bar, his eyes boring ahead while his father Greg watched his technique from a few feet away.

Cheers echoed through the room when the youth finished the final lift and dropped the bar with a heavy breath.

His mother Jennifer Brumley had no concerns.

"He's been going to the gym since he was 6, mostly watching," she said. "I think fitness is great, and weight lifting is a key component to staying in shape."

Lotus CrossFit Owner Eve Fatz said her business had raised over $4,000 by Saturday morning, and can continue to bring in donations until Oct. 31.

Although her location has only been only about six weeks, she added, she was eager to host the event because there were no others in the area.

It also gave her a chance herself to compete in the clean-and-jerk lifts, which she performed smoothly as her time-counter egged her on with encouragement.

"Crossfitters in general are just charitable minded people," Fatz said. "They love to pick a cause to work out for."