By Gail Wood
Treacy Duerfeldt has discovered a new motivation for lifting weights – to fight polio.
Motivated by his past – he’s lifted weights since he was twelve and he’s been a Rotarian since 1991 – Duerfeldt will be both weight lifter and polio fighter later this month. In his unique fundraiser on March 21, Duerfeldt will attempt to lift the max weight at all 25 weight machines in less that 70 minutes at the Valley Athletic Club.
That works out to over 6,000 pounds.
“I’m doing this crazy stuff because there are people who can’t do normal stuff,” Duerfeldt said.
In October, Duerfeldt’s “crazy stuff” plan began with Saturday morning workouts. Every Saturday, Duerfeldt, who is 47, weighs 250 pounds and stands 6’1″, has worked out on every weight machine at the Valley, doing several reps at every stop. He has lifted the max weight at each machine, but never all in one day. In his weekly workouts, he does about eight reps at a manageable weight.
“My training focus has been on injury prevention and cardio tolerance,” Duerfeldt said.
Which means in his hour and a half workouts, he doesn’t take long breaks between lifts, simulating his challenge day. The most he’s done in one day is 20 machines. Four machines – that work the hamstring, shoulders, biceps and the butterfly for the triceps – give him the most problems. Bench press – which is 300 pounds – is something he’s done regularly. The heaviest lift is the leg press, which is 500 pounds.
Come challenge day, he plans on lifting a max weight every three minutes, giving him little time to recoup between lifts. It’s the pace of the lifts that’s got him worried.
“I’m hoping I can do it,” Duerfeldt said. “We’ll see.”
He’s built, as he says, an “escape clause” into his challenge. He can substitute a lift – like the bicep machine he struggles with – with another machine if he does 10 reps on it. He can substitute one lift with another twice.
In his PR attempt to raise interest for his fundraiser, Duerfeldt has compared his feat to the old folktale of John Henry, who raced against a machine in pounding railroad spikes into the ground. Like old John Henry, Duerfeldt is matching his strength against a machine.
“I said how can I make this interesting?” Duerfeldt said. “What about man versus machine? The legend of John Henry.”
From that came the image of Duerfeldt’s fundraiser that’s posted on his website. The image is the smashing of the respirator machine polio victims sometimes had to use to breath back in the ’50s.
Besides his Saturday workouts on the machines, Duerfeldt lifts free weights, pushing the bars and dumbbells, on Wednesdays, working out with weights twice a week. To help with his conditioning, Duerfeldt also plays tennis several times a week and works out on a rowing machine, the Elliptical and the StairMaster.
For nearly 40 years, Rotary has partnered with other programs in a fight against polio.
In the 1940s and ’50s, polio broke out in the United States, scaring the nation. Images of children in leg braces and on crutches on March of Dime posters moved the country. Jonas Salk became the man “who saved the children” when he made the polio vaccine, eradicating the disease in the U.S. At its peak, one in 5,000 children were effected by polio in the U.S. It’s been over 20 years since there’s been a polio case in the United States.
Last year, there were 300 reported polio cases worldwide.
On March 21, Duerfeldt, who is a program manager for a financial consultant firm, will do his “man versus machine” fundraiser starting at 1:30 p.m. at the Valley. He plans to raise about $2,000. In addition to the money, he hopes to raise the awareness of the fight to eradicate polio worldwide. Rotary has been a longtime partner in the fight against polio, highlighting Duerfeldt’s interest.
“We don’t need this stuff coming back,” Duerfeldt said. “The fact that we saw it move from Pakistan to Syria recently, it was a weapon against civilians. That is so wrong.”
The Taliban were killing health care volunteers administering polio vaccinations in that region.
“They claim they thought we were poisoning people,” Duerfeldt said. “Yeah right, we were removing their biological weapons.”
Duerfeldt’s dream is to eradicate polio worldwide.
