When clients at the Triton College Fitness Center in River Grove get instructions from personal trainer Alejandro “Alex” Jimenez, they’d best heed his advice.
After all, Jimenez is a world champion.
Jimenez, 28, of Cicero, won the 165-pound weight class at the World Powerlifting Congress in November at the Sheraton Lisle Naperville.
He had the best point total among lifters in his class in three categories.
How does it feel to be a world champion?
“Pretty good,” he said. “I’m really proud of all the work — the blood, sweat and tears — I did for the last 20 weeks.”
Jimenez, who stands 5-foot-6 and weighs 159 pounds, lifted two to three times his weight in the competition.
His best in the squat was 501 pounds. The squat has the lifter holding the bar with weights across his shoulders. The lifter then squats and stands up with the weighted bar across his back.
The bench press, where the lifter lies with his back on a bench, just like at your local gym, saw him lift 320 pounds, nearly twice his weight.
In the deadlift, grabbing the bar on the ground and lifting it high, Jimenez lifted a whopping 587.50 pounds, more than three times his weight.
He tried for more. Mother Nature prevailed.
“I passed out at 600 pounds. Lights out,” he said of his final deadlift attempt. “I’m alright. It took about 30 minutes to come back.”
Jimenez had been lifting weights since he was a sophomore at Morton East High School in Cicero.
“I didn’t know anything about training anybody. I just did my workouts. Everything I saw, I learned on YouTube,” he recalled.
While he was training with seven friends, a PE teacher took notice and told him “since you have half the class with you, why don’t you bring the rest of the class in,” Jimenez recalled.
“We put our brains together and came up with a (weightlifting) class on Fridays,” Jimenez said.
Years later, he’s not lost his passion for lifting weights, for striving to top his best. Why does he keep at it? It’s all about “the reward,” he said.
“You put in a lot of work to max out and when it comes out exactly the way you worked for, it’s very rewarding,” Jimenez said.
He hopes to share that rewarding feeling with the folks he works with at the fitness center, where he is a manager, and at his own gym, Barbell Fitness in Bensenville.
Asked what advice he has for non-competitive lifters, Jimenez said: “Most definitely patience.”
“There’s a lot to weightlifting,” he said. “It’s learning the movement, learning why you do it, how you do it, what it’s going to do for your body, why you need specific exercises.”
After high school, Jimenez earned his personal trainer certificate and associate degree in exercise science at Triton College.
He then earned his bachelor’s degree in exercise science from Concordia University.
Weight lifting has rewards but is not without its risks. Jimenez has endured injuries over the years.
“I’ve strained muscles, pulled things here and there, broken blood vessels, but nothing career ending thankfully. It’s not something I worry about,” he said.
Jimenez is thinking about next year when he may compete in the Amateur World Powerlifting Congress, a division of the WPC.
In the meantime, he’s happy to savor this year’s world championship which resulted in “a big celebration” at a nearby Paisans Pizzeria & Bar.
“I ordered a double-dough extra-cheese pizza, got a Guinness and went right to sleep after that,” Jimenez said.
Steve Metsch is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.