What is powerlifting?

[It] consists of 3 different lifts: hang clean, bench and squat. You total your best lift out of those three lifts and that’s how you get your overall score, and that’s how they decide the winner.

How long have you been powerlifting?

All through high school, so this is my fourth year.

How did you get started powerlifting?

How often do you lift?

Pretty much every day during the week I’m lifting. On the weekends I kind of take it off, but usually every morning.

Does someone help you?

Yeah, my dad definitely helps me out a lot with lifting just form and stuff. Of course, the coaches do when we’re in [Strength and Conditioning] and Zero Hour so those are probably the people that help me a lot.

What is hard about powerlifting?

Usually there is a lot of good lifters at the meets, and you really have to challenge yourself to get past some of those other lifters. Often, you’ll have some close numbers and you’ll really have to go a little extra and fuel more pounds.

What precautions do you take to keep yourself safe when powerlifting?

What is your biggest accomplishment while powerlifting?

What is your biggest hardship? How did you overcome it?

Hang clean has actually been a struggle. That’s probably the weakest of the three lifts up until this last season, but that was my struggle over the last four years for me but I really picked up this last year.

How did you feel when you won state?

I was pretty excited to win it again. You know it’s something I really looked forward to it all year and we finally got there and it happened and I was really excited.

What is your personal best lift?

Squat. At a meet, the most I’ve done is 585[pounds].

What is one thing you wish everyone knew about powerlifting?

There are a lot of people that don’t do it unless they see themselves medaling. Every time they don’t really want to do it, but I feel like you just need to give it a shot because it’s more about seeing your personal best than anything. I think a lot of people miss that. That would honestly make it a better sport around here because we only have a few people that do it consistently. It was me and my brother mostly this year, and we have a lot of people that if they knew what it was about, they would make every meet.

What is your favorite powerlift event?

I like the bench press the best. It’s kind of one of those lifts where it’s not so technical that whether you get it or not there’s not as many rules so can really just see how strong you actually are on that one – it’s not so technical.

 What is the most dangerous thing about powerlifting?

Probably squats. There’s some people that do a lot more than they probably should be doing just to try and win. You’ll see some people just bail poorly – poor form and they’ll potentially crush limbs, fingers and stuff, and just people aren’t exactly safe on form. That’s probably the most dangerous part.

 What is one piece of advice you would give to someone who was considering trying powerlifting?

I’d give it a shot – just try a meet and see if you like it. There’s a lot of nice people at meets and everybody’s friendly. It’s not so much everybody’s mad at each other all the time which is kind of what I was used to in football. So it’s kind of nice to have something where everybody is kind of nice to each other. So there’s just some great people there. It’s for some people and not for others, but I would just definitely give it a shot.