Rider power lifting has been moving weight in more ways than one recently.
“We use trash bags a lot,” senior Amber Carlson said. “It can get pretty messy but it works… usually.”
Yes, the lifters have been working to change weight classes.
“I once ran while wearing sweats and a trash bag,” Carlson said. “It was the middle of January, but it was still a little hot.”
“You always have to be aware where you are,” Carlson said. “Some weight classes are better than others.”
Sometimes a lifter can fall under a fairly difficult weight category, like one that literally has no one else in it, forcing him or her to compete against only themselves in an attempt to lift the regional standard.
“It’s easier to advance by beating other lifters than by lifting the regional standard,” Carlson said. Or in other cases several lifters of the same team will find themselves stacked into the same weight class, which isn’t exactly ideal either, so the lifters often find they have to drop some weight through dieting or dehydration. Or in more rare cases, gain weight by doing basically the exact opposite.
“I actually had to gain a pound for our last meet,” Carlson said. “Which sounds fun in theory… But it really wasn’t, I had to eat a lot of pasta and ice cream and basically everything I could. My stomach was hurting so bad.”
The weight game is just part of competitive lifting.
“One guy actually spent an entire night wearing like six layers of clothes lose weight,” Junior Tiffany Nguyen said.
Of course there are ways to lose weight for the more procrastinating lifters too. One just has to be willing to walk the fine line between devoted and crazy.
“There was once this one girl who cut all of her hair off the night before a meet to lose weight,” Nguyen said. “But then she bombed out on bench and lost.”
Most know how to beat the system with most of themselves intact.
“Most girls will go without eating the entire day before a meet,” Nguyen said. “Then they’ll just scarf down as much as they can between the time they weigh in and the time they lift.”
Lifters say there comes a point where one just has to stop and think of their health. This sentiment is shared among many of the male lifters.
“I’m getting pretty close to being pushed into a different weight class. I’m not quite sure what I’m gonna do about it.” Junior Colton Bailey said. “But I refuse to stop eating. It just isn’t worth it.”