Victoria Ross was afraid of the weight falling on her, she still is, and she makes sure to have a spotter for each lift even though Coach Davidson tells her she can do it on her own. She faces that fear each morning in powerlifting practice, and like others in the sport conquers it little by little.

“The first lift is always the most stressful because if you can’t get that first lift and you can’t get it three times in a row you’re disqualified, you’re done, you’re taken out of the powerlifting meet and you’re done for that day,” junior Collin Partridge said. “it’s always kind of scary going into.”

The stress that comes with powerlifting is worth it Victoria said because the sport is fun and because it challenges lifters to always push themselves and to try to do more.

“It’s really fun because I have a couple of friends there and we always try to go past what we lifted last time,”Victoria said.

Freshman Andrew Fry said that his experience in powerlifting was exciting, self-empowering, and boosted his self-esteem, because everyone is really fun and nice.

“Whenever we are doing training and I’m trying to hit a new personal record and everyone cheers and encourages me and they tell me ‘you got this Collin’ that is something that we all do for each other,” Collin said. “I am certainly not an exception; everybody supports everybody.”

This support was not what Collin said he expected. “I expected it to be a crazy testosterone filled chaos, but really everybody there is there to have fun and lift weights.”

That is not to say that the powerlifting environment is not stressful or competitive. One major worry for powerlifters is whether they will make their weight class.

“You see some people wrapping themselves up with saran wrap, putting hoodies and sweaters on and start running just so they can sweat out water weight to make their weight class,” Collin said.

Fortunately, Victoria and Collin are in the middle of their weight class so they are not in jeopardy of missing their weight class and being disqualified before their meet even begins.

Weight has always been an issue for Collin who felt social pressure about being a “big kid” ever since he was in elementary school.

“I started lifting my sophomore year but I’ve been doing weight training almost as long as I can remember. I had a personal trainer in elementary school and I has just kind of escalated from there.”

Collin said he wanted to do something physically impressive and found that weight lifting was something he was good at and it was something that he could be proud of.

“There is never a good at powerlifting there is always pushing yourself, a better way to phrase it is that I enjoyed it, I could go home happy,” Collin said. “That was whenever I realized that this was the sport for me, whenever I could go home and have a good night’s rest knowing that I did all I could that day.”

Powerlifting gives lifters an opportunity to challenge themselves and set personal goals. Collin said that going into a week of training he tells himself “alright I am going to get this much weight” and it really gives him drive and a nice stress relief.

Collin along with his teammate Guillermo Parham had to push themselves again March 7th for boys powerlifting regionals. Collin said to prepare for this he sits and tells himself he can do a lift whether he knows he can or not.While neither boy made state, Guillermo set a new Rider record for bench press at 380 pounds. Collin missed state competition by only 10 pounds. He increased his deadlift by 45 pounds to 505 pounds. Both Boys had their best meet of the year.

“It’s a mindset, your muscles are only as strong as you believe they are, as long as you take out the mental factor you can push yourself as far as you want to push yourself,”Collin said.

Victoria said powerlifting is a surprising and sometimes intimidating sport. “Some of the girls can lift, like Jamie Herrell and Cassendra Brawley more than some of the boys.” What surprised Collin was not only the support he got from his team but also the support he got from his competitors.

“Its a very intense sport but it’s also a very respectful sport almost,” Collin said, “ because whenever you see someone out there doing more weight than you that is something that you have to respect.”