The powerlifting club of LSU will be attending the Powerlifting Collegiate Championships this Friday through Sunday in Omaha, Neb.
Coach Arval Bridges said he expects the team to compete well. “We’ve got an excellent team,” Bridges said. “In the boys team, I expect to be in the top three teams. The women I expect to be a top five team. We have some tremendous athletes, but so do the other schools.”
Powerlifting is a total of three different lifts: the squat, the bench and the deadlift.
To squat, a participant lifts the bar on his back, then he lowers himself until the line of his knee and hip joint break parallel. Then he rises for one repetition. To bench, a participant takes the weight from the rack and lowers it to his chest and pauses. Once the coach says “press,” he pushes the bar up off his chest evenly and locks his arms at the top.
To deadlift, the bar starts on the floor, where a lifter walks up to it and bends down and grasps it. The lift starts once the lifter starts to pick the bar up off the floor. The lifter then must stand upright with the bar until his knees are locked out and the judge says “down.”
Vice President Chris Welch said the men’s team should compete better than last year’s team because of more unity.
“Last year, we switched where we worked out, lost people and wound up taking third place,” Welch said. “We should be able to do that or better.”
Women’s President Jan Morrelo said she wants to qualify for the Junior World Competition to be held in September in South Africa. Her best squat is 400 pounds. Her best bench is 197 and her best deadlift is 397.
“There’s two qualifying periods [for the Junior World Competition],” Morrelo said. “One was at Women’s Nationals in January and one is at collegiate nationals.”
Morrelo, who competes in the 148-pound weight class, said she would have to finish first in her weight class to qualify for the Junior World Competition.
“You have to be ranked first overall,” Morrelo said. “I don’t have to total 1,000 pounds. I just have to beat everybody else.”
Also vying for an invite to the junior world competition is Steven McLawchlin. His best squat is 680, his best bench is 470 and his best deadlift is 650. McLawchlin said he would like to achieve the weights he has been getting in practice.
“[I want to] get a better lift,” McLawchlin said. “[I would like to lift] 715 on squat, 480 on bench and 673 on deadlift.”
McLawchlin said he expects the team will compete better than last year.
“We’ve got a good chance to get first this year,” McLawchlin said. “We’ve got a good group of kids.”
Bridges said that both Morrelo and McLawchlin should qualify for the competition, as well as others.
“I don’t think they have competition that’s comparable to them in their weight class,” Bridges said. “I also expect a couple of the other guys to qualify in their weight class. I don’t want to give their names because I don’t want to put the extra pressure on them. But, obviously Jan and Steven were on the national team last year and did very well. So, they definitely have a shot to do it again.”
Morrelo said she would like to total 1,000 pounds at the competition this weekend.
“I want to total 1,000 pounds,” Morrelo said. “Hopefully I’ll go around 1,010 or 1,015.”