Chris Breaux founded the ASU Powerlifting Club after realizing how expensive powerlifting can be. Now three years later, him and fellow club members Zach Schulte and Keiko Ochoa prepare to compete.
[0:00] Chris Breaux: Life can be pretty turbulent. But when you come in the gym and you have very specific training you know out of everything that can be going on in your life, the weights are always going to be the same. Even if I had a really bad day that day, I can feel accomplished by coming into the gym and moving a ton of weight and feel proud of myself.
[0:21] Austin Villegas: The ASU Powerlifting Club has been on campus for 3 years. Originally called Sun Devil Powerlifting, President of the newly branded ASU Powerlifting Club Chris Breaux, shared how the club came to be and what his intentions were originally.
[0:35] Chris Breaux: My freshman year, a bunch of us had all been competing at the same meets and realized that we all went to ASU so we formed a student organization which was then called Sun Devil Powerlifting. And then at the end of my freshman year, 2 years ago, we got voted in by sport clubs to become ASU Powerlifting. The reason I started the club is that it's kind of expensive to get into powerlifting, there's a lot of gear you need and competing is expensive, traveling to big meets is expensive. So we figured if we could form a club and we could get funding from the school it would increase the accessibility of powerlifting to people who are interested but can't deal with the financial barrier.
[1:17] Austin Villegas: The team practices three main types of powerlifting: squatting, deadlifting and bench pressing. Club members Zach Schulte and Keiko Ochoa discuss what differentiates all these lifts and improvements they've seen doing these over time.
[1:30] Zach Schulte: So bench mainly comes through your triceps and chest, if you get a solid arch on it then you get a lot of leg drive to push. Squat is a lot of legs and a lot of back depending on where you position the bar on your back, that determines what muscle group you're using more. I lift lumbar so I'm kinda using my quads when I'm going down. Deadlift you're working a lot of groups like lower body and generally your back, lower back, especially your glutes all the way through your legs.
[2:02] Keiko Ochoa: I've gotten a lot better with a lot of the little points, like sticking points and overcoming stuff. I'm becoming stronger in areas where I was really weak before and just progressing through. I went from squatting 95 pounds to holding all the state records in about 2 years so it was just a really cool feeling. It came natural to me so it just feels really good.
[2:34] Austin Villegas: Powerlifting can often be a dangerous sport and can result in many injuries. Chris Breaux and Zach Schulte talked about the dangers of powerlifting and advice for future lifters.
[2:43] Chris Breaux: The challenges of all the lifts are it's a ton of weight and if your form is compromised in any way, it can come down on you and crush you. All the powerlifting, besides rigorous training, there's no way, really specific and minute techniques to lift weights safely.
[3:06] Zach Schulte: Give it a try, talk to any of us around here [Sun Devil Fitness Complex] anyone who knows what they're doing with powerlifting and just learn a technique and it'll be way different than you probably expected. It's a lot of fun.
Reach the reporter at amville8@asu.edu or follow @AustinMVillegas on Twitter.
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