By Josh Beavers
There’s more great things heading to Lakeside Jr. Sr. High School.
Following the recent announcement that soccer is at the Junior High level, it’s now been confirmed that powerlifting is coming to the South Webster school. The Webster Parish School Board approved the move at Monday’s meeting.
“We already have students competing in the sport of powerlifting,” Lakeside principal Denny Finley said. “One of my goals as the principal of Lakeside is to find something for every student at Lakeside to enjoy.”
Since there were students already involved in powerlifting, Finley said it only made sense to make it an official school sport.
Powerlifting is an individual sport where the goal is to lift the most amount of weight possible in the squat, bench press and deadlift in a specific weight and age category.
Athletes have three attempts to reach their maximum capacity and must follow strict technique rules so that everyone is compared equally. For example, everyone must squat to a certain depth or else the lift doesn’t count.
The heaviest squat, bench press, and deadlift that are successfully lifted are added up to give athletes a “powerlifting total.” This total is what’s used to rank athletes amongst each other. So just because someone may have a strong bench press doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be a good powerlifter. “The sport requires young people to push themselves to new limits everyday if they plan to compete,” Finley said. “You get out of it whatever you put into it, which is exactly like life itself.”
Finley said powerlifting will benefit every sport at Lakeside because athletes are going to become stronger and more competitive.
“The coaching staff at Lakeside works well together and pushes the athletes to play multiple sports,” Finley said. “While they will all help train the athletes in the sport, Coach Fabrecia Roberson will be the head coach.”
