From Textbooks to Dumbbells: The Success of our Student at Powerlifting
During the 2023/2024 winter semester, as part of the university days between the Slovak University of Agriculture (SPU) and the Constantine the Philosopher University (UKF), there was a competition in powerlifting – it is a discipline that includes squatting, bench pressing and deadlifting. The competitor has 3 attempts for all exercises and the winner is based on who gets the most points, which are calculated from their own weight and the maximum weight on the barbell from each exercise. Since I'm a student, I exercise regularly and I like challenges, so of course I signed up and it was a great experience.
My name is Katka, I am a 1st year master's student of Management of Regional Tourism at the Faculty of Central European Studies. I come from an ordinary family without any athletes. As a child, I went to an art school for 7 years, and in primary, high and construction school I hardly attended a single P.E. class – I always had excuses or a doctor’s note, but now I spend an average of 5 days a week in the gym – before work, after or between lectures.
My journey started in 2014 when the trend of “I have to lose weight” got to me too. They were classic girls' group trainings until one day I got to the gym, and from the gym to CrossFit – it's a discipline that includes almost all possible types of sports such as athletics, gymnastics, swimming, rope, cycling, strong man, powerlifting, weightlifting, working with non-standard weights such as a sandbag, various heavy balls, etc. All this is combined during training and it requires strength, endurance, explosiveness, speed, sometimes patience. Thanks to this sport, I discovered that I am capable of competing, and I was most attracted to strength exercises: squats, deadlifts and weightlifting. Therefore, the competition of SPU vs. UKF came to me as a great opportunity to test myself and at the same time represent the school.
Strength sports are usually not very popular among girls: last year this competition was in trial form and only one student participated, but this year there were more of us – there were 3 of us from UKF, including me, and a total of 8. Each girl was quite strong – I didn't expect that, I admit, but since I told myself that I was going to win, I had to give it my all.
It was a completely new experience for me because I had to calculate the time for the warm-up so that I was ready just before the start, determine the basic weight and then increase it (our coach takes care of this at weightlifting competitions) and set my head to the right mindset: sometimes it’s not only about physical strength but also about the psyche, when you can physically do it but your head won't let it happen, you simply get scared – it’s a self-defence reflex.
I was first in squats – the heaviest last weight for girls was around 100-107 kg but I started with 115 kg. We were all about the same at the bench press, then there was only the deadlift left and that's where the winner would be decided. One competitor from SPU was very close to me in terms of points, and it was here that the real competition for 1st place began between us. My maximum was 120 kg, but one of the organizers of the competition talked me into adding a little more weight – that training records don't count, you have to put it here. Well, since I take on every challenge, of course I increased it to 122.5 kg and that really became a challenge. Take a deep breath, exhale and go. I did it and it is a wonderful experience when the whole hall applauds you, when you surpass your expectations, when you are so happy that you scream because there are so many positive emotions! I won my weight category of over 60 kg and received the award for the highest performance.
I often hear that this is not a women's sport, nor is weightlifting, that it makes girls into boys, but that’s not true. Sport has helped me many times to get through a difficult period of my life, to process negative emotions into positive ones, it is a great way to clear out my head or as we call it – psychohygiene. It also helps me at work: I work as a pastry chef in the kitchen and I'm on my feet a lot of the time, but I manage! Sport teaches me patience, which I haven't had since I was little, I didn’t understand that everything takes time, that you just have to keep going: work hard. Thanks to sports, I found friends and my “second family”, my team: my friend and I are currently preparing for a CrossFit competition next year, we are actively working on our weaknesses – it is not easy, but as they say: “hard on the training ground, easy on the battlefield”. In the fall, we will start preparing for the finals of the women's weightlifting league.
Society says that a woman must be weak, but I personally think that a woman must do what she enjoys and what fulfils her, even if it is heavy weights. And above all, she should be happy.
Bc. Ekaterina Shcheglova
student
Department of Tourism
Faculty of Central European Studies
