Panther Powerlifters to begin season in Lovington

By John Earp

This past Monday in the Panther Gym Weightroom, a handful of student-athletes gathered for their first practice of the season. Coach Dusty Loftis, who is similarly a first-time powerlifting coach, began by telling the athletes a little about his background in exercise physiology, the study of muscle tissue and how it responds to exercise. Loftis holds a master’s degree in exercise physiology, and has served the Jal School District in the past as teacher and administrator, and has experience coaching track, basketball, and cross country. He has been certified as a strength and conditioning specialist.

Loftis told his powerlifters Monday, “You get out of it what you put into it. You don’t work very hard, and you’re not pushing the workouts, it’s not following the workouts, then you’re not going to get out a lot out of it, okay? I know the program that I’m going to make you do works because I’ve done it myself, okay? I don’t look like powerlifter or anything like that, but when I was in this program and I followed it faithfully, okay, my bench press was over 300 pounds and my squat was close to 500 pounds. I can’t right now, but I could back in the day, you know, a few years ago when I was lifting heavily. You know a lot of things that people forget about, one of the most important things when it comes to being at optimal performance is the issue of your resting.” Loftis told his team Monday that lifting heavy every day or even most days of the week will result in less-than-optimal results, since muscles require sufficient rest and recovery in order to grow and gain strength.

Coach Loftis informed the team that their first meet was coming up this coming Saturday in Lovington, adding that he knew the team wasn’t really ready for it yet, but that it was better to get the experience than not to, so that each lifter would have a good idea where they are at physically and to give them some experience competing at a meet. Loftis mentioned that the varsity team has meets scheduled for this season in Lovington, Clovis, and Mescalero.

Training for the team this year will utilize a smart phone application (app) which each student will have on their phones. The app designed to give the athletes their workout plans, which will include progressively overloading the muscles. Just six athletes showed up for the initial practice Monday. Loftis said he thinks one reason the number of athletes coming out for powerlifting was low Monday was the fact that there was no school Monday.

Loftis says that powerlifting is about developing strength and explosive power in the athletes, which definitely has application in other sports, such as football and track and field. His goal is to see his lifters peak in their max lifts towards the end of the season, when it matters most. Powerlifting consists of three classic lifts; the bench press, barbell squat and the deadlift. The team also will be using the power clean (which is an Olympic lift) as well as accessory muscle exercises designed to improve the strength and flexibility of key skeletal joints such as the shoulders, hips, knees. The primary lifts the powerlifters will train on will be typically done in sets of 3 to 5 repetitions, aiming to improve strength more than hypertrophy (growing bigger muscles). He says, “The way I’ve built this program is what we’re doing is we will lift heavy four days a week, we’re also throwing in the power clean in there, even though that’s not a lift in powerlifting, but that’s where you’ll get a lot of your power from. We will also have a ton of back [exercises], like scapular retractions to strengthen the shoulder rotator cuff.”