Walking into DeWalt Field House Wednesday, loud clashes of iron could be heard in the distance. Lion athletes were at work, lifting to get better.
Quietly, Maddy Allen walked into the interview room. She is taking a bit of a breather from the weights – and deservedly so. She has accomplished her high school goals. In fact, no one in Texas has ever done it better. Last week, she tied the Class 4A record in her weight class, taking home a state championship in powerlifting.
Four years ago, Allen wasn’t certain there was a powerlifting team, but her strength was recognized in middle school, and she was encouraged to pursue it further.
A cousin helped get her involved and she has been a natural at the sport ever since.
“I knew I was strong. I feel like a lot of my family is,” Allen said. “I was always ahead of everybody else in athletics in strength, and so after going to state my first year, I kind of realized, ‘OK, I'm stronger than I realized.’ Whenever we actually did go in the weight room in middle school, I was a lot stronger, but I was also a little bit bigger. I was the same size as now, almost.”
After advancing to the state meet in her freshman year, she has done the same in each year following.
“I actually was cleaning out my room the other day and one of the moms from my freshman year, she gave us a little jar, and it said ‘PR jar’ where we could write down every PR (personal record) we hit at meets. I was looking through them, and it said 280 on squat. I looked at that and was like, ‘I can bench that now.’ It's just crazy to look back and think that's how little I was doing, yet it got me so far.”
There were plans to play softball her freshman year, but those changed. The shot put in track and field was tried, and Allen claims it “did not go great.” She has since been dedicated solely to lifting throughout high school.
More than just lifting weights, powerlifting takes consistency and discipline. The sport is full body training, concentrating on technique of squats, bench press and the deadlift. The athletes are categorized by school classification and weight class.
“I think it's more, not just physical strength. I think it's more being mentally strong too,” Allen explained. “You are under a lot of pressure against other people and from the beginning, you can see who you're going against, what they can do. Even in the offseason, you have to be working. I can't just rest all this time and then wait till next season to start up again.”
Coach Jacob Alford is a former powerlifter himself and helped guide Allen this season. He said there are a few things that separate her from the rest.
“I think the first thing is – and I told her this at the state meet – she's very cool, calm and collected all the time,” the coach said. “Whatever I asked her to do, at first, she kind of looks at me with a little bit of a look. Then, she just trusts me and believes in it and goes and attacks it with a different kind of confidence than any powerlifter I've coached before.
“Going in, we talked a lot about having a plan and being within striking distance at the end. I have coached powerlifting for 12 years and she's the first lifter I've ever had go 9-for-9 at the state meet. She didn't miss a lift. It was just different, and I think it's that cool, calm and collected mindset that she possesses that enabled her to go out and basically block out the noise and block out the pressure and just execute on a platform.
“One thing that I think is hard to figure out in powerlifting is the gear. For instance, on bench press, you've got the bench shirt. For lack of a better way to describe it, it's almost like having a rubber band on your chest. For safety measures, it's supposed to keep your shoulders intact, but also, it stretches as you go down, and so it allows you to do more weight. There's a lot of technique that's involved in using this particular equipment and Maddy has mastered that technique.
“She understands exactly how to go through the setup process. You have to have your shoulder blades pinched together, you have to have your grip right, you have to control the bar on the way down, you have to keep your elbows in the correct spot. Her learning how to operate the equipment through the experience that she got over a four-year span played a big role in her being able to complete the lifts that she did.”
Allen finished second in her junior year. The only to finish above her was also coached by Alford before coming to Livingston.
“I think a big part of what's driven her is just she has this desire to be successful and this desire to work hard,” Alford said. “She sets goals for herself and she's a really fierce worker to achieve those goals.”
Working year-round throughout high school, Allen was more than prepared for her senior season. In the first meet this year, she wasn’t far from her final numbers. Her squat was 425 pounds, 225 pounds on the bench, and 380 pounds on deadlift. At the state meet at Bert Ogden Arena in Edinburg (near McAllen), she turned in numbers of 470 pounds on the squat, 270 on the bench, and a deadlift of 390 pounds.
Significantly ahead of competitors, the competition for much of the season was trying to turn in personal bests.
“I'll be honest, the regular invitational meets, they're not hard for me to win,” she said. “I kind of just focus on what it'll put me in regionals and maybe like even in the state rankings. It's kind of just against myself at the invitational meets.”
Alford said a bit of gamesmanship and strategy went into the state meet, starting at regionals.
“She was behind by about 25 pounds based on what everybody had hit at regionals, but we also knew that we kind of sandbagged a little bit at regionals, because she was going to win it so easily. We didn't really push her out of her comfort zone too much at regionals, because we basically wanted to try to sneak up and go get the person in first without them knowing what we were capable of. We did 425 on squat at regionals, which was what she had hit all year long and then we show up to state and she does 470, and I think that that was a little bit of a shock for that girl who was in first place. It sort of put them behind the eight ball a little bit early, and so then they got behind, and they were chasing now, rather than being out front. I think that played a big role in her being able to bring it home.”
The total weight of 1,140 pounds at Edinburg ties the state record for the 181-pound weight class. She also holds all four records for the Gulf Coast region.
Plans after Livingston are just down Highway 190 in Huntsville, where Allen plans to major in education at Sam Houston State University. Colleges have club teams, but there are organizations like USA Powerlifting that she will look into.
Children are a passion for Allen. An aspiring teacher, she currently cares for little ones at Livingston Fitness Center, where there are also a few weights to toss around in down time. Coaching the sport in which she has excelled is also a possibility.
“I'm hopeful that she'll be able to make an impact in powerlifting at some point down the road like the sport has made on her,” Alford said. “I'm hopeful that she'll be able to find some way to get involved with powerlifting, whether it's on a volunteer basis or as an actual coach at some point, because she has a lot of knowledge and she also cares a lot about people.”
