Powerlifting America Podcast

Bella Vargas is the reigning 57kg University National Champion and Best Lifter. This 3x National Champ will be making her debut on the US National Team at the Junior World Championships in Romania on August 25. She talks about her performance at University Nationals, what she’s doing to get ready for Worlds, the fun differences between equipped and raw powerlifting and how she balances being a full time Student Athlete!

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This is Monday Night Live with the PA Podcast crew, and we’re talking all things Powerlifting America. Breaking News, Updates, Current Events, Round Table with Julia Williams and Mike Gold. This episode was broadcasted LIVE from Romania on August 22, 2023. We’re gearing up for a big 11 days at the Sub-Junior and Junior World Championships in Cluj, Romania. On this episode we discussed breaking news about Lila Cooper’s viral reel, O...

Chealsea Enemor is the +84kg High School and Sub-Junior National Champion and Best Lifter. She’ll be making her debut on the US National Team at the Sub-Junior World Championships in Romania on September 2, where she’ll be in a close battle with fellow Sub-Junior phenom Luella Bowden. Between the two of them we could see multiple World Records fall. Like some of the other young lifters we’ve interviewed, Chealsea is wise beyond her...

This is Monday Night Live with the PA Podcast crew, and we’re talking all things Powerlifting America. Breaking News, Updates, Current Events, Round Table with Julia Williams and Mike Gold. This episode was broadcasted LIVE on August 15, 2023. Our team is back from the Cayman Islands and ready for another edition of Monday Night Live, this time on a Tuesday. We discussed some of the highlights from the North American Championships ...

This is Monday Night Live, with the PA Podcast crew, and we’re talking all things Powerlifting America. News, updates, current events, round table with Julia Williams and Mike Gold. This episode was broadcasted LIVE from the Cayman Islands on August 7, 2023 for a North American Championships special. We spoke with some of the heart and soul of the North American region, including Laura Estrella from the Dominican Republic, Christin...

Today we’ve got an interview with Tristan Nazelrod, the reigning 120kg National Champion. Tristan won the most epic battle at Powerlifting America Nationals, a legit three way race between himself, the legendary Mike T, and last year’s National Champ Enrique Lugo. Now he’s less than a week out from the North American Championships, returning to the international platform for the first time since 2019 and he’s ready to make a splash...

This is Monday Night Live, with the PA Podcast crew, and we’re talking all things Powerlifting America. News, updates, current events, round table with Julia Williams and Mike Gold. We are joined by special guests IPF Secretary General and Powerlifting America President, Robert Keller, Athlete Committee Co-Chair and 2x World Champion LS Mclain, and world class athlete and coach Claire Zai. Discussion topics include the North Americ...

This is Monday Night Live with the PA Podcast crew, and we’re talking all things Powerlifting America. News, Updates, Current Events, round table with Julia Williams and Mike Gold. 

We discuss the North American Powerlifting Championships in the Cayman Islands and the Junior and Sub-Junior World Championships in Romania and how powerlifting is poised to benefit from the recent growth of women’s sports. Lastly, we give some spicy ta...

Meghan Scanlon is one of the most decorated powerlifters of this era. She is fresh off of winning the silver medal at this year’s IPF World Championships. She was the defending World Champion coming into Worlds and added a whopping 27.5kg to her total from last year, making the podium for all three disciplines! Meg has been to the World Championships three times now and has made the podium for 11 out of a possible 12 times (includi...

Eleni Guerrera, the 2023 57kg High School National Champion and Best Lifter, will be making her debut on the US National Team at the Sub-Junior World Championships in Romania on August 28. Eleni qualified for worlds by achieving the best total of all Sub-Juniors in the 57kg class with 375kg and in the top 9 overall Sub-Junior women on IPF GL points with 90.87, which was the second highest. She recaps her performance, the changes sh...

Recap show Part 2 for the IPF Classic Open World Championships with experts Julia Williams and Mike Gold. This was the biggest and most exciting World Championships in IPF history with 59 countries competing! It was a tough competition, but the USA won the team points on both the women's and men’s side, took home the most gold medals and the most medals overall. Natalie Richards won gold for best lifter while Jonathan Cayco won sil...

Recap show for the IPF Classic Open World Championships with experts Julia Williams and Mike Gold. This was the biggest and most exciting World Championships in IPF history! It was a very successful competition for the US National Team, sweeping the team points with gold medals for both women and men. The USA also won the most gold medals for total with 6 (the next closest was France with 3), the most medals for total overall with ...

Preview show for the IPF Classic Open World Championships with experts Julia Williams, Sam Sikora and Mike Gold. This is the one we’ve all been waiting for, the largest and most stacked world championships in IPF history! The US National Team is loaded again, with 12 athletes returning from last year’s team that swept the gold medals in team points for both men and women. They’re joined by four new superstars that will all have a s...

Chelsea Savit, the 69kg Open National Champion, who is now a back to back member of the US National Team. Chelsea was two weeks out from the IPF World Championships in Malta when we recorded this and her prep has been going better than ever. Chelsea has been competing for 10 years now, but her career almost came to an end after her first appearance at the World Championships in 2017, culminating in an extremely serious back surgery...

US National Team coach and Brown’s gym owner, Jim Brown. He talks about his background getting involved in powerlifting in the 80s, coaching many US national teams over the years and looks forward to the upcoming National Championships in Scottsdale, where Jim and a big squad of Brown’s Gym lifters will be competing. Brown’s Gym is celebrating its 30 year anniversary this year (officially back on February 14th 2023) so make sure to...

Preview show for the 2023 Powerlifting America Equipped National Championships with experts Natalie Hanson and Joe Cappellino. The equipped side has leveled up this year, bringing in reigning World Champions Kelsey McCarthy and Kimmy Johnson, along with stars like Taylor LaChapelle, Natalie Hanson and Greg Johnson, in addition to returning stars like Noah Johnson and Zen McCollum. And on top of all of that there are still a few sur...

Quick check in with the reigning 93kg M1 World Champion Layne Norton, just four days out from defending his national title at Powerlifting America Nationals in Scottsdale Arizona. Layne has a battle on his hands in the 93s, but if you know Layne, you know he’s up for the challenge. He talks about his prep for nationals, winning the world title in 2022, how he embraces competition and more. Layne competes June 3 at 2pm PST.

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Preview show for the 2023 Powerlifting America Masters National Championships with experts Melissa Copeland, Amy Hutchison and Julia Williams giving picks and analysis for every weight class. The Masters are loaded with 13 reigning World Champions like LS McClain and Shelly Stettner, as well as a host of newcomers to Powerlifting America like Dr. Pat Johnson and the legendary John LaFlamme. Who will punch their ticket to the world ...

Vin Mangione is a US National Teams coach for the Juniors and Sub-Juniors. Vin owns Kenmore Barbell in Buffalo New York (technically it’s Kenmore New York, one of the towns that makes up the greater Buffalo area). Vin is a coach, a lifter, referee, meet director and a gym owner. He does a lot for the sport of powerlifting and he’s bringing a big squad of lifters to Powerlifting America Nationals in one week. After that he’ll be coa...