The Eastern New Mexico News - Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Zack Williams, 15, has been lifting weights since he was 12 years old. The Clovis native was going through some Web sites looking for competitions in weightlifting. He came across Natural Athlete Strength Association, and entered.

“I won my division in junior,” Williams said. “I was a little nervous.”

Williams picked up lifting weights as a hobby and wanted to see what he could do in a competition so he entered. He competed in the dead lift, bench press and curls and got the state record in bench press with 209, which he won. In the dead lift was considered a technicality was 385 was the most he got, but they counted 369. Williams’ 105 in curling was his best overall.

Sean Williams said he thinks what his son did was great.

“He normally works out at the gym like everybody else,” Williams said. “As it goes for the bench pressing, it is another thing when you get to competition the rules and regulations change immensely. All three of his final attempts would have been state records if he had got them.”

Williams said his second attempt on the bench press was a state record.

Weightlifters got three attempts at getting a solid lift and a chance to do a fourth if they wanted.

Williams said that Zack only trained for two months before the events in Gallup. As it happened Zack’s sister Madison had a soccer match in Albuquerque, which is close by. Zack and his dad left out early that morning for the competition on a few hours of sleep.

“That weekend our youngest had a soccer tournament in Albuquerque,” Brooke Williams said. “That worked out well. I was so shocked when they told me how well he did because he was so tired.”

Zack couldn’t sleep the night before the meet.

“I worried about the competition and was trying to figure out what it would be like,” Zack said.

Williams said Zack had to completely change his technique of how he lifted and that what he did.

“He was amazing,” Williams said about his son’s achievement.

Zack is working on his new techniques that he learned from the guys at the last competition in order to compete at Las Cruces in December.

“Some of the other participates gave me tips on my technique that I could work on,” Zack said. “This is my first competition and they found out that I didn’t have good technique. It is about strength, but a lot of it is about technique and I didn’t have good technique and that’s what they pointed out.”