Yesterday marked the conclusion of the 2018 USAPL Collegiate Nationals, which were held from April 19-22nd and were hosted at Texas A&M University.
Every year, USAPL Collegiate Nationals brings out some of the sport’s top up and coming raw athletes. One of these up and coming athletes included 19 year old super heavyweight powerlifter Joseph Pena. He continues to build upon his already impressive competition resume and raised the bar even higher this weekend (literally).
To conclude an epic squat session, 120kg+ Pena hit his biggest raw squat to date in competition. On his final attempt, Pena called for 415kg (914 lbs) on the bar, which would make him one of the youngest (if not the youngest) to squat over 408kg (900 lbs) raw.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh4p7r3BBrl/
If you were wondering about the offset of the rack, this was intentional and Pena actually motioned to offset the rack after his second attempt where the bar was set straight.
This is an incredible feat for his age and the sport of powerlifting, and many have asked the question: When will Pena be squatting 1,000 lbs? At this rate, Pena is positioning himself to potentially be the youngest athlete to squat the 1,000 lb bench mark raw.
This squat earned Pena a new USAPL American Raw record, along with unofficially topping Pena’s current IPF Junior world record by 27.5kg (60.5 lbs). Pena ended up claiming first for his weight class and concluded his meet with the 415kg (915 lb) squat, a 200kg (440 lb) bench press, and 300.5kg (661 lb) deadlift. These lifts combined gave Pena an absolutely huge 915.5kg (2,014 lb) total.
We’ve seen Pena squat big weight before – like this 1,025 lb equipped squat from March 2017 – but we’re leaning towards this lift as being of his most impressive to date. We’re pumped to see what else 2018 has in-store for this young athlete. Pena will be competing at the 2018 IPF World Classic Championships in June and the junior showdown between him and Great Britain’s Luke Richardson is setting up to be one for the ages.
Feature image from @chestificent Instagram page.