Mr. Macurak may just be a vice principal during school hours but after school hours he is a weightlifter. He has lifting weights for a long time and has a passion for it. He said the reason he does it is: “ it helps me reduce stress.” If you are involved in sports at Central, you can see Mr. Macurak in the zone lifting heavy weights. His specialty lift is deadlifting. For about the past six years he has been putting his skill to the test. Six years ago, he wanted to participate in a deadlifting competition because he was using powerlifting techniques in his training for the football team so he wanted to learn more about it and put it to the test.So, Mr. Macurak looked up on the internet: deadlifting competitions in Pittsburgh. He found one and it was called the Monster Meet. Every year since, Mr. Macurak has participated in the Monster Meet. It takes place at the Hyatt Regency at the Pittsburgh International Airport. Mr Macurak has taken home a first place victory, in his respective weight class and age group, 4 out of the 6 years he has participated in the deadlifting meet, including a few weeks ago on March 31.

To win the Monster Meet, you can’t just show up and put a random number of weight on the barbell and expect to win. You have to train and prepare for a couple months to get yourself physically ready and mentally ready for the meet. Mr.Macurak did exactly this starting in February. His training regimen that he did was a five week cycle where he worked out three times a week, deadlifting one of those three days. To be able to deadlift heavy weight you can’t just deadlift, you have to do accessory exercises for certain muscles that will improve your

deadlift. The accessory muscles that Mr.Macurak focuses on are upper and lower back, hamstrings, and the lats. One other area that he focuses on is his grip strength, to help him grip the bar better. He says that these non deadlifting exercises are “ just as important as deadlifting so you can give your big muscles a break.” Other than physical preparation, Mr.Macurak also did some mental preparation. “ I do a lot of mental picturing of me lifting the weight.” Simple stuff like that helped Mr.Macurak succeed

The Monster Meet is very well organized and it helped Mr.Macurak succeed. The meet is grouped into different weight classes and age groups. Mr.Macurak was grouped into the 198 weight class and 40-49 age group. He was ready to win the meet. Last year he won with a deadlift of 520 pounds. His goal was to get 525 pounds this year. He was very confident that he would reach 525 and that he would win because he was now the youngest guy in his age group after being the oldest in the 30-39 year old age group. In the monster meet, you have three chances to deadlift the heaviest amount of weight. The first chance you get is used to get a good weight in the board that you know you can get because once you fail at a weight you can’t go back down. Mr.Macurak started out with 480 pounds. That moved easily. He then moved to 525 and got it. He tried 530 and failed so he got 525. He was quite happy with this weight and later learned t

hat he was the Pittsburgh Monster Meet champion for his respective weight class and age group.