GREAT FALLS — Earlier this month, Great Falls CMR senior Hudson Lucas set three United States Powerlifting Association age group state records at the Glacier Old Dawgs competition in the Electric City.
He recorded top marks in bench press, deadlift and squat.
"I thought it was pretty surprising because I've been doing some pretty heavy weights for a long time," Lucas said at Raud Dogz House of Power last Thursday. "I thought it was relatively normal because I'm surrounded by a bunch of strong guys all the time, and then I get up there and I do the weight and I'm like, 'Oh yeah.' It's kind of like a slight reality shock."
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Lucas said he has not been powerlifting for too long, but has seen some big improvements weight-wise since starting.
"Just learning the form stuff, that took a good bit of time. But I probably went up a good 50 to 100, 150 pounds on most of my lifts," Lucas said. "My squat is 550, my (personal record) on bench is 335 and my PR on deadlift is 585.
"A lot of it's thanks to my coach. But just a lot of hard work, just a lot of time and a lot of commitment."
Lucas faced a good deal of obstacles on the way to breaking those state records, as his father Bobby explains.
"When he was 13, 14 years old, he was having (supraventricular tachycardia) issues," Bobby Lucas said. "So we ended up having to take him to Seattle to have a cardiac ablation done, which took him out of weightlifting for about six months just because he wasn't cleared by cardiology."
Lucas then faced another setback earlier this year.
"He ended up catching COVID for the second time, ended up having bilateral pulmonary emboli, multiples. In ICU for well over a week over in Kalispell. He almost died," Bobby Lucas said. "He was on the border of dying there for several days. They couldn't figure out what was going on, couldn't figure out what triggered it.
"He was out of weightlifting again for almost six months because of the medications and stuff. And from that, he's gotten to where he's at now in four or five months, he's actually got to the point where he broke all the records."
Like Bobby said, Hudson persevered.
"You got to push through and keep going and that's kind of what we told him," Bobby Lucas said. "Got to get over the hump and just keep pushing, keep going, and that's what he's done.
"I don't have the words to say how proud I am of him."
Due to Lucas' fight, he's now back to his regular weightlifting schedule.
"I love being (at the gym)," Lucas said. "I do squats on Monday here, bench on Tuesday here. I do arms in general Wednesday. Deadlift here Thursday. Back (on) Friday and shoulders Saturday."
Lucas still has some big goals he aims to accomplish, he said.
"I want to get a squat of 600, a bench of 400, a deadlift of, let's shoot for the ropes and say 650, 700," Lucas said. "But that's going to take a while."
