PSEO powerlifter
Roseville Area High School senior and Bethel PSEO student Sierra Sedlacek powerlifts competitively and breaks records while forming relationships and building character.
By Elle Young | Freelance Writer
Sierra Sedlacek feels exhausted. She is competing at the 2023 USA Powerlifting HS Nationals in South Carolina Mar 30 to April 2. She is attempting a deadlift personal record of 341.7 pounds. Her deadlift was moving at a steady but slow pace until finally, she got it all the way up. She completed the deadlift and made a new PR. She drops the bar and jumps, running back to hug her coach while her team and the crowd cheer for her.
“I just remember being so happy for her,” teammate Alejandra Bonilla Hirdman said. “It did make me tear up.”
“It’s become the highlight of my days,” — Sierra Sedlacek, powerlifter
A math teacher at Roseville Area High School, where Sedlacek is a student, created the Powerlifting Club last school year. Months later she is a PSEO student at Bethel University and holds Minnesota state records in all three lifts — squat, bench press and deadlift, as well as a record in the total weight. From last season to this season, the team has grown from four lifters to more than 30. She loves the team dynamic and the adrenaline of competing.
“It’s become the highlight of my days,” Sedlacek said.
Sedlacek played soccer, tennis and hockey as a kid. She played hockey the longest, nine years, but decided to stop playing in favor of CrossFit after ninth grade. When she was in her junior year of high school she began powerlifting, and found her true passion: a place where she could make friends, be herself and have fun.
Through powerlifting, Sedlacek has met many friends including her biggest inspiration, Andrea Nisler, owner of Timberwolf Fitness in Roseville, where Sedlacek trains. Nisler has competed in the CrossFit Games eight times and has won twice. Sedlacek admires Nislers accomplishments and how strong she is.
“She’s just a very humble human being despite the fact that she’s insane,” Sedlacek said.
“Sierra’s been like a great addition to the gym environment,” — Andrea Nisler, gym owner
While Sedlacek has been inspired through others and loves the team dynamic, even though it is an individual sport, she is also an inspiration and an amazing friend and teammate for everyone else. According to Nisler, Sedlacek is a hard working team member and is always in a good mood hyping her teammates up. At meets many competitors are stressed and nervous before and between their lifts but Sedlacek is typically in the corner laughing and hanging out with people and she will come and sit in the stands with people in between her lifts, recalls Nisler.
“Sierra’s been like a great addition to the gym environment,” Nisler said.
Bonilla Hirdman, a member of the Powerlifting Club, has known Sedlacek for about a year and is also inspired by her, saying that she is impressed by the ambitious standards that Sedlacek sets for herself and by how committed she is, not just to powerlifting but in her everyday life.
Sedlacek plans to continue at Bethel next year to major in biokinetics and music. She plans to go to graduate school to become a physical therapist. While there is a pro circuit for powerlifting, it is not an NCAA sport so it cannot be competed at the collegiate level, but Sedlacek hopes to be able to start a powerlifting club at Bethel.
