Between personal growth and athletic success, powerlifting has done a lot for Sault Ste. Marie’s Holly Lasante.
A five-time gold medalist at the Canadian Powerlifting Union’s national championships, Lasante is coming off a record-setting performance at the 2023 event in February in Richmond, B.C.
Lasante set new nationals records in the squat (310 lbs), deadlift (372 lbs), and overall total (808.5 lbs) and has earned a spot on the Canadian team for the IPF World Masters Championships in Mongolia in the fall.
For Lasante, the sport has been one that has helped her personally.
“Powerlifting has done so much just for my personal self-confidence and confidence in my ability to be able to do whatever I set my mind to,” Lasante said. “Originally, when I first got serious about powerlifting, it was because I was struggling really bad with anxiety and depression. Powerlifting gave me a way to focus on being more in the moment. I was able to go to the gym, complete these workouts, and I didn’t have to worry about any of that noise, be it real or in my head, from the outside world.
“I could just focus on lifting weights and doing what I had to do. I knew I had a plan I had to follow and it was really big because it also forced me to get outside of the house,” Lasante added. “Eventually it kind of shifted from focusing so much on the powerlifting aspect itself to being able to take what I was teaching myself from setting those goals and being able to integrate that into different parts of my life.”
Lasante has been working with her coach Austyn Ryan through much of her time in the sport and said her relationship with him has led to a deep trust between the two.
“We’ve worked together as long as I’ve been in powelifting and he doesn’t tell me what I’m going to be doing when I get on the platform,” Lasante said. “I trust him to know that he’s going to push me to do whatever I can do. When I pulled my last deadlift, I had no idea that that’s how heavy it was until the announcer said ‘She just pulled 372 pounds.’”
Lasante said when she learned what she pulled, she “couldn’t believe it.”
“It was amazing,” Lasante said.
“Some people, they want to know the number,” Lasante added. “I’m of the mindset where numbers can kind of play with you positively and negatively. If I go and pull a certain weight and think ‘That feels heavy.’ If I know that the next weight is a big jump, I can get in my head.”
Lasante said the trust factor with her coach is a “blessing.”
“I know that I’m really lucky to have worked with Austyn for so long,” Lasante said. “For me to have so much faith in his programming and what we can do together on meet day, he’s the kind of guy where, our relationship is so great that he knows when to calm me down and when to tell me to get it together.”
“He’s always been very straight with me in how he speaks,” Lasante added. “That feeds our relationship in a really positive way because it allows me to know that I can always depend on him to tell me how it is.”
Following her performance in Richmond, Lasante said she’s continuing to push herself.
“I’ve always put a lot of pressure on myself, and I keep thinking, ‘What am I going to do next? How can I get better?’ I don’t want there to be leveling off period,” Lasante said. “I want to push myself as much as I can just to see where I can possibly do.”
At the latest national championship, Lasante said she got the same feeling she would going into many events she’s competed in.
“I gets the same types of anxieties or excitement going into a big meet like I would going into worlds,” Lasante said. “You know that when you go into nationals, you’re competing with the best in the country from all over.”
“It was awesome,” Lasante said.
Lasante said the competition was really well run.
“The meet director put together a beautiful meet,” Lasante said. “Richmond is beautiful. The people were amazing. The number of spectators there, it was awesome. There was so much good energy.”
“It was definitely one of the most fun nationals I can remember,” Lasante added.