Latest / The Platform: a Michigan High School Powerlifting Association Podcast / Nick Lundquist, Lakeville Powerlifting | The Platform Episode 2
Transcript
- Chris Whittaker: Hey, welcome back to another episode of the platform, the Michigan high school powerlifting association podcast. Uh, I'm your cohost Chris Whitaker, giving you a little intro on this one. This is episode two featuring Nick Lundquist of Lakeville powerlifting. They were our JV boys state champions this year in the 2025, 2026 MHS PLA season. I get to hear a lot from Nick. about kind of how we came up. a little bit of training talk in this one. So was a good episode. Good to have Nick in and congratulations to him and his team on another successful season. Uh, if you enjoy this podcast, please follow us on all the different social media platforms at MHSPLA, uh, and subscribe to the podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Amazon music. There's another one. Uh, we have their Deezer. And here we are, we are back with another episode of the Michigan High School Powerlifting Association podcast, The Platform, where the stories weigh a ton. I'm your host, Chris Whitaker. I'm a co-member of the Michigan High School Powerlifting Association Board of Directors and my co-host. Chris Gilliam: I'm Chris Gillum, I'm the executive director for the Michigan High School Powerlifting Association. Glad to be here and we're really excited about our guest. Chris Whittaker: Apple podcasts, basically anywhere you can find podcasts, you can find the platform, your Michigan high school powerlifting association podcast. So give it a checkout, follow us, keep up with us. Again, if you want to be on the show or you know somebody that should be on the show, send us an email info at ⁓ H S P L a.com. And we will get in touch with you, coach Gilmore, myself, we'll get in touch with you and get And our guest today is the head coach for our 2025-2026 JV boys state championship team from Lakeville Community Schools. This is Mr. Nick Lundquist. Nick, welcome to the show. Nicholas Lundquist: Thanks for having me guys, I really appreciate it. I'm very excited to be here. Chris Whittaker: We're glad to have you buddy. You coach powerlifting there. You're the strength and conditioning coach at Lakeville schools. You also coach football, a fellow O and D line guy, ⁓ getting it done in the trenches, getting it done under the bar. ⁓ We want to bring in, we're talking to all of our state championship coaches ⁓ here on the platform and we're going to run down through. This is very much a conversation with us here. a day set up to have you on the show and talk to you about you and your program or anything centered around our great sport and our association, the Michigan High School Powerlifting Association. Until then, here's episode two with Nick Lundquist. Hit that intro music. You'll probably answer most of our questions in just general talking points. I'm gonna kick it to my co-host and our leader of this whole thing for question number one, Mr. Gillum. Chris Gilliam: All right. Welcome once again, Nick. ⁓ What drew you to the sport of powerlifting? Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into powerlifting. Nicholas Lundquist: So funny enough, ⁓ I had a really good mentor, ⁓ Nicholas Lusk from Troy Athens, and he was a Lakeville grad himself. So he came back and really got me interested into lifting. So when he left and went on his own way, ⁓ I started powerlifting and I powerlifted through high school. And that's just what drew me to it. So when I got back into coaching, I was teaching and stuff, ⁓ I knew that that's where I wanted to be. That's where I wanted to coach. ⁓ Just jumped right into it. Chris Gilliam: All right. How many years you been at Lakeville now? Nicholas Lundquist: This is my third year going into my fourth year next year. Chris Gilliam: awesome Chris Whittaker: So I believe our first guest that has competed in the Michigan High School Powerlifting Association of our podcast. ⁓ So the next thing we got for you, Nick, here is you said you've been involved with it since your time in high school. ⁓ What years was that? How long ago was that? Nicholas Lundquist: So I would have been powerlifting around, I believe, 2015, back when Gillum was back at Birch Run, I believe. So about then, and I graduated in 2017. So about almost 10 years ago now. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, you're a year older than my oldest daughter, so. Chris Whittaker: So Ben, know, relatively young guy coming into the field and having some success early ⁓ with your Lakeville team. And you competed all four years. You said you've been coaching with us in there in the Michigan High School Paralympic Association for three. ⁓ Can you give us a brief synopsis of your season? How did your team get to that JV Boys state title? Nicholas Lundquist: Mm-hmm. Man, it's all them. They're hard work. This team was one of those teams like you did not have to push. They would come in and do exactly what they needed to do day in, day out. They would ask for tips, what they needed to do better, ⁓ ways they could get better. ⁓ It was just a fantastic year of guys pushing guys every single day inside, outside the weight room. And ⁓ you can see it. And this is a very tight-knit group of boys. ⁓ Even though they're they're they're spread out, you know, I have some middle schoolers in here all the way up to sophomores, so they're not they're not even in the same school. Some of them they just train in the same room, so it's it was very awesome to see this group come together and kind of push themselves to their limits and then I'll come away with the big one. Chris Gilliam: Right. Well, probably even sweeter. I have to bring it up that you beat your like next door neighbors, a big rival in many other sports. ⁓ so that had to be pretty satisfying because, ⁓ being from that area nearby that area myself, I know that there's no love loss between you and the team up North. We'll call them, ⁓ cause they fully expected to win the JV state title this year. Nicholas Lundquist: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. The team up north, yeah. Chris Gilliam: Cause they had some exceptional lifters themselves. So I was really shocked when I was tracking it that day in Oxford and I'm like, Ooh, I think Lakeville might take this. This is going to be interesting. Nicholas Lundquist: Absolutely. Yeah, the boys take pride in that as well. They love that, the aspect of it as well. Chris Gilliam: So that's Millington for ⁓ Chris Whitaker because he's from New York. So he's not familiar with the thumb of Michigan. Nicholas Lundquist: Hey. Yeah. Chris Whittaker: know where Croswell Lexington is. I've been there. I know of Millington, ⁓ but Millington's the big rival. Former board member of ours, big supporter of our program and a guy that did a lot for us, Lenny Dantaine at Millington. Shout out Lenny Dantaine. We might have to have him on the podcast just for comedic relief, Lenny Dantaine. Nicholas Lundquist: Hahaha Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I will probably have to censor it too, but you know. Chris Whittaker: Yeah, parental advisory on the linear denting principle principle denting episode. Nicholas Lundquist: Fantastic dude. He's a great dude. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, he's hilarious. Chris Whittaker: ⁓ So I think I got the next question here. ⁓ What is what is one piece of advice that for you to have for another coach looking to build their program into a state championship caliber team? Nicholas Lundquist: I would say ⁓ relationships matter. No matter if it's coach to coach, coach to lifter, okay, those relationships that you make, whether it's in the weight room outside of the weight room matter. Those are the people that are gonna be supporting you, pushing you to be your best because as coaches, people often forget that we're people too. Right? We got to have those early mornings. We got to make those training plans. We got all that stuff too. So those relationships that you build throughout the years and matter. So when you're building your program, that's what matters. It's the people that you have behind you at all times. That's my opinion. Chris Gilliam: Awesome. Good advice. ⁓ Is powerlifting considered a sport? Do they get letters at Lakeville? Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: Absolutely. Nicholas Lundquist: Unfortunately, it's not and we're trying. That's one thing that I am that I'm trying ⁓ to get done at Lakeville. It's not that we don't have support because know administration supports us, know, 100%. You know, they're excited. They're excited that we were the state championship team, but it's just that last piece that man, it's got to be considered a sport. It's got to be. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Well, hopefully this year's success will spearhead the movement to make it happen. ⁓ I know there's a lot of schools that are starting to do that, but there's still a lot of schools in the same boat as you. It's a club sport. It's, you know, something that they let you do. ⁓ But yeah, hopefully these kids will not only bring a state title to your school, but they could be the ones that get the movement. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: going so that it becomes an actual letterman's sport for them. Nicholas Lundquist: Absolutely, that would be awesome. These kids want it. They say it all the time too. Chris Whittaker: Yeah, and I'm in the boat with you, right? We're not considered a Dexter, a varsity sport. We're a club sport. They allow our kids to earn letters, but in no way is our power lifting program school funded or anything like that. I've, you know, it's coaching. I'm the only paid coach and it's a schedule B club paper kind of deal. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah, I'm the same, same, yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: ⁓ So how the numbers been within your program in the last three years? I don't think you talked about how many, how many guys you running with here or how many kids in general, boys and girls. Nicholas Lundquist: So in total right now this year we had our largest team since I began there. ⁓ believe we were sitting at about 28 competitors this year between JV and varsity and boys and girls. ⁓ That is a huge improvement for my first year. I believe my first year I may have had seven or eight and most of them were varsity lifters. I had a few JVs that I convinced to come out there my first year there. ⁓ And then just after that first season, just kind of snowball affected and like started picking up kids left and right really interested in doing it. And they started doing it and they noticed they were doing very well. So they were bringing their friends and that's just how it grew. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, that's awesome. mean, I, I was in your shoes when I was first starting at Bertron and I can totally relate, ⁓ how the process works. And, know, you got to start with the young ones, especially when you don't have interest from the older ones. So the good news is, you know, each of these kids, hopefully they can get a friend out and double your numbers kind of thing. ⁓ and hopefully the boys success spearheads a movement with Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Yeah. Yep, exactly. Exactly. Chris Gilliam: and the girls too within your program. So I think that that's great. Let's see here. What's the hardest thing to coach or teach in the sport of powerlifting in your opinion? Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it necessarily has to do with the big three. In my opinion, it's it's an RDL. It's it's you know, it's a hinge. But other than that, it's I know deadlifts are, you know, hinge movement, but it's just the RDL is the hardest one just to maintain that position, in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, we do. We do. We do RDL is a lot of accessories, you know, for posterior chain and man trying to teach, you know, sixth, seventh grade kid had RDL is like. Chris Gilliam: Okay, I like that. That's a good, good answer. Nicholas Lundquist: This is one of the hardest things in my opinion. Chris Gilliam: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. I'm with you. mean, to me, yeah. lot of frustration with that. ⁓ but yeah, if you can master that, then the rest is easy. Yeah. I should just all fall in place. yeah. ⁓ I never really thought about it that way, but that's good. Nicholas Lundquist: Mm-hmm. Yeah, realistically, yeah. Chris Whittaker: Each amount of hinge. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Yeah. Chris Whittaker: You get the rounded the rounded back or you want to they want to lock their knees and bend and bend down. I think one of the best things I've seen with that, and you guys may know this one already, maybe our listeners don't to teach an RDL take a foam roller and put the foam roller on the quads and have your arms tight to the foam roller and tell them, all right, push your hips back and keep pressure on that foam roller the whole way. Nicholas Lundquist: Yup. Yep. Mm hmm. Yep. Yep. There's a lot. Chris Gilliam: Bye. Chris Whittaker: That seems to be the best way I've been able to do it. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah, I've done that a few times just this year and it does work very, very well. Instead of sitting there trying over and over again to explain it, that foam roller comes in comes in handy. That's for sure. Yeah, now. Chris Gilliam: That's awesome. I'll have to remember that. I've not. ⁓ Chris Whittaker: and put a band around their waist and start pulling and it's just... Nicholas Lundquist: Yep. Yep. Chris Gilliam: I'm more of the, know, I, nope, that's wrong. Let's fix it. Go back. I'll go slow motion. Like let's do this super slow. All right. But no, that's awesome. Thanks for that little tip there, Chris. Appreciate it. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chris Whittaker: PVC pipe on the head and on the tailbone too. But the foam roller is easy. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I've seen that one. Yeah. Nice. Chris Whittaker: Foam roller is the easiest one. So the next one we got here is, know, in life, in powerlifting, right? There's always, you know, we always, we go through failures, right? It happens. You know, kids failing attempts or records. It could be the difference sometimes between winning and losing as an individual or a team. Do you have a favorite failure or setback that, ultimately set you up later for success or you learned a big lesson from either in on the platform or in life itself. Nicholas Lundquist: So personally, biggest setback would be going into, it's college based, okay, going into college thinking that I wanted to be a nurse. knowing that I did not want to be a nurse because everybody says, hey, nurses make good money. So that's what I went for. And then in the back of my head, I knew you're meant to be a PE teacher. You want to be in a school, you want to coach. So I wasted some time there instead of getting back into the schools as soon as I could doing something that I didn't want to do. So. ⁓ It taught me a lot, taught me a lot. It set me back and I think I'm a stronger person from it. Realistically. Chris Whittaker: I mean, we always we learn from our failures more than we learn from our successes, right? you had to some time here, right? Learning what? OK, yeah, I really don't want that. That was me with teaching K2PE. I love the little ones. I love the little ones are great, right? I wanted to be a strength coach, but I had to some time doing that other stuff before, so that's a good one. That's a good one, coach. Chris, you want to you want to hit him with? Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. hmm. Thanks, Chris Whittaker: the rapid fire speed set questions. Chris Gilliam: no, I'll let you do that. I did want to like talk to him a little bit about a few things and get his take on it. You know, like you're from like both correct. So when you were in school, like you had guys had pretty good size roster competing. Right. And then as you come back years later, roster smaller, what, what do you think? Nicholas Lundquist: Yes sir. Yep. Grew up. Yeah, ⁓ Chris Gilliam: caused the lack of participation from when you were in school to when you first started taking over as a coach. Nicholas Lundquist: Well, Lakeville had a super good coach during the time I was there. I was like, as you guys know, I'm sure you guys know who Jeff Simpson is. He's with Davidson now and he was there for multiple years. He was really good with the girls. had a solid girls team almost the entire time that I was there and before me. What I just really think that happened is once he left, Lakeville didn't put a lot of time into hiring somebody. think they just what happened is they just hired somebody that was already familiar with the program or with the association. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Nicholas Lundquist: was just like the next person. And I don't know whether it was just poor recruiting or whatever it may be during that time that occurred from the time that I had left to the time that I came back. But ⁓ there was a program there was some successful lifters during that time. just the numbers were low. The numbers were low during that time. So I think it was just the coaching change. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you, you brought up the girls. mean, that there were boys that left it when you left it, you know, but like the girls lefters were like. Very good. mean, I think Tori Harding still has some retired state records. ⁓ Whitaker doesn't know these people because he wasn't around at that time, but she is in the old, ⁓ two 20 plus retired weight class. She. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. crazy bench press. Yeah. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Was a beast. Like she was squatting 400 pounds and benching in the mid twos. Like she was a really strong young lady and there was some other lifters, you know, and a variety of weight classes that, know, and the girls team was super competitive. ⁓ and so I was like, honestly, it was, ⁓ cross-lacs. Lakeville wasn't too far behind them. Nicholas Lundquist: We are. Yeah, bench pressing too. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm It was. It was. Chris Gilliam: Honestly, they just didn't have quite the numbers at the lower weight classes that cross lex did. And when I was at Bertron, that's, that's who we were trying to get over the hump of being better than Lakeville. So we had a shot at cross lex, you know, and you just learn through trial and error. Like you just got to get bodies. And then once you get bodies, you start putting them in a training program and then competition feeds competition like. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah, that's what it was, yeah. Chris Gilliam: You get as many people in weight classes as you can and have them training and working towards beating each other. And that makes you more competitive when you go against other teams. So I think you're doing the right thing. When you said relationships earlier, know, building those relationships, I think that'll keep, ⁓ you obviously have a good core right now, so hopefully they can grow it and they can help develop. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Even better relationships amongst themselves. so I'm looking forward to seeing how you guys advance and grow because, know, once again, you know, we were talking to Elk Rapids, small school, great success with their JV. ⁓ and you know, same with you guys, Lakeville. I'm from Kersley, so I'm close by Lakeville used to be a school that had like 900 kids in the high school back in the day. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Yeah. I think last time we had our count it was three, three 20. So. Chris Gilliam: Now how many is in the school now? Yeah, you're talking to school district in the last 20 years has dropped like to a third of what it used to be coach Whitaker, you know, and so to see you guys kind of rise up a little bit shows that, you know, success can still happen at Lakeville because Lakeville was very good in a lot of sports, especially in the eighties and nineties. then enrollment started to go down a little bit. And I'm sure a lot of it had to do with. Nicholas Lundquist: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: General Motors move in and close them down in the Flynn area. ⁓ You know, and then probably frustrating seeing some of your better athletes transfer to that school up north year after year as well. Yeah. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah, that was one of the big ones. Yeah. Yep. Year after year, it's either the school up north or the school down south because we're stuck between two Cardinals. it's yeah. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: ⁓ yeah, Davidson and Millington. yeah. So no, I think it's great. I just wanted to give people a background on Lakeville schools because I have some familiarity, but not everybody does. And so I think it's great to see the success you guys had this year. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys have some more moving forward. I'm going to let coach Whitaker do our rapid fire now. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. There. Chris Whittaker: Yeah, that is, I mean, that's going to be the cool part. I think for me about us doing this is I'm going to learn a lot of that history that I don't, I don't know. Like, I don't know who's good forever. You know, so that that's pretty cool. All right. Rapid fire speed set questions. Got to get back on the bar in 45 seconds here. So quick answers, five of them, five of them. So these are kind of which you prefer questions. Nicholas Lundquist: Okay. Okay. Chris Whittaker: Your favorite lift squat bench press deadlift Nicholas Lundquist: squat. Chris Whittaker: Low bar or high bar on that squat. Nicholas Lundquist: Low bar. Chris Whittaker: Sumo or conventional deadlift. Nicholas Lundquist: See you, ma. Chris Whittaker: one rep max or a rep PR. Nicholas Lundquist: We do both. We do both. like I like a one rep max. Chris Whittaker: Now this last one's a three-parter, right? It's gonna be your best accessory exercises, okay? Starting with the squat. What's your best accessory exercise for the squat? Nicholas Lundquist: squad. Chris Whittaker: my man. Speed, gotta go. Best accessory exercise for the bench press. Nicholas Lundquist: ⁓ I like close grip bench. Chris Whittaker: And the deadlift. Nicholas Lundquist: RDL. Chris Whittaker: Yeah, we're on board. We need to have him on again and talk training. I think I like where this is going. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Nicholas Lundquist: I'm a West Side Guy, man. Chris Whittaker: Hey, they're all over here. They're all right here to my left. All of them. Nicholas Lundquist: Yep. Chris Gilliam: Not to get in too long of a conversation, but Nick is your, is your ⁓ mindset with your programming? ⁓ Are you a conjugate method? Are you a linear periodization? What, what do you kind of do? Nicholas Lundquist: Yep. Yep. I'm a conjugate guy, big conjugate guy. ⁓ I'm not sure if you, I'm sure you guys have heard of his name. Do you guys know who Zach Goodman is? So me and Zach went to college together and during our time at college, he put me on the conjugate program. So I've learned a lot just from him, from watching his stuff and just researching on my own and I've put it into practice and man, it's hard to beat. You know, it's a hard thing to beat. There's so much good. Chris Whittaker: Mm-hmm. Chris Gilliam: Yep. ⁓ yeah. Chris Whittaker: Makes too much sense to me. Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I mean, we'll probably get you back on at another ⁓ time because I'm sure we'll have ⁓ some discussions regarding training ⁓ and ⁓ conjugate method, linear periodization, all that type of stuff. Cause there's so many different ways to train and, ⁓ you know, everybody puts their own little spin on each method a little bit. Cause you know, once again, we're all not, we're not coaching the next Nicholas Lundquist: Yeah. Yep. Chris Gilliam: powerful, you know, beast out there necessarily. We were just trying to get the most out of everybody that we can. So, yeah, that's great. Good stuff. So conjugate method coach Whitaker. I had a feeling he was. ⁓ Nicholas Lundquist: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Kind of get mathed. Yep. Chris Whittaker: Yes. Yes. It's always great to find another guy that believes in the methods of Sir Lewis Simmons of that terrible city of RIP, Louis. ⁓ But now we are on dread program. We pride ourselves on running the conjugate method with all of our athletes. So we will definitely do a lot to do a series talking about training like Chris said, and we'll have you have you back and we can kick some ideas back and forth. Nicholas Lundquist: Rest in Yeah. No. Absolute. Chris Whittaker: ⁓ But as we kind of get close to our time here, ⁓ is there anything that we haven't kind of asked you yet that you'd like to talk about? Talk about your program or anything like that? Nicholas Lundquist: Man, give all credit to the kids. Man, I put them in the best position that I can and these kids come in and work their tails off. And it's something that I think that you guys are going to see for years to come. Just that, that growth, that, that camaraderie that this team brings to to the Lakeville powerlifting program. I think it's going to be something that is huge. ⁓ with kids coming up from sixth grade, have 15, 20 boys already interested in powerlifting next year when they get in the seventh grade, which is huge. That's not only going to help the powerlifting program, that's going to help our football programs or all the programs within our school. And I'm happy just to see how kids are starting to realize this stuff is important. Yes, sport practices are important, but getting stronger, getting faster, jumping higher, all these things are just as important. Chris Whittaker: And when you train them in the conjugate method, you can develop it all. Chris Gilliam: Awesome. I'm excited for you guys. Nicholas Lundquist: Yep. Yep. Yes, sir. Yep. Chris Gilliam: Thank you. Chris Whittaker: ⁓ Mr. Gillum, anything ⁓ for Mr. Lundquist? Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I mean, one of the last things I'm just curious of like, know, you're a young guy and you participate in the sport of power lift and who are a couple guys that, you know, you would consider a mentor like that. kind of have provided you guidance as a coach. Uh, they, you know, maybe motivated you when you were participating in the sport yourself. I mean, just, you know, give a shout out to some of those guys. Nicholas Lundquist: Man at number one first and foremost is your next guest on this show is Mr. Nick Lusk. He was at Lakeville for a while before he went on his way and he just, he did a lot for me. I don't think he realizes how much he did for me in terms of like weightlifting and sport aspect stuff, but he, did a lot for me and he's a great guy. He's a great, great guy, great coach, great father. ⁓ And ⁓ just. Jeff Simpson as well, he's at Davison now. ⁓ He was my coach when I was at Lakeville and he was one of those guys that, hey, when I didn't want to lift, I was being a chubby little lazy kid in high school. was like, hey, you gotta get in the weight room, you gotta get after it. And I did and I thank him a lot for the success that I had as a student athlete at Lakeville. Chris Gilliam: Awesome, that's good Chris Whittaker: All right, Nick, do you guys have any social media for your program that people they want to follow you? Nicholas Lundquist: ⁓ yep, on Facebook, we were just a likeful strength, like full strength on Facebook. I believe we're on Instagram as well. Chris Whittaker: make sure I'm following Lakefield strength and another conjugate guy. ⁓ Well, that's all we got. Thank you very much for being here ⁓ and taking the time to do this. Congratulations again on a great season. Nicholas Lundquist: sir. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, congrats, man. Happy for you. Chris Whittaker: Hey, and we'll talk again soon about training. Nicholas Lundquist: ⁓ absolutely. Thank you guys.