Listening through his head phones to a playlist of his favorite heavy metal music, Chris Gallick, a graduate student in physics, stares at his opponents, ready to defeat them.

His opponents are not the many others standing around him though. Gallick is involved in a sport that is much larger than the other people who are involved in it. He competes with himself and the large, heavy weights he has motivated himself to lift.

“It’s like man vs. weights, and the only opponent is yourself,” said Nick Grabarek, a sophomore physical education major and one of many participants in the Eastern powerlifting meet this past weekend.

Though powerlifting competitions award winners for lifting the highest amount of weight in their specific weight class, many of the competitors set personal goals that mean much more.

“In the end, I’m doing it for myself, regardless if I win my weight class and regardless if I lose,” said Chuck Bono, a sophomore exercise science major.

And when Gallick walked toward an attempt of 520 pounds in the squat event, all eyes were on him. Everything stopped as Gallick’s opponents briefly became his supporters.

People cheered him on and congratulated him as he successfully lifted a weight more than double his own.

“That’s a great feeling,” Gallick said. “Everyone wants a good competition out of their opponents so they want to push each other and push themselves.”

Gallick said the best competition is when his opponents are at their best.

“I want everyone to be at their best; that way if I happen to win, I can say I beat everyone at their best,” he said.

Paul Lotz, a senior physical education major and judge for the event, said the camaraderie in powerlifting is like no other sport.

“It’s like a brotherhood,” Lotz said. “People who lift weights know how hard it is to be in the gym every day.”

When it comes time to step up to the weights, Gallick said the atmosphere of the competition can actually push lifters to meet weights they have never reached.

“You can train all you want and you’ll never reach this level of atmosphere during competition because the adrenaline is so much higher,” Gallick said. “That pushes you to achieve a personal best, a new level.”

Personal goals and motivation come from different means for some opponents. Being recognizably smaller than many of the higher weight classes, Matt Balog, a freshman health studies major, said people sometimes doubt his ability.

“It just makes me want to try harder because they think I’m too small and I can’t do it,” said Balog, who participated in the 149-pound weight class. “They doubt me and that’s what motivates me.”

So as the announcer calls his name for an attempt, it’s all business. That one attempt means more than just winning and losing to powerlifters.

“It’s go time,” Grabarek said. “It’s either put up or shut up. Today is my day.”