James Zentveld has nationals in sight after competition debut

The Ballarat 20-year-old took a giant stride towards achieving this objective with an impressive competition debut in Geelong on Sunday.

Competing in the Australian Powerlifting League's "Champions of Geelong" drug-tested event, Zentveld powered his way to overall victory in the junior (up to 23 years) 100kg division and second in the 20-39 category.

He set the pace in the deadlift - lifting 280kg.

He also bench-pressed 145kg and added 220kg for the squat for an aggregate of 645kg - right up with the best totals nationally in his junior age group.

Zentveld said doing so well in the aggregate was most rewarding, given his inexperience.

He said based on what he had been doing in training he was confident of doing well and was most satisfied to have been able to deal with the pressure that comes with competition

With the performance across the three disciplines under his belt, he is now looking to nationals in Brisbane next year.

There is a series of lead-up APL events before the nationals, including the Victorian championships on March 3 - the next event he will tackle.

Zentveld took the first steps towards taking up powerlifting seriously as a Year 9 student.

"I joined a gym and started lifting some weights.

"Towards the end of that year I started watching powerlifting videos and thought I'd like to give it a go.

"It went from there," he said.

Zentveld said he kept working on it to the point where he thought he'd go into a competition - receiving some mentoring along the way to ensure he would be fully prepared for all the challenges of a competition.

He said his success at Geelong reinforced a desire to continue in the sport and get even more serious.

So with the nationals now on the agenda, that means continuing to train at the Derrimut Gym in Ballarat - lifting more and bigger weights