Inside India's Biggest Powerlifting Nationals

Pradeep Kumar is competing at this year's nationals. He is also the person who organized it. Neither role gets his full attention — he'll tell you that himself — but both are true at once, which says more about how India's powerlifting scene actually grows than either fact alone would.

In episode 2 of The Third Attempt, Pradeep sits down with Shreyas, the event's PR lead, to talk about how a bank employee with a 25,000-rupee salary ended up building the infrastructure this sport runs on.

Why This Is India's Biggest Powerlifting Nationals

Scale in Indian powerlifting isn't measured the way most sports measure it — there's no broadcast deal or ticket-sales number to point to. What there is: hundreds of lifters entering, a federation and a private organizer both treating it as the meet that matters most this year, and an organizer who competes in his own event because he refuses to sit it out. That's the case for calling this India's biggest powerlifting nationals, and it's the case Pradeep makes without ever using the word "biggest" himself — he just describes what it takes to run it.

From a Bank Job to Rs 7,000 a Month

Pradeep didn't start as an athlete. "Just a layman," he calls himself — a postgraduate working at HDFC Bank until he watched his future coach return from a Commonwealth bench press meet in a public procession through Mangalore. He trained bench press only for two years before moving to Balanjaniya gymnasium, which he calls his temple — no phones, no videos, no social media, lifters in their 50s and 60s training alongside him.

"We never used to practice to win medals. Just perform, be consistent, wait for your turn." — Pradeep, on the discipline Balanjaniya's older lifters taught him

Then came the actual sacrifice: leaving a 25,000-rupee bank salary for a 7,000-rupee trainer job at Talwalkas. Family and friends turned on him. He trained morning and evening batches to pay rent, then trained himself at Balanjaniya during the day. Five years passed before any of it produced a result.

Competing While Organizing

Pradeep is a 6x Strongman of Karnataka (2018-2024), but he doesn't frame his own numbers as achievement:

"I don't consider myself an achiever. It just came because I was consistent. I just love this sport." — Pradeep

That consistency is also strategic when it needs to be. At the 2024 Commonwealth Equipped Bench Press Championship in Sun City, South Africa, his federation nomination placed him at 83kg — a weight class with no competition that day. He switched to 93kg, where three or four real opponents were entered, having already studied the main threat's European Powerlifting footage and worked out that his 240kg rarely went. That competitor lifted 235kg and then called for 240kg. Pradeep answered with 237kg, the 240kg attempt missed exactly as the footage predicted, and the gold was his.

This year, he's competing at 83kg in the same nationals he's organizing — sponsorship calls, athlete logistics, and his own women's team's coaching all competing for the same week's attention. "My body is set for this," is as much explanation as he offers for why he's still chasing a PR on top of everything else.

Sport-First, Not Brand-First

Shreyas, who runs the event's PR, draws the comparison to Brendon McCullum's 158 in the first IPL match — the innings that made every sponsor want in overnight. Kasharp is trying to do the same for powerlifting, deliberately: every marketing asset features athletes, never Kasharp's own branding. It's a slower bet than brand-first marketing, and Shreyas is direct about why it's still the right one — grow the sport first, and the business follows the sport, not the other way round.

The Real Reason: Parents Who Still Don't Understand

The most honest part of the conversation isn't about numbers. Pradeep's mother still asks why he does this when he comes home with neck pain and back pain. Young lifters who want powerlifting as a career get no support from parents, schools, or society — they're not, in his words, "in the limelight." Building an event good enough that a lifter can show their parents a livestream, in front of a full field, at scale, is Pradeep's actual answer to that gap.

"My post-graduate friends now tell me, 'we never thought you would achieve this social status.'" — Pradeep, on what a decade of consistency actually bought him

Read the TranscriptExpandCollapse

Lightly edited for readability from the recorded conversation.

On what Balanjaniya gymnasium taught him:

Pradeep: We never used to practice to win medals. Just perform, be consistent, wait for your turn. No phones, no videos allowed there — pure discipline, training next to lifters in their fifties and sixties who'd been doing this for decades.

On leaving banking for a Rs 7,000 salary:

Pradeep: Those were very tough days, to prove myself. Family and friends turned on me. I trained morning and evening batches at Talwalkas to survive, and I worked out at Balanjaniya during the day, on my own time. Five years before anyone thought this made sense.

On the Commonwealth gold strategy:

Pradeep: My nomination was at 83kg, where nobody else was competing. I switched to 93kg, where there were three or four real opponents. Last he lifted some 235, then I had to lift 237. He lifted 235 and he gave 240. But I have seen his lifts in European powerlifting side — he never used to do 240. I saw that video, I knew that he was not going to do 240, and I did 237. He couldn't do 240.

On why he still competes while organizing the event:

Pradeep: I know I can't give my best — no sleep, organizing stress, coaching my women's team on top of it. But I'm still aiming for PRs in all three lifts. My body is set for this.

On the five-year vision for the sport:

Pradeep: Every powerlifter should get paid for what he is doing. State, national, international, all sponsored by the federation. No parent should have to say, "why are you following that sport." Lifters should get the same respect as any other profession.

This is a lightly cleaned excerpt of the full conversation, not the complete transcript. The full episode is embedded above.