I like lifting weights and playing with numbers. Up until recently these two activities have been completely independent. But when I started learning R and Python, I wanted a project to help me practice and develop the new skills while also providing enough interesting insights to keep me motivated to keep going.

My first project was scraping USAPL database and analyze competitions and lifters. USAPL is one of the biggest powerlifting federations in the US. I am a member and compete regularly (2x a year). All the competition results are posted on their website. As I’ve discovered there are a lot of small (and annoying) nuances to the way this database is maintained/structured. But I’ll cover this in my posts as it directly relates to how I learned things.

So why am I writing this blog? Two reasons:

• I am in the process of becoming a data scientist. This sounds very generic, but I am still figuring it out. So when I have a more cohesive answer, I’ll update this paragraph. However, they say that it’s good for aspiring (and established) data scientists to share projects with others and get involved with the community. That’s my attempt.
• I want to share what I learn about powerlifting with powerlifters. The sport is growing rapidly, especially, among women. I’ve learned most about it from Instagram. But I think everybody will benefit from a bit more quantitative approach. There are a lot of articles and research analyzing the numbers behind the sport. But who knows, maybe I’ll be able to contribute something interesting as well.

My posts will fall into one of the two categories above and will be labeled accordingly so no one accidentally gets bored.