Macknair sets eight lifting world records
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MECHANICSBURG -- By day, Karrie Macknair is the mild-mannered financial operations manager of a well-known traffic control company.
After her workday ends, the Mifflin County native is a competitive powerlifter, who recently set eight world records at the International Powerlifting Association National Powerlifting Championships in York.
"After I graduated from college, I started working with a trainer originally to lose some weight," the 34-year-old Macknair recalled of being introduced to the sport. "I never knew powerlifting existed.
"After I saw it, I wanted to try it and I fell in love with it," she added. "It gave me the chance to be competitive again, and work toward different goals."
A 2007 graduate of Juniata High School - her family moved to Mifflintown when she was 4 - Macknair played sports year-round with soccer, basketball, softball and cheerleading.
She continued playing club sports and joining the dance team while attending Millersville University. Once she graduated in 2012, she moved home and needed to find a new way to rekindle that competitive spark.
"I'd been an athlete my whole life," Macknair explained. "Once I graduated and moved home, I didn't know what to do. I started working and gained weight. I wasn't happy with what was going on.
Powerlifting has not provided a spark; it's created more of a blazing inferno inside of her.
"I've been powerlifting for eight years now, but the last time I competed at a big invitational meet was in Kansas City in 2021," she said.
Macknair stepped away from the sport - and a grueling training regimen - due to a knee injury.
"After that meet, I took some time off and got healthy again," she added. "Two years ago, I moved then got a new job. So, this was my first meet back in two years."
And Macknair, who now lives in Mechanicsburg and works for Flagger Force, came back with a bang - setting four world records in the open class and four more in the submaster 30- to 35-year-old age group.
She set the squat world record at 440 pounds, bench press world record at 290 pounds, deadlift world record at 500 pounds and overall effort for those three lifts at a combined weight of 1,230 pounds.
Additionally, she set the same world records in her age bracket.
After the results from this meet, held at the York Barbell Club, Macknair expects to be ranked among the top five powerlifters in the 220-pound weight class. She came into the meet ranked among the top 20 lifters.
The records are sanctioned by the IPA. Record holders must belong to at least one of the recognized associations across the country.
Her highest ranking to date has been in the top three of the 198-pound weight class in 2020.
Powerlifting is serious business for Macknair, who spent the past four months preparing for the IPA Nationals. "I have to follow a certain diet, train four days a week, do cardio every day," she said. "I also have stretching and mobility work to do on the three days a week I don't lift."
Macknair would like to compete in one meet in the spring and another in the fall.
She is the daughter of Rich and Mary Macknair of Burnham.