Competitive team
Most athletes here train to get stronger and get on with their week. A handful want a number on a board and a meet on the calendar. There's a team for them.
The team
Coach Jessie Badeaux and his wife Emily run Train Unique's Special Olympics powerlifting team out of the Lafayette gym.
Squat, bench, deadlift. Same three lifts everyone else competes in, same rules, same judges. Athletes train through the week on the main floor alongside everybody, then travel to meets when they're ready.
Nobody gets recruited onto it. If you want to compete, you say so, and the work starts.
In November 2024 four Train Unique athletes traveled to Illinois for the World Powerlifting Congress (WPC) World Championships. All four took gold, every lifter set a personal record, and world records were broken. Reported by KATC, December 2024.
The team at the WPC World Championships. Left to right: Cole Younger — first place, 125kg class, with records in the squat (155kg), bench (80kg), deadlift (157.5kg), and total (365kg). Brad Bourque — first place, going 102.5 / 70 / 127.5. Ali Wood — first place, going 60 / 42.5 / 80. Daniel Courville — first place and Best Lifter, going 115 / 55 / 127.5.
On the platform in Lisle, Illinois — the deadlift, the bench, and Daniel Courville with the Best Lifter hardware.
And it kept going
In 2026, two Train Unique lifters traveled to St. John's, Canada for the IPF/NAPF North American Regional Powerlifting Championships. Both stood on the top step.
What we actually see
Twenty-two seconds. The bar goes up, and what is being built underneath it is independence and confidence.
Getting there
Every lifter on that team started the same way everyone else does — one coach, one hour, learning how their own body moves. Competition came later, and only because they asked for it.
If your athlete never wants a meet, nothing about their training changes. If they do, this is what it turns into.
In his own words
Damon draws the line most families never get drawn for them: strength and conditioning, programmed training, body composition and nutrition — not a clinical session with a different name.