David Zechowy, a coder and lifter

David Zechowy clean and jerking 200 pounds in competition

Photo courtesy of Stefan Zechowy

By Heyman Luong staff writer

For most people, competitive weightlifting is considered something that only buff and burly men do: a small community of people dedicated to the "grindset," or something that men should do to keep up masculine appearances; however, to David Zechowy, a current junior at Maria Carrillo High School, it means so much more than that. 

Zechowy grew up with an exciting and active lifestyle. At the age of five, he began to practice the martial art Kook Su Won and achieved the level of a black belt before stopping at 13 when going into middle school.

Zechowy started his weightlifting journey at the age of seven as another way of staying in shape, improving his strength, and having fun. He was inspired to do weightlifting by his older sister, who had also been weightlifting since an early age. Over the many years that he has done weightlifting, Zechowy and his team, Myles Ahead Weightlifting, reached nationals, with Zechowy placing first in 2017 and 2019 and second in 2022 Zechowy can claim the impressive achievement of being able to clean and jerk (that is, lifting the weight to one’s shoulders and “jerking it” above the head) 200 pounds at the age of 16 while weighing himself only 120 pounds. 

Even early on, the enjoyment of pushing his limits and improving both skill and strength was attractive to Zechowy. With a rigorous training schedule and regular workouts, Zechowy made steady progress. While at first he simply did it to be like his sister, whom he admired and looked up to, by the time he was 13, Zechowy realized it had become a passion of his and an activity that he looked forward to each week. Watching others compete and then getting 4th in nationals made him realize just how good of a chance he had at competing to win, further sparking his interest. The exercise helped him clear his mind and gave him something to focus on, improving his concentration and providing respite from his busier and busier life. The competition kept him motivated—a way to see the fruits of his effort and test his skills against others like him.

Each competition fueled his hunger to be more, and his victories only increased his resolve. Training four days a week, Zechowy worked harder than ever to keep growing, and he finally won in 2017. The feeling of victory was “pretty good,” as Zechowy modestly stated. The success proved to Zechowy that his efforts had been worth it, inspiring him to continue his journey. In this manner, he was able to win again in 2019 and get second in 2022. 

However, a recent interest has taken his life by storm—coding.

Starting the first summer of quarantine, Zechowy found a passion for computer science. With a seemingly limitless amount of fresh ideas to try and help the world, he spends "more time on computer science than school"—impressive when taking Zechowy's AP student lifestyle into account and considering that he has to balance schoolwork, coding, and music, playing bass in the school orchestra. 

Something had to change. Weightlifting did not feel productive anymore and had become a chore, something he had to do rather than wanted to do. Furthermore, his coach, who had been a core part of his journey as a weightlifter, moved to Nebraska. Without a mentor, Zechowy’s passion seemed to move away just as his coach had.

"It was stressful, and I realized I'd like weightlifting a lot more if it weren't competitive," Zechowy said. "To be honest, I just want to be a fit, healthy person. I don't need to be extraordinary at a sport or anything, I just want to be active."

After about ten years of weightlifting, Zechowy decided to put competition behind him after nationals last summer. Of course, he still works out, but dropping competitive lifting has freed Zechowy from a lot of stress and allowed him to focus much more on his passion for coding. With coding, Zechowy has achieved incredible success, winning second place in the 2022 Congressional App Challenge and first place in Sonoma Hacks 2.0 with his creations Zapchat and HSpost— social media platforms for teenagers with fully functional text and voice chat, as well as user-friendly user interface. These projects were meant to help high schoolers connect and chat easily as well as to meet new people, and it pushed him to do the best he could and hone his app-making skills, learning a lot through each process and increasing his knowledge.

Zechowy showing the code for his app HSpost

(Heyman Luong, The Puma Prensa)

Moving forward, Zechowy wants to start making a difference with his projects, improving the lives of those around him to make a lasting impact. "I have a lot of ambitious projects that I'm passionate about being able to show to the world," he said. He plans to improve the school by digitizing advocacy passes, where a digital request for passes could be sent and approved, and digital signatures could be used. He finds that "the current system is such a hassle" and that using digital passes and showing them when needed would be much easier to deal with than slips of paper, which can be easily lost.

"Right now my main focus is [to] make the most of the time I have in high school to bring my ideas to fruition," Zechowy said. "I just want to manifest my vision and make sure that I do the best I can before graduation."