Every year, the Toronto Pro Super Show attracts tens of thousands of fitness enthusiast to the Metro Convention Center to watch IFBB Bodybuilding, Powerliftting, Strongman competitions, boxing and arm wrestling.
A small crowd of spectators can be found watching one of the oldest organized sport in the world. A battle between man and women against gravity. However, seeing this competition for the first time, you get an appreciation of how small the weightlifting community is compared to the culture of powerlifting and Bodybuilding. That is why Canada and USA experience such little success in competitive weightlifting.
In many other countries, Weightlifters are seen as the top athletes. Whereas, prior to crossfit, the majority of Canadian fitness enthusiast couldn't even tell you what a clean and jerk was suppose to look like. In Canada, we take pride in our hockey and parents pass on their love for hockey to their children. Like hockey in Canada, weightlifting is the major sport in China and Russia. Children are placed in specialized weightlifting programs and begin squatting heavy at the age of 6.
There is no weightlifting culture in Canada. No national funding or provincial funding for competitive weightlifting athletes. No support for those fighting an uphill battle becoming a competitive weightlifter.
In the SCC
In the SCC, all members of the weightlifting community are student athletes. They take pride that they are balancing their academic life with the intense training of the weightlifting programs. However, there are no Canadian or American weightlifting idols to look up to. Therefore, members of the weightlfiting community seek to mimic the training style or techniques of the power house countries of weightlifting.
Killian Newman-
Weightlifting at SCC Since 2011
Killian has a Russian training philosophy. He squats heavy every time he trains. He has conditioned his body to take on the 95%-100% attempts every time he trains. Some call him crazy, but he's has qualified for Nationals twice at 105kg body weight.
His idol- Russian 105kg Olympic Medialist - Dmitry Kloklov
Jae Won Yun-
Weightlifting at the SCC Since 2011
Jae has been training with the UTM weightlifting team since 2009 and began training at the SCC because he came to U of T St.George to study Physics. Jae has trained with the Korean National team for two summers and has a more relax style of weightlifting. The focus is not to go heavy every training session but to hit set weight of the training program.
His Idol- Korean 77kg Gold Medalist - Sae Jae- Hyouk
Brian Jiang
Weightlifting at the SCC since 2012
Brain is a rising super star in the SCC weightlifting community. With his athletic background in track and football, he has climbed up as a competitive 77kg weightlifter that qualified for provincials in just a year of training. While nursing a shoulder and knee injury, he still manages to train 5-6 times a week. Brain identifies himself as a chinese style weightlifter. The way he pull and slides the bar on the clean and jerk mimics the technique that the national chinese team uses.
His Idol- Chinese 69kg Gold Medalist - Liao Hui
Which training technique is best?
As we can see from Killian, Jae, and Brian, they all identify with a unique training technique. That is not to say one is better than the other. The weightlifting members of the SCC are bound by their love of the sport. It is interesting that lifters do not only buy in to the technique, but they buy in to the whole country's culture. From the idols that they admire, to clothing options and battle cries.
All for the love of the sport!
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