Takano Athletics

I think that sometimes people who have been in the sport of weightlifting for an extended period of time forget the degree of the allure that this sport can generate.

It might seem like a difficult argument or sales proposition to make.  Telling someone that that there are actually people who would like to snatch or clean & jerk more than anything else beyond biological needs might not get you too many believers.  Once that an athlete can perform these movements with great (and sometimes not so great) efficacy however, there is a good chance that he or she will completely alter their life in order to develop even greater proficiency.

For years I’ve been teaching this particularly addictive sport to thousands of people.  Once they understand it and comprehend it and master it, they will spend money, put careers on hold, alter relationships with loved ones and change major aspects of their lives in order to insure that they can continue to train to improve their lifting.

I’ve known of plenty of people who’ve moved to a different city to be in a better training environment or lift under the direction of a certain coach.  I’ve known a lifter who circled certain cities on a map that had weightlifting gyms and let his fiancee know that those were the possible honeymoon destinations.

I’ve had to chase lifters out of the gym when I’d given them a few days off after months of grueling training.  They couldn’t stand to be away from training!

I’ve taught the snatch and clean & jerk to athletes to improve their performance in their sport of choice, and some of them gave up their sport of choice and became weightlifters.  Others have converted their living rooms into weightlifting gyms.

As you go about your lifting and coaching, if you haven’t realized it already, you are dealing with a highly addictive activity that can truly be life changing.  But isn’t that what’s wonderful about weightlifting?  The sheer joy of progressing on that path that will lead to those marvelous moments of sport when the athlete can achieve a personal record on the competitive platform.

People that don’t understand it call it discipline when they see an athlete unfailingly show up for workouts, putting forth a mighty effort on each rep and then doing it again and again and again.  It’s not discipline.  It is addiction.

One of my former athletes, Fred,  had the best term for it.  He called it the sickness.  Whenever we had a newcomer in the gym gradually mastering the snatch and the clean & jerk, and  then getting that look on the face that was just bordering on ecstacy, Fred would look over at me with a fiendish grin on his face and quietly declare, “He’s got the sickness!”

Another convert, another addict.  Weightlifting just does work that way.