Art can come in many forms, for most people, it’s visual. It’s an expression of human performance, skill and imagination, furthermore in the sport of weightlifting; it’s an expression of strength, skill, power and emotion. Although all art is beautiful in it’s own way, your mind is the dictator whether you personally see its beauty or not.

In my case, the beauty in art that I see is in the sport of weightlifting!!

With the Rio 2016 Olympic Games coming to a conclusion, now is a great time to appreciate our sport and have a look at what has happened in our time. Weightlifting made its first appearance at the Olympics in 1896 but as time has gone on, the sport has evolved incredibly and even more so since the introduction of Crossfit 10 years ago. We even have top-level Games athletes such as Tia Claire Toomey from Australia participating not only at the Crossfit games but also in the Rio 2016 Olympic games in the same year. That would never have happened if it wasn’t for Crossfit!!

Enough about the crossover, lets get onto the beauty of weightlifting. There is a lot more to weightlifting than just moving heavy weight. It requires strength, power, co-ordination, skill and an incredibly strong mindset.

Strength and power are you’re obvious contributors to being successful in the sport of weightlifting. But being strong and powerful can only get you so far. You need to put two and two together. Co-ordination and body awareness is just as important; it’s a skill that needs to be executed in conjunction with you’re strength and power.  I always say, technique over strength any day!!  Everyone can get strong but it takes hours of dedication to perfect and fine-tune you’re technique.  Moving well and getting into that perfect position can make all the difference to finishing 1^st over 2^nd.

Weightlifting can be very emotional and dramatic at times. In a competition you get 3 attempts at the snatch and 3 attempts of the clean & jerk. Little do people know that if you cannot establish a weight in the snatch then you are unable to participate in the clean & jerk. A very common scenario is someone missing his/her 1^st two snatch attempts and then having to make the 3^rd attempt to progress. This makes the competition extremely intense, for not only for the crowd but for the athlete too. He or she has to hold their ground, stay positive and have a tremendously strong mindset to make sure they make their final lift to progress. On the day of competition, you can never predict what’s going to happen and how you are going to perform. It always comes down to the day.  Yes, you have your numbers, which you have hit, but can you do what you do in training on a platform in silence, in front of crowd and 3 judges with all eyes on you?   With saying that, this leads to my final point, which is appreciation.

From what we have spoken about earlier, yes, we need to be strong and skillful but the sport isn’t just about physical capacity and how well you move a barbell.  The most important aspect of weightlifting…is your  mind!!! They say that approaching the bar has already made 90% of the lift and the final 10% comes down to executing it.  You as an athlete need to visualize yourself getting the lift before even approaching the bar. If you don’t think you are going to make the lift, then I guarantee that there is a high chance that you won’t. Confidence in yourself and commitment to the movement is key to getting that final 10%.

So saying all that, the combination of strength, skill, power and a strong mental game, you can start to understand why the art of weightlifting is so beautiful.