Embracing the Power of Weightlifting 

By James Huseth

Since I was just a little kid I was looking forward to tackle football and when I finally got the chance to play tackle football, it instantly turned into my favorite sport ever. I was sad when my freshman year of football was over, but I didn't let that stop me from getting better so this winter I joined weightlifting. I have been in summer weightlifting since seventh grade and it was a super fun experience but this year I got to join the bomber weightlifting team and it has made me so much stronger than I ever was before.

I love waking up early to lift weights, it is the only thing I look forward to now that football season is over. One thing I didn't know was that the weightlifting team had weightlifting meets against other schools each month. When I heard about this It made me a little nervous thinking about all those people watching me lift. I also found out that we have to wear a singlet which I didn't like. I still signed up to compete in the weightlifting meet because my cousin decided to go even though it made me nervous.

The first meet was just around the corner and all I could think about was what if I fail in front of all those people. I get to my first meet and I watch the girls lift while I wait to be weighed in. When it's time to weigh in I get in the locker room and get into my singlet. I step on the scale and wait for the number to stabilize, and I'm just underweight for my weight class. I go into the weight room to start warming up and stretching and before I know it they send me to my lifting platform. I take a seat right behind the platform and show the coach my card that says how much I want to lift. The announcer calls my name after the loaders get done putting weight on the bar and says ¨James Huseth from Cannon Falls, attempting a 60 kg snatch¨ I stand up with goosebumps all over my skin and I hear all my friends and family cheering for me, ¨you can do this, let's go, James, get this now!¨ I take a deep breath while rubbing chalk on my hands and see everyone in the stands watching me. When I make it to the bar everything turns silent and all I'm focusing on now is the lift, I use all my strength in my body to make a huge pull, and woosh, the bar is over my head and then I squat the bar and wait for the judge to put down his hand so I can drop it, and he does. I turned around and saw three bright white lights and my whole family cheering, I successfully made the lift. At that moment It made me feel like maybe this is not too bad, but I still have two more lifts to go.

The coach tells me how well I did and says that I should go up more weight than I wanted to because I made the first one look too easy. The announcer calls my name again ¨James Huseth from Cannon Falls attempting a 63 kg snatch.¨ The same thing happened on my way to the bar and all I'm focusing on now is the lift. Big pull and woosh the bar is above my head again and then I squat and wait for the judge’s hand, he puts it down so I can drop the bar and I see three white lights and my family cheering again. At that moment I realized how fun this was and I couldn't wait till my next lift, so I told the coach that I wanted to attempt a 65 kg snatch and so I did. ¨James Huseth from Cannon Falls attempting a 65 kg snatch for his final lift¨ as I walk up to the bar I see everyone cheering for me because this lift will be a new PR for me, so when I get to the bar I take a deep breath in and pull, the bar berley gets over my head but I still got it, then I squat it, my face is cherry red trying to hold this weight while the judge puts down his hand. When his hand goes down I'm relieved as I drop the weight, I successfully made the lift and at that moment I felt like I was on top of the world while my family and friends were cheering.

At the end of the meet, I was very happy to sign up for it because it was well worth all the nervousness I had before the meet. I learned that I should always try something before I say ¨no¨ because I might like it just like how the meet turned out. Ever since that meet I couldn't wait till the next one, and I ended up lifting at one more meet before I got a shoulder injury but it still made me a lot stronger than I ever was before so I could be better for next football season. I ended up loving weightlifting and started treating it less like practice for another sport and more like a whole new sport that I loved just as much and that's when I started to embrace the power of weightlifting.