listen to the story of your lifters listen to
the story of people in front of you i've walked
into gyms and i've listened to individual coaches
because we've been doing this for for a few decades
now and sometimes i listen to them i say listen
this person might be old but you don't know the
experience that person brings to the gym Hi,
François. It's my pleasure to have you on Evidence
Strong Show. If you could briefly introduce yourself.
Pleased to meet you, Alex. My name is François
Gravel. I'm a full professor at the School of
Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa in
Canada. I've been involved with weightlifting,
style lifting for, oh my God, close to 50 years
now, since 1977. As an athlete at first, then
a coach, then a coach developer. and also an
international judge in weightlifting. I was also
part of a group that rewrote and redesigned our
coaching certification program for weightlifting.
In a nutshell, that's a little bit my background.
Wow. And you also do research in weightlifting.
I invited you because of the particular paper,
which is titled, I'm not too old to lift, exploring
lifelong involvement in Olympic weightlifting
through the serious... pleasure perspective.
So why this study? Tell me how it came to be.
Well, many, many years ago, when I did my doctoral
thesis, I was looking at participation, active
participation of healthy seniors within a community
environment in physical activity. And it dawned
on me back then that most of the research that
I was reading, and still a bit today, it's getting
better, but at that time, most of the research
was focusing on attendance in programs. And that
caught my attention. And then later on, I kept
on reading, of course, on the topic. And I realized
that many of the research were focusing their
attention on the ones who will start participating
and within a month or so or 10 weeks or whatever
will leave the activity never to come back to
the activity, which is not a bad thing in itself
because nothing stops us from trying different
things. But I thought that. most of the benefits.
from taking part in an activity like a physical
activity will come in with time and involvement.
And then we started thinking, my colleagues and
I were thinking, what if instead of looking at
the ones who decide to move away, what about
the ones who decide to stay and stay connected
to the activity for many, many, many and many
decades? And you'll see when we talk a bit about
the methodology. It's interesting to see how
long people will stay connected to an activity
and eventually this activity lends itself to
a community and so on and so forth. So in my
mind, we were looking from a longevity perspective.
We were looking for success stories. And this
is essentially, that was the starting point of
our research. And we realized that like anybody
else, individuals who maintain their participation
in an activity. like weightlifting, we also looked
at martial arts and other form of activities,
do have the same constraint, the same professional
challenges, the same family constraint as anybody
else. But somehow they found a strategy or strategies
to stay active within their chosen activity.
So that's in a nutshell. That's how we got going
in connection with this research. All right.
So let's go into the weeds. And please tell us
how you designed the study. Who did you invite
and how did you go about data collection? We
handpicked individuals who we knew had been involved
in the field of weightlifting for many, many
years. And I was lucky enough to be able to know
a lot of them because I have been involved for
many years. And also, as an international official,
I travel a lot, so I get to meet people. who
have been involved in weightlifting either as
an athlete, a coach, or an official for many,
many years. And this is how we managed to gather
those 22 participants. So basically, the way
we went about, it was fully volunteered. We interviewed
each participant. And having the concept of serious
leisure or the theory of serious leisure as a
backdrop, we wanted to... know essentially what
was their life story in weightlifting and how
it impacted them as a person and in many cases
in their family life and their professional life.
So now we are at the themes. You had five main
themes. Do you want to go through each one of
them and play in them a little bit so we have
some kind of understanding how these people,
these special individuals are thinking or how
it... how Olympic weightlifting panned out in
their life. Hold on. I don't have the themes
here in front of me. I can start the themes.
Go with the themes and I'll put the explanation.
Okay. So the first theme was lifelong passion
and commitment to Olympic weightlifting. And
it has two sub -themes, development of serious
leisure career and perseverance. So let's dig
in. Let's dig in. One interesting element of
serious leisure perspective is that it looks...
at leisure participation as a career. And it's
interesting that there's a connection made between
what we tend to look at as being a professional
career and a leisure career. And what Steben
suggested is that, well, serious leisure participants
will plan the evolution of their participation.
And this evolution will be based on, of course,
their interest. It will be based on their connection.
with the activity on time. I've had participants
who had been involved in weightlifting for 40
years, but never really competed as others had
been to the Olympics, came back, kept competing,
or had been to the Olympics, came back and maintained
their involvement in a different fashion. But
there's a sense of organization. And it would
be, for example, you would start in the... community
as a novice and then you would go as a junior
athlete and then eventually you become a senior
athlete and then you move up the stages to eventually
reach your optimal potential or where you want
to go with your athletic career. And it's the
same thing with other type of involvement. If,
for example, you would like to become an international
judge, well, it takes about five to eight years
to get yourself to that level. So there's that
sense of planning. It's just not something that
happens by mistake, for example. And of course,
related to this theme, and it's... It is a very
central sub -theme to this major theme, the element
of perseverance. And if this is an element that
came over and over and over again, individuals
will say, well, at first I couldn't do it, but
I kept trying, I kept trying, I kept trying,
eventually I got it. And this concept of perseverance,
I look at it as being one of the key concepts
of a serious leisure involvement. So not to go
too deep into it, that's how I would look at
this first thing. Theme number two. Theme number
two. Rigorous training arrangements across life.
Weightlifting requires a rigorous training regimen.
Now let me, how can I say, qualify this. There's
a lot of misconception regarding theories of
coaching, theories of training. And I'm sure
your audience knows about it. it. Rigorous lifelong
training means that we need to adjust the training.
If you're a young athlete and you're on your
progression, of course, we'll talk about periodization.
Nothing in competition should be. perform without
being planned before. Every lift you take, you've
decided at the beginning of the season, normally.
So there's no surprises. There's no Hail Mary.
Anecdote. One of the Olympics, I believe it was
in 2016. I'm awful with names. We had an amazing
performance of a super heavyweight. I believe
it was from the German team. Matthias Steiner.
Steiner, exactly. Exactly. I had this picture
in my mind where he took a 10 -kilo jump, and
that's what I call a Hail Mary, to win a gold
medal. Well, for about four years after, we had
to teach our new coaches not to do this with
new... athletes. Steiner had been training for
years and he was emotionally involved in that
lift and so on and so forth. But when you have
a young athlete, don't do that. Go on success.
And this is part of the lifelong training. There's
a curve to follow. If you're an elite athlete,
of course, you'll follow periodization. If you're
a starting athlete, well, you have to follow
what we call the long -term athlete development.
You need to learn to move properly. You need
to learn to train properly. You need to learn
to compete. You need to learn to train to win
and whatnot. And as older athletes, you need
to be humble. Adjust your training not to what
your mind is telling you, but what your body
is allowing you to do. And this is humbling.
And it is part of the lifelong, structured, organized
training. Nobody trains heavy all the time. We
build it up. And this is why after an Olympic,
we look at often we'll look at the champions
of the previous Olympics and say, well, what's
going on? They're way behind, below what they
did. six months or nine months or a year ago
at the Olympics. Now they're at the world championship
and they end up in 10th position, for example.
It's normal because we go down to rebuild and
readjust to peak again. So training is for life
and to succeed in weightlifting. you need to
have a structured training program. Okay, next
one is injury experiences and recovery strategies.
Oh my God, that was one of the elements that
kept coming back. Weightlifting is one of the
sports compared to other sports, such as contact
sports, where the level of injuries is lower
than many other sports. Why? Because it's a control,
they call that control motion. But you do have
injuries. Sometimes it could be an injury such
as a tendonitis. It could be lately, I remember
being at some world championships and there were
some injuries to the elbows, some injuries to
shoulders and so on. So it is part of the sport.
And every time you push the body to... further
to its limit, well, you're bound to have more
chances of injuries. So, of course, I believe
everyone I talked to had at one point in their
career to deal with some sort of an injury. What's
interesting is that almost all athletes stated
that whenever they had injuries, they looked
at it as being a challenge, not a game -ender.
And as much as weightlifting is an individual
sport, these athletes would seek help from professionals
in order to deal with their injury and eventually
take on... take it upon themselves to deal with
the injury so they could come back stronger and
better at the platform, at the competition, or
where they were in the club that they were part
of. So essentially, what I found is that they
will do whatever is needed to get over those
injuries, which connects with the element of
maintenance of participation, resilience in the
sport. All right. Next theme is self - improvement
and personal growth? It's a theme that, of course,
again, it's as if I'm repeating myself, but it
kept coming back. Weightlifting is, of course,
an individual group activity. I'll put it this
way. We live beside other lifters, but essentially
we have to get within ourselves to be able to
perform the lift. From that perspective, when
you challenge yourself in performing a lift,
you need to recruit all the energy and the ability
that you have in order to harness that energy
and focus it on the movement on hand. And I feel
it is one of strategy that... weightlifters will
use for personal growth if for example you're
impatient you learn to be patient if for example
you're you're easily you have a short fuse you
learn to extend the fuse a little bit if For
example, you're anxious. Well, you learn to control
that anxiety and so on and so forth. So, of course,
weightlifting is a really good tool to foster
personal growth. And the other one was we had
personal growth and self -improvement. Well,
weightlifting doesn't lie. Either you perform
the lift or you don't. And it's always a battle
against our buddy Newton who decided to invent
gravity. So sometimes you win. And sometimes
Newton wins. So, of course, it's all part of
that. Theme number five. Social and community
building. Not important. Let's skip it. Social
and community building. And there are two soft
themes. So, let's bring them. Community and camaraderie.
And coaching and mentorship for athlete development
and legacy. Oh, my God. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Huge. It's huge. My God, we were so creative
on that last one. Weightlifting, I'll start with
this. One of the great thing about Olympic weightlifting
is that it is a community. I've done work with
regular, we call that the regular circuit, individuals
who are still moving up, young athletes, whether
it's junior or senior level, world championships
and so on. And you could feel the sense of community.
is a concept called community of practice that
I also use. We didn't use it in this article,
but I use it a lot in my research where individual,
the person, a group of persons will meet around
a common objective, a common goal, a common passion.
So weightlifting becomes that magnet that brings
people together. Even at the international level,
you would go into a warm -up room at a world
championship and everybody is talking the same
language. There's an immense amount of respect
that I always found within those room between
teams. There is competitiveness. We agree with
that. But there is that element of respect. For
example, if somebody performs a lift, you don't
walk in front of the platform and so on and so
forth for security and also purposes and for
respect. So that concept of community. is drilled
into us from day one. You're part of a club.
You're part of a sport. You're part of something
bigger. And moving on, because most of the athletes
that we've interviewed were between the ages,
they were all between the ages of 50 and 99,
actually. No, 50 and 89. He was turning 90 that
year. The concept of camaraderie was very, very
important because those are individuals who...
evolve together for years, decades. So they know
each other. And then we go for dinner after the
competition and then the stories comes out. And
you could see that there is that connection that
still exists. A large proportion of my friends
today come from the time that we were competing
in weightlifting. And we still go a couple times
a month for breakfast together. And we chat about
our... career and everything. But we, of course,
we talk about weightlifting because we created
that bond. I find that that bond is even stronger
with master athletes where everybody knows how
fragile a competitor could be in the sense that
they could be the best competitor for that lift.
And then they're an injury away from never competing
again, especially if you're closing down to 90
years old. But that element of camera. That bond
is very, very strong. And athletes will support
each other. They will encourage each other. Of
course, when you deal with international competitions
and so on, it's another ballgame. But for this
particular research, we were looking mostly at
master athletes who have been around the block.
They had been to world championships and they
had been competing at different levels. And then
they find each other and they have that bond.
that was created from their connection with weightlifting.
Now, the coaching and mentorship, that came out
very strongly, even for those athletes, those
master athletes who were still quite involved
in a competitive perspective of weightlifting.
People like to share. people like to help. And
it's sort of connected with this element of community.
I always, one of the questions I was asking is
if you would sell weightlifting to a newcomer,
how would you sell it? And it's interesting to
see what people would come up with, the strategies
they would come up with. And you could see that
sense of mentorship, that desire to help and
get people to discover. what became a passion
in their life. And of course, legacy is important
because every one of the participants that we
interviewed would like weightlifting to continue.
And master athletes are fantastic, but we also
need young people into the sport. So getting
involved in some sort of mentorship, and mentorship
could be to coach an athlete. mentorship in coaching.
I've seen mentorship in when you have a new official.
So we will sit down and chat and see, well, you
know, this is what happens when this happens.
This is how we deal and so on and so forth. So
the concept of mentorship is pretty well everywhere
within the weightlifting culture. Would you say
that support of athletes who are more experienced
provided to athletes who are just starting competing,
for example, wouldn't that be part of it? Definitely.
When I started lifting, I was fortunate in my
city, we had only one weightlifting club, out
of which came at least 10 national team members
and six Olympians. I wasn't at that level. I
didn't have the talent to be at that level. But
I remember chatting with the ones who were at
the level of going to the next Olympics and chatting
with them and essentially they became friends.
And they helped me tremendously as an athlete
and also as a person because their take on challenges
is quite different than what you would find in
other spheres of any other. subcultures for example
all right so my question would be why do you
think if you would bring it all together why
these people decided to stay in olympic weightlifting
for so long it's easy We got bit by the steel
bug. I think weightlifting attracts individuals
that have certain personality traits. And I know
I'm on very, very slippery ground here. Any psychologist
will say, oh, there you go. But you need to have
specific makeup to spin. hours in a basement,
because you can't do this on a second floor,
you'll destroy the building, in a basement, lifting
heavy weights in a very noisy room, because we
drop the weights, even with bumper plates, it's
crazy how noisy it is, and still come back to
it after injuries, after you keep on missing,
and so on and so forth. I think for those individuals,
and I'm part of them, those individuals... weightlifting
brings in a renewed challenge every day. And
I think this is what we kind of strive over.
We strive over this new challenge because every
day there's an old saying, you never walk in
the same river twice and you never meet the same
person twice because we evolve every day. Well,
I think it's the same thing for a weightlifter.
And sometimes in my case, we do evolve this way,
but we won't go there. Well, then you have to
compensate with your mental strength. There you
go. There you go. That's what I'm saying to myself
every hard session. Same here. I'm with you on
this. All right. So let's bring it all together.
If you would have to build a message for weightlifting
coaches from your study, what would that be?
Listen to the story of your lifters. Listen to
the story of people in front of you. I've walked
into gyms and I've listened to... individual
coaches because we've been doing this for for
a few decades now and sometimes i listen to them
i say listen this person might be old but you
don't know the experience that person brings
to the gym I would say also be very honest with
your athletes. Maybe at the age of 70, you will
not snatch 100 kilos. Maybe you won't do that.
But you can still perform a really good lift
at a weight that will not hurt you. And I would
say... Tailor the program to the athletes as
opposed to having a ready -made cookie cutter
type of program. And I would say be aware of
Coach YouTube and Coach Google because they don't
all have the answers. All right. I always finish
with two short questions. The first one is, what
is your favorite lift? Which one and why? The
snatch. Because it's very, very technical, very
fast. And when you miss, you miss. And it's humbling
because either it goes back or goes forward.
And I tell my students. You think life is hard.
Whenever I was lifting, if I would make a mistake,
I'd have three red lights flashing behind me
and an announcer saying, Gravel missed the lift.
Is he going to do it again? But when you get
it and you're in a bottom position and you're
in balance, it's a phenomenal feeling. And when
you can come up and control the weight, it's
better than dark chocolate, I'm telling you.
All right. And the last question is where people
can find you online if they want to follow your
work or ask a question. I'm on the site of the
University of Ottawa. Look into School of Human
Kinetics. And I'm part of the faculty. My name
is Francois Gabin. Awesome, Francois. Thank you
so much for today. It was a pleasure. You're
more than welcome. Any other questions, feel
free to get in touch with me.