I originally took up Olympic weightlifting because I thought it would be a fun way to get fit and strong. It has made me fit and strong, but I also realize that it has given me many other useful skills that benefit the rest of my life. Let’s look at what some of these transferable skills are.

Improved awareness of body

Training in weightlifting has made me hugely aware of where my body is positioned and how my muscles feel when they are working correctly. There is no room for error in the Olympic lifts, which forces you to have to be in the correct positions. I’ve learned what it feels like, for example, to have a neutral back, shoulders set back and to generate power using my glutes rather than my arms. All of this has given me great insight into how my body works, meaning that I have better posture in everyday life when I am sitting, walking and sleeping. Poor posture is responsible for headaches and strains, it means your body isn’t working as well as it could, and can also lead to low self-esteem. I have improved posture now because training weightlifting has made me know both what correct body positions feel like and how to execute them.

Development of resilience

Weightlifting is one of the most difficult sports. It’s very hard to learn and once ‘newbie gains’ have been gained, it’s very hard to get better at. This means that you have to work extremely hard for tiny improvements. As any athlete will tell you, once you’re experienced at your sport, most training days are just “average,” very few are excellent/full of PRs, and lots of days are quite tough. This means that it takes a large amount of resilience to commit to weightlifting permanently as well as to merely get through each workout. I love weightlifting, but it’s not a sport for people looking for successes all the time! However, all the hard work does pay off. All those average training days over time cause you to progress. The ability to stick at something despite how difficult—and, a lot of the time, de-motivating—it is, is a beneficial skill to have for other areas of a person’s life.

A means to learn attention to detail

You can’t be careless in weightlifting. In order to do it, you have to have a strong attention to detail as to what is required from the movement as well as from your body. Then you have to be able to apply the detail you have learned and actually make the adjustment. Having good attention to detail and being able to respond to detail (i.e. be able to understand what information means) is an extremely valuable skill outside of the gym, too.

A means to have a regular routine

In order to get better at weightlifting, you have to do it often. Life is very hectic and chaotic for most people and most people will benefit from having consistent routines to help reduce the chaos! Having to fit in your weightlifting workouts teaches you to better manage your day, be a responsible person, and reduce unnecessary commitments – excellent skills that help your overall life.

The ability to live in the moment

‘Mindfulness’ is one of the most successful strategies for managing anxiety and stress. The basis of mindfulness is living in the moment and being completely aware of what you are doing, where you are and how you feel right then and there. When you are doing Olympic weightlifting you absolutely have to be 100% in the moment. Otherwise you will miss your lift at best and could severely injure yourself a worse! Living in the moment during the time you are weightlifting is a good exercise in itself, but it also teaches you how to live in the moment outside of your workouts too.

Better knowing yourself

Weightlifting will make you know yourself. You will learn how you best like to learn (, face to face coaching, watching video tutorials, or reading books), what motivates you (does the amount of weight lifted motivate you, or are you more interested in how good your form is?), what cues you like (do you like aggressive shouting from your coach, or do you like to be quiet and just think a single word in your head?) and what your areas of weakness might be both mentally and physically. You also have to come out of your comfort zone sometimes by for example doing an exercise that you find really hard. If you do choose to compete, that can seriously take you out of your comfort zone, too!

A means to be social

Although weightlifting is a solitary sport, it’s also a very sociable one. There are enormous communities dedicated to weightlifting on the internet and most likely locally at your gym or at competitions. Weightlifting could help you make new friends. It also gives you something to talk about when you meet people completely unrelated to it and can act as an ice-breaker. It gives you something a bit different about you that make people remember you!

A means to be competitive

Weightlifting can obviously be competitive in the literal sense that you participate in competitions but even if you never compete (like me), you still have yourself to compete with all the time. You are striving for progress every time and always aiming to lift more weight, rest less, move more quickly and have better technique. There are so many factors to monitor. Weightlifting teaches you to set goals and create plans to accomplish those goals. For example, you may want to snatch 100kg by Christmas. You have to figure out how exactly you plan on doing that.

Bottom line

I didn’t realize that the sport of weightlifting would give me so many wonderful transferable skills that carry over outside of the gym. It’s another reason to do weightlifting! Stick at it and you will most likely find yourself with a brand new skill set that includes resilience, good attention to detail, planning and organization, goal setting and living in the moment... so it can improve the rest of your life, too.