IC Barbell Society
This week, IC Barbell’s PR manager Sukorno and the team break down Olympic weightlifting techniques and share upcoming events.
Our two main focusses as a club are powerlifting and olympic weightlifting. Powerlifting involves performing three lifts: the squat, benchpress, and deadlift. You might have performed some of these in your regular gym routine, which makes this an attractive route for beginners. You have three attempts at each lift, progressively increasing the weight on the bar if you complete them, and your final score is the total of your highest successful attempts for each lift. For example, a typical score card might look like S 2/3, B 3/3, D 3/3. This means you failed your final squat attempt, but you nailed all 3 of your bench and deadlift attempts!
Ever seen those insanely strong people on the olympics throwing weights over their heads like it’s nothing? That’s olympic weightlifting! It’s made up of two lifts: the clean & jerk, and the snatch. Again, you have three attempts per lift. The clean and jerk involves pulling the bar up onto your shoulders (clean) before pushing it up past your head (jerk). The clean involves pulling the bar up straight over your head from starting on the ground. Both require some technical skill, but there’s nothing practice can’t teach.
Like any society, what makes Barbell is the people; the feeling of pushing yourself in a tough workout with your friends, hyping each other up, is like no other. Whenever someone goes for a personal record, screams fill the room and the energy is transcendental - it gives you chills.
Jai Hindocha, Mr President, adds: “Our members range from complete gym beginners to international competitors - there’s space for absolutely everyone! We have weekly sessions with amazing professional coaches who design club programmes for our members, and it’s an incredibly welcoming environment. Our give-it-a-go sessions were a huge success, seeing a bunch of new members for both powerlifting and weightlifting!”.
Inspired by French philosopher Albert Camus, Treasurer Aditya Jain uses this metaphor to describe the Barbell experience, “in the midst of winter, I found, within me, an invincible summer.”
Our secretary, Carlotta Giacchero, adds: “I joined last year as I found a community of like-minded people to share my passion for lifting with, while getting support from world-class coaches! Barbell has seen great success this year, with many freshers deciding to join the strongest club at Imperial! Our give-it-a-go sessions were fully booked, but luckily those on a waitlist now get the chance to make up for it by joining our weekly Wednesday (powerlifting) and Saturday (Olympic weightlifting) sessions. With the help of our expert coaches, we aim to proudly represent Imperial at the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) competitions once again, hopefully following in the footsteps of our very own Leonard Lai and Omar Abdelmajeed by setting new records! With socials, competitions and more trial sessions coming up it sure is looking like a great year.”
Upcoming events
- 30th Nov: a mock meet/novice competition, aimed at those who’ve never competed before. You don’t even need any International Powerlifting Federation (IPF)-approved equipment. It’s very casual and very fun.
- 1st-2nd Feb: London university varsity competition: IPF-approved powerlifting competition, in collaboration with LSE, UCL, KCL and QMU - it’s an actual competition recognised by the IPF - so it’s very exciting, and can be used to qualify for nationals!
