From increasing strength to boosting confidence, weightlifting is a growing hobby among Portola High students. Using home equipment or visiting community gyms in their free time gives students the means to excel in their sports and reach personal goals.
Senior Haaris Alam played club soccer for Strikers FC and started weightlifting after he was distanced from his teammates during COVID-19. Participating in Zoom workouts with his soccer team, Alam credits his coach, who taught him the basics and pushed him physically. Alam built a gym in his garage equipped with a squat rack, cable machine and boxing bags, finding motivation from gym reels on social media and working out with friends.
“I train mainly as a bodybuilder rather than a powerlifter, so I train more for aesthetics rather than strength,” Alam said. “It’s a lot of slow controlled movements and more volume of reps over heavyweights and lower reps, and I have a workout split. I do push, pull, and then legs, so throughout that split, I can create a schedule for my workout by the week.”
For sophomore Sepehr Khosraviani, weightlifting started out as a hobby to kill extra time he had after school in his freshman year. After his tennis teammate introduced him to the routine, he quickly built going to the gym into his schedule during the summer. His main goals were to strengthen his biceps to build the strength he loses during his water polo and tennis seasons because of the change of muscle use between the sports.
“I feel like recently it just became a habit to go to the gym,” Khosraviani said. “When I first started, I would plan when I would go to the gym based on my schedule, but now I plan everything else around it.”
As a girl in a male-dominated space, junior Samira Khan values her femininity and ability to defy expectations at the gym. Despite having a similar gender dynamic to wrestling and taekwondo, weightlifting improved her athletic performance, according to Khan. Khan feels a strong sense of pride for the accomplishments she has made through weightlifting such as receiving support from her parents and having the opportunity to introduce girls who were new to the hobby
“I first started weightlifting to have a good outlet to do something productive for myself and I wanted to get stronger and feel better in my own body,” Khan said. “I’ve never had a particular problem with the way I look, but I think weightlifting can help really anyone’s esteem.”
