Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the closed doors of the Seminole High School’s Weightroom? For Seminole High School’s Girls Weightlifting team this is where the behind the scenes happens on practice days. But it is time to release their skills! On December 6th, the ladies will face one of their many competition matches this year to acquire their rankings, and to test their weight lifting skills!
Looking at the popular sport, girls weightlifting at Seminole High School has been around for many years. In addition to girls weightlifting teams, boys weightlifting teams are available for students at Seminole to join and represent the school. During October of this year tryouts were put into place and soon a team was put together. Since then the girls have competed against many schools, and continued to advance more and more!
Since the 1970s, girls’ weightlifting has shifted, as those who saw women as “too masculine” or “too big” have shunned it.The sport began to receive recognition in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to a shift in perspective, as stated by blofg.nasms.org. This was a big recognition moment for women powerlifters. As a result, female athletes became popular and felt a sense of empowerment. Seminole High School wanted to value this sport to both genders to give student’s equal opportunities to participate in this curriculum and many others.
Girl’s like Sofia Figueroa, weightlifter for the Seminoles team states her reasoning to join the team: “I got into weightlifting my freshmen year, after leaving dance. I thought the idea of weightlifting sounded like a fun activity to try! Figueroa has been a part of the team for the last few years and has ranked winning placements upon other meets. “The energy is always good with Ovideo rather than going to their school, or vice versa there is always special magic in the air. We all get along with the members on the opposite team and cheer them on along the way.”
As the day arrives, at 4:00pm doors are open to parents and students to support the ladies in their performance. The Seminole Girls Weightlifting team will be going against Oviedo High School to compete for the highest weight held. The girl’s have arrived early in advance to acquire additional practice to advance their performance. To learn a little bit about the sport each girl is assigned a number will be called upon during each session for three following attempts to give multiple attempts to raise chances of succeeding during the Clean and Jerk. The night was a special night unlike others to congratulate the seniors on the team. Once the match began, each team member was called upon to test their limits or to beat records!
Seminole Girl’s Weight Lifting Coach Noh states during the girls performance: “I think the girls are doing really great, we have a bunch of PR’s (post records) hits. Some new faces added to the team to every new meet and it’s great to see the girls get stronger and grow.” Coach Noh allowed players to advance and take in tips by her words during each session to ensure the girl’s. As Noh has connected with the sport herself, “As someone like myself doing this sport as a leisure sport, it translates well as my profession as a teacher, and it fits within my abilities to teach when they’re struggling and help their performance out to the best I can.”
As the ladies, wrapped up their Overhead press the girls will move on to Bench Presses. This will test their abilities to lift weight from a different approach by laying their feet on the ground, and laying the weight with both arms.
As the night came to end, the room was filled with cheering and applauding for the members’ performance tonight. At the end, the Seminole Girl’s Weightlifting team was able to come together to support and grow in one room and meet new goals. Scores are planned to be released soon on their instagram, so if you are curious upon the final ranked ladies check out @bokeyweightlifiting for more!