2012
Seb Ostrowicz, a rower at the time, performed his first snatch and clean and jerk at a CrossFit box, and was instantly hooked.
On the other side of the city Dan Kent, at the time a tech director of a software company, watched weightlifting at London 2012 Olympic Games. He too fell in love with the sport.
2013 – 2016
Whilst undergoing a Sport and Exercise Science degree at the university of Exeter, Seb trained daily with the friends he had introduced to the sport. They trained together, watched weightlifting together, studied together, and eventually all lived together… In a Weightlifting House.
Dan Kent, also taken by the sport, though in a slightly different way, focused on coaching. He achieved his BWL Level 2 in coaching, and began working with beginner weightlifters.
2017
Having graduated, and with a strong promise to himself to not apply for any work outside of weightlifting, Seb flew out to Kansas, spending some time with the legendary USA Weightlifting coach Glenn Pendlay.
Having hit it off, Seb set up a seminar tour for Glenn in the UK. During the tour, Glenn suggested that they start a podcast together, and that Seb start his own content/coaching website. After a quick brainstorm, the name Weightlifting House, named after the group of friends who had trained alongside Seb for several years, was mentioned. ‘That’s the one!’ said Glenn.
And so, Weightlifting House the company was born.
So, why EST MMXV and not EST MMXVII? Because Weightlifting House, the house of friends, the shared passion for the sport of Weightlifting, was born in 2015.
…
Dan, tired of life in the tech world, packed it in and set up his own business, Powerful Ideas Press, a publishing company focused on strength sports. After publishing ‘Weightlifting For Beginners’, he turned his sights to something more historical…
This same year Weightlifting House released its first product; the ‘Why Be Normal?’ t-shirt.
2018
After months of planning and design work with Glenn Pendlay, Weightlifting House released the wildly successful House Barbell, all funded through the pre-orders of the loyal podcast fan base created by the Weightlifting House Podcast. While Seb distributed around Europe, Glenn warehoused and shipped for Weightlifting House around the USA.
Dan, while listening to an episode of The Sinclair Countdown, a countdown of the greatest weightlifters throughout history on the Weightlifting House podcast, had an idea… and thus The Greatest Weightlifters vol.1 – The Men was born. Most importantly, it was the first joint project between Seb and Dan.
Before the year was over, Weightlifting House became a limited company, and a new era was born.
During the summer of 2018, Nick wound his way into a CrossFit gym where Seb was the weightlifting coach. With only a few weeks before having to return to university they established a relationship as coach and athlete.
2019
Seb kept on recording, Dan kept on building the website, and Nick, somewhere at university, was training.
…
September – Glenn Pendlay, The People’s Coach, passed away from cancer. Glenn impacted the weightlifting world in the most profound way. The passion and focus with which he lived his life was inspiring, and worth emulating. Without Glenn Weightlifting House would likely not exist.
The 2019 World Championships became the first major weightlifting competition that Weightlifting House flew out to film. It shifted the media of the company into the world of video, birthing the Weightlifting House YouTube Channel.
2020
Covid-19 struck, closing gyms around the world, transforming the way athletes viewed training. Barbells and plates became common household objects, and Weightlifting House strove to provide the community with what they needed. It was a difficult time for Weightlifting House, but with Nick now a full-time team member, things moved in right direction.
W|H invested heavily in customer service as well as the back-end of the business, ensuring the customer journey was as smooth as possible.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games were delayed.
2021
Brexit struck meaning that the UK based business was now out of the European Union. Gradually, Weightlifting House again found it’s footing amidst the worst period of the Covid-19 breakout.
With Weightlifting controversy at an all-time high due to corruption scandals, there was plenty of news to cover.
Tokyo 2020 arrived! Due to broadcasting rights we were unable to film any content from Tokyo, however we covered every session with session recaps. It was a huge success and earned us a lot of favour within the weightlifting community. Wouldn’t it be good if we were the broadcasters…
The UK team grew to 4!
Worlds 2021 was also a huge success. It laid a foundation for the daily training hall recap sessions that weightlifting fans have grown to love, offering a never before seen view into what a major competition is really like.
2022
2022 was the biggest year for Weightlifting House to date, with two major new projects; WEIGHTLIFTING.AI and broadcasting.
WEIGHTLIFTING.ai, our increasingly growing online team, actually began in 2021 but was kept quiet until the app was built. Since its launch in April, WEIGHTLIFTING.ai has revolutionised weightlifting program. Along with founder and head coach Max Aita, we are extremely excited about our incredible team.
Broadcasting came at a busy time but it was clear to us all at W|H that it was the truest expression of our mission statement: To bring the sport of weightlifting closer to its fans. We had to do it!
We started with the European Championships in May in Albania. Then it was off to Bahrain for the Asian Championships in October. After a lot of work and negotiations, we won the bid for the World Championships in Colombia! Of course the workload was incredibly high and we were all exhausted after the competition, but we delivered on our promise to the weightlifting community. We made the sport more exciting!
2023
Time to breath…
Current goals:
- Continue making WEIGHTLIFTING.ai the best team in the sport
- Secure rights to more international competitions
- Expand our product range
- Make amazing content