Picture in your head what you would expect to see in a weightlifting club in the south side of Glasgow.  It is difficult to avoid the mental image of sweaty, hulking men wrapped in lycra, grunting and snorting with bulging eyeballs as they hoist mammoth barbells above their heads.  That is certainly the traditional stereotype that befits a weightlifter.

What you probably wouldn’t imagine is a bunch of tiny teenage girls in shiny pink outfits sharing the gym space with them, or a ten year old boy lifting broomsticks.   But at the Palace of Art Weightlifting Club, this is exactly what happens.  Furthermore, those same youngsters are among the best in Britain at what they do – welcome to the new generation of Scottish weightlifters. 

Amy Hamilton, Stephanie McDiarmid and Collette Will are three of the top lifters in the UK.  In early May, within their respective weight categories, Stephanie and Collette became British under-17 champions.

Just one week earlier Colette also claimed the British Junior Championship, with Amy taking a silver medal.  Amy also represented Scotland at the Commonwealth Youth Games in October, finishing sixth.

The young men at the club don’t do too badly either, mind you.  Again, being just teenagers, they don’t quite cut the figure of a traditional weightlifter, but in Haris Ansari and Mark Fitzpatrick the club also sports two of the best young male lifters on these Isles.  Mark also took gold at the British u-17s in a close fought tussle, while Haris finished fourth at the British Junior Championships.

This revolution in Glasgow weightlifting is largely down to one man – Ray Cavanagh.  A former Commonwealth Games competitor himself, Cavanagh has devoted most of his life to working with young people, and now he is flourishing as chief of his own weightlifting club.

“It started out with me coaching just one girl, Kirsty Law,” Ray told In The Winning Zone when we visited his club near Ibrox.  “She got to the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 and finished in fourth place.   It all snowballed from there.”

Outside of his competitive exploits, Cavanagh has forged a career in getting the best from people, having spent 13 years working with handicapped children before going back to school and working towards an HND in Strength and Conditioning.

From there he has held various positions in that field.  “I worked my way up the ranks in strength and conditioning to become the British Weightlifting Coach.  Since then I’ve worked with the Glasgow School of Sport and the West of Scotland Institute of Sport too.”

Kirsty Law was formerly a hurdler before she transferred over to work with Ray in weightlifting.  She became the first Scottish female weightlifter to represent Scotland at the Commonwealth Games, a major feather in Cavanagh’s cap. 

So one myth of weightlifting has been dispelled – it’s not all about really big men in really small outfits.  But while we’re on the topic, let’s also define what exactly ‘weightlifting’ is, because it’s not as straightforward as you expect.

“A fast, explosive movement to take the bar from the ground to over your head, like the snatch or the clean and jerk that you see at the Olympics, that’s weightlifting,” explains Ray. 

“Powerlifting is disciplines like the bench press and squat, very slow and deliberate, out and out strength.  Then of course there is body building, or doing weights for fitness and toning, which are different again.”

Of course, you may baulk at the thought of young teens and even pre-teens doing competitive weightlifting.  There is a safety issue.  But weightlifting, says Ray, is ironically not all about ‘weight’ in the development years.

“At junior competitions the kids are not only marked on what they lift, which should be relatively light, but also how they lift it,” he says.  “They get marked mainly on technique, so they don’t have to take an increasingly heavier weight.  They can use the same weight over three attempts, so they are comfortable.  Some of the kids here just use broomsticks – the emphasis is all on technique in the early years”

The club is truly a melting pot, and growing in popularity.  Indeed, it is close to capacity, says Ray.  Children of mixed ages, both sexes and from a variety of sports all attend Cavanagh’s club.  Most of them go on to achieve success in the sport, a credit to his coaching abilities.  He takes all comers, regardless of their background or previous experience.

“Amy Liu, who is with the club, is a Scottish under-18 hockey player.  Obviously we got permission from her coaches before she started weightlifting seriously.  She is now a British weightlifting champion too. I think it’s definitely a good thing for a young athlete’s development to be doing two different sports.”

Nowadays many of Ray’s young charges transfer from other disciplines, like Amy Liu.  Most come directly from the Glasgow School of Sport, including Amy Hamilton and Colette Will, both originally on the school roll as emerging elite gymnasts.

“Gymnastics is a very good to transfer over to weightlifting from,” says Ray.  “Gymnasts already have a lot of natural strength and flexibility.  The only problem is sometimes they are too flexible!  The girls tend to hyperextend their elbows too far back the way, which could lead to a dislocation when they are lifting weights. But apart from that the transfer is pretty good.”

There is no definite argument to say any one sport, or type of athlete, transfers particularly well into weightlifting, states Ray.  You may think inherent strength is a massive plus, but then again weightlifting is very focused on sound technique. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. 

“A lot of the guys who are super strong often injure themselves because they are poor technically.  So even though they can lift a weight, they end up popping an elbow tearing a quad or something.  They are too strong for their own bodies.

“Then you have the other side of the coin, where lifters are very technically good, but not as strong as the guys who have natural strength. So they can catch up, but it takes a long time, and they have to work very hard.  But it all balances out in the end.

Collette Will is at present an exception to this rule, as she still does both sports to a high level – no doubt a massive factor in her recent feat of becoming ‘Britain’s Most Powerful Youth’ in her age category!   But Ray’s intake of new recruits is far from restricted to just the Glasgow School of Sport.

“I’ve probably also got five or six younger ones who joined just by coming in and seeing the club, looking at what’s going on.  They haven’t come from a sporting background, they’ve come off the street, from Govan or Ibrox.  It is quite a socially deprived area so that is a big positive for them and the club.”

Regardless of background though, all the young lifters are treated the same.  The obvious advantage of coming from a sporting background is the experience of working within a disciplined environment, and of course the natural strength, flexibility and fitness.  But the ethos of the club stretches much farther than simple ability and winning competitions, insists Ray.

“I try to keep things fun I suppose.  I’m friendly with the kids.  There is no point in being domineering and a disciplinarian, it drives kids away.  I’ve seen it so many times where the coach is too strict and don’t have fun with the kids.  You won’t see them for dust.  They just get fed up and don’t come back.  I just want to let them enjoy themselves and I enjoy myself too.”

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This month, all these lifters will be competing at the International Fulda Cup club competition in Salzburg.