Register your school or college with British Weight Lifting for just £14.99/ year and be part of our new school weightlifting network.

To become a partner, one member of school staff needs to become a British Weight Lifting Member (£55/ year).

Why would you become a Partner School?

Becoming a Partner School gives you extra support to establish weightlifting in your school and learn from other schools in the network. Benefits include:

1. Exclusive discounts on the following education courses:

- Level 1 Award in Coaching Olympic Weightlifting
- Level 2 Certificate in Coaching Olympic Weightlifting
- Level 2 Award in Coaching Functional Fitness
- Combined Level 1 Award and Level 2 Certificate in Coaching Olympic Weightlifting

2. Opportunities to connect with other schools and host competitions

3. Guidance from British Weight Lifting’s staff

4. News from the wider schools weightlifting community

5. Take part in developing weightlifting in schools

6. Use the British Weight Lifting Partner School (or Partner College) logo in your communications

7. Feature your venue on BWL’s Gym Finder (optional)

8. Receive 25% discount with equipment manufacturer Eleiko

9. Receive 10% discount with Sport and Fitness Flooring

10. Receive a 3-month free trial with BoxMate (usually 1 month) and 20% off for 9 months thereafter

11. Receive a 3-month free trial with TeamUp when signing up for BoxMate at the same time

Enquire now for a quote on education courses – simply contact courses@britishweightlifting.org

Explore the full range of our education courses here.

Requirements

To become a Partner School your organisation needs to be a registered school or college in the UK. This includes comprehensive and independent schools.

A member of school staff needs to be the administrator of your school’s affiliation with British Weight Lifting, which requires annual membership to be purchased.

How to Sign Up

Sign up as a Member to British Weight Lifting (if you don’t have membership already)

Click here to create your profile and purchase your individual membership

Register your School or College

Once you have BWL membership, sign in to the Members platform
Select ‘Set up Partner School’ from the menu
Enter your organisation details and click ‘Add’
Select ‘Memberships’ and ‘Add Membership’
Complete the questions about your organisation, including what information you’d like to be displayed on British Weight Lifting’s website (optional)
Fill in your School or College reference number. (Find out your school or college’s reference number here).

What’s Olympic Weightlifting?

Weightlifting is often referred to as Olympic weightlifting, as it features in each Summer Olympic Games. The sport of weightlifting includes two barbell lifts, the snatch and the clean and jerk. In competition, lifters’ attempt to lift the heaviest weights possible. The winner is determined by the highest total (the lifters’ best snatch and clean and jerk added together).

The weightlifting movements, often referred to as derivatives (e.g., power snatch, hang clean) are popular movements used by many athletes to enhance their sporting performance by:

Increasing strength
Improving jumping ability
Increasing speed
Reducing injury risk=

Participating in weightlifting activity has additional benefits such as improvements in:

Body composition
Bone mineral density
Motor control
Psychosocial wellbeing

What’s Para Powerlifting?

Para Powerlifting made its debut at the 1964 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, featuring a handful of male competitors with spinal cord injuries. Fast-forward to the present day and the sport boasts hundreds of elite male and female athletes from a variety of disability groups, representing more than 110 countries. Integrating the bench press, often considered the ultimate test of upper body strength, Para Powerlifting is one of the fastest growing Paralympic sports.

What’s Functional Fitness?

Functional fitness training encourages individuals to develop physical fitness components (e.g. strength and cardiorespiratory fitness) that allows them to perform everyday activities. Functional fitness programmes typically incorporate several training modes including weightlifting, calisthenics/gymnastic movements, plyometrics and metabolic conditioning activities.

Qualifications in Weightlifting & Functional Fitness

All staff teaching weightlifting in schools should have a relevant qualification.

A level 1 coach is effectively considered to be an assistant coach and should only coach weightlifting under the supervision of an independent coach.
A level 2 coach is considered to be an independent coach, and can apply for a coaching licence, allowing them to coach lifters of all ages in weightlifting competitions.

Key point: Strength or resistance training encompasses many forms of resistance exercise, including weightlifting, powerlifting and para powerlifting as well as loaded movement patterns performed in functional fitness training settings.

Find out more:

Strength and Young People

Is strength training appropriate for young people?

The UK’s Physical Activity Guidelines recommend for children and young people to do activities that develop movement skills, and muscle and bone strength. All of this can be positively impacted by engaging young people in a strength training programme.

Find out more: Get Strong. Move More: UK Physical Activity Guidelines for Young People (5 – 18 years)

Despite previous misconceptions, it’s now recognised by global health authorities and leading strength and conditioning and sport science associations that weightlifting as a form of resistance training, is beneficial to youth when delivered, programmed and monitored by a qualified professional.

British Weight Lifting recommends that there should be an emphasis on skill mastery and technique development, rather than weight lifted.

The initial focus for young people should be to develop movement literacy before attempting to lifting maximal or near maximal loads.

Find out more: British Weight Lifting’s Youth Position Statement