Empowered By the Barbell: Weightlifting’s Adaptive Athletes

The sport of weightlifting welcomes athletes from any background imaginable. It doesn’t matter your height, weight, or age - there’s a session for you. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or how long you’ve been lifting - there’s a club for you. And it doesn’t matter if you’re blind, deaf, or an amputee. You aren’t the first one.

Weightlifting is one of the only sports that showcases its adaptive athletes competing on the same platform, and in the same session, as every other athlete. They may need special assistance, such as an eyepatch or someone to guide them to the barbell, or they might just complete the lift with one arm, but they'll still lift alongside everyone else. They will have a chance to medal not only in their adaptive category, but their overall age and weight category as well.

Since 2022 alone, over 20 registered adaptive athletes have competed at USAW national meets, each dealing with different disabilities or conditions that impact their lives each and every day. These could be mental conditions like autism or OCD, or physical disabilities like the loss of an arm or multiple sclerosis. Weightlifting has provided a form of competition, achievement, and connection that helps to improve their quality of life. Here are just a few of their stories:

Samantha Love

Samantha, 35, was diagnosed with relapsing, remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) at 21 years old while serving in the Army from 2007-11. MS means ‘many lesions’, and these lesions attack the nerves in the brain and cut off communication with areas of the body. If these attacks last long enough, the damage can be permanent, and will often lead to life in a wheelchair or loss of vision. Samantha’s relapsing, remitting MS means that she will go through flare-ups and stable periods. From her relapses, she was further diagnosed with optic neuritis that primarily affects her left eye, leaving it mostly blind.

She first found weightlifting in her late 20’s, and fully dove into the sport in 2021. Because her left eye will sometimes cut in and out, she lifts with an eyepatch to avoid the dangerous distraction of losing and regaining vision during an action. She competed in the standard categories with a steep disadvantage because of the difficulties to focus, see peripherally, and maintain balance while using one eye. On top of these challenges during meets, her relapses make it impossible to train consistently.

“There have been times where I've been hospitalized and I haven't been able to walk,” Love said.“There have been periods where I've needed to use a cane. Then there was a time, three summers ago, I went completely blind for three days and I was in the hospital.”

Because of her disability, she knew it was always going to be hard to compete with the average weightlifter. She had given up hopes of competing at a National American Open Finals or National Championships. It wasn’t until after her three days in the hospital that Samantha found out about the adaptive athlete category. Now the door was open to qualify for these events, and she took full advantage of the chance to compete at the highest national level and build relationships in the sport.

“I love the community and the camaraderie that comes with weightlifting. It feels great when you go to these national events four times a year and you see all your old friends and you are cheering each other on and then you get up and you go head-to-head, but you're also going against yourself. I just love everything about it.”

Samantha has been able to grow tremendously through her dedicated involvement in weightlifting. It hasn’t just been the physical strength she’s gained, but the ability to teach others about the sport, the long term relationships with other lifters, and the opportunities to visit new states and countries. At this year’s Master’s National Championships in Reno, Nevada, Samantha lifted 64/77/141 to claim gold in her adaptive category and earn the bronze snatch medal in the women’s 35+ 64 kg class. She currently lifts out of Paramount Barbell Club in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, and serves as a remote coach for Deuce Weightlifting in Venice Beach, California, primarily supporting those coming out of prison or housing/substance-impacted. On top of being an athlete and a coach, Samantha continues to give to weightlifting as a commentator and a resource for the adaptive community.

Ray Harkness

Ray, 53, was diagnosed with autism in his mid-thirties. It affects every aspect of his day-to-day life, as abstract concepts are difficult to grasp, multitasking is impossible, and his level of perfectionism makes any failure a mental battle. When he was diagnosed in 2006, the narrative that he heard around autism was that any progress was impossible.

“‘These people can't change. They're set in their ways and you just need to accept them for the way they work.’ And for the longest time, that's the attitude I had. I made no effort to change anything about myself because what's the point,” Harkness said.

Ray found weightlifting in his early forties through Crossfit. In 2015, his coach suggested that weightlifting may be a better outlet for Ray because of the ability to compete in different weight and age classes. Ray was interested but the transition into weightlifting was difficult. Ray’s struggles in the gym revolve around his perfectionism. Whereas most athletes can utilize a lifting program and trust that results will happen, Ray finds himself overanalyzing and questioning everything. He gets frustrated when he can’t see the progress in kilograms, even though others can see that he’s lifting the weight better. There are days when he gets all ready to train, and his fear that he won’t hit his numbers, coupled with his inability to deviate, will be too overwhelming to even begin. It still is difficult, but he embraced the challenge and has made progress.

“If I can improve at this thing, which is really, really hard, maybe I can improve in other things. So, it gives a little bit of hope. I like that,” Harkness said.

He compares the act of weightlifting to the lab section of a science class. He can talk with his therapist all day about stepping out of his comfort zone and the benefits of learning from failure, but weightlifting is putting it into practice.

“My last therapist told me that weightlifting has done more for helping me therapeutically than the weekly sessions I was having with him.”

Ray credits weightlifting for giving him the confidence and ability to advocate for himself, and to teach his daughter, who has also been diagnosed with autism, how to advocate for herself. In 2018, Ray set a master’s record in the new 61 kg 45 men’s class, lifting 60/87/147. He has stuck with the sport for a decade now, in large part thanks to Mel Knourek, his friend, mentor, and coach over the last 10 years. Ray has contributed not only as an athlete, but as a national ref and a coach, representing Spoon Barbell in Texas.

Michelle Burnette

Michelle, 45, is a congenital left arm amputee, meaning that she was born with her arm missing below her elbow. In her day-to-day life, this causes difficulties as simple as carrying groceries or a cup of coffee and needing to open a door. She finds creative solutions, such as balancing her coffee between her mouth and her left elbow while turning the knob with her right hand. Some problems don’t have solutions, however, such as teaching her daughter how to tie her shoes with two hands.

She was told that soccer was the only option for sports growing up, and played until she tore her patella tendon in high school. This put a pause on her athletic career until her late thirties. Her wake-up call came when she had hurt her back to the point where she couldn’t pick her child up and found out that she was pre-diabetic. Michelle got involved in a gym and started to lose weight. She then had the desire to compete in an obstacle course race for an added challenge and joined Spartan classes at a local CrossFit gym. The owner of the gym tried to convince her to try CrossFit, but Michelle  didn’t think that was possible.

“I said ‘I can't lift weights. You have to have two arms to lift weights. I can't do that. I work out on cable machines and use dumbbells.’”

But the owner was persistent, and showed Michelle videos of a lifter who competed with one arm. She was intrigued. Michelle found adaptive athletes in the CrossFit community and reached out with questions before eventually giving in to the owner’s encouragement. In 2019, she won the WheelWOD Games, an adaptive CrossFit competition. Michelle wasn’t yet content with her technique on the barbell and joined an Olympic weightlifting class. She started to fall in love with the sport right as the COVID-19 pandemic started. During the pandemic, she found the online competitions with adaptive categories that USAW offered. Once the restrictions on in-person competitions were lifted, she attended her first event by herself. Knowing no one, she was overwhelmed by the support from those at the meet and had a local coach volunteer to help her count cards and let her know when she would be called to the platform.

“The weightlifting community here specifically in Atlanta is just so loving and they have such open arms for new athletes and excitement for new athletes that have no idea what they're doing.”

Michelle joined ALLSOUTH Barbell and continued to get in better shape physically and work on her technique. She lifted a personal record 47/58/105 at the 2024 Nike National Championships. Michelle became a big advocate for USA Weightlifting and has been able to encourage and lead many into the sport. She is also involved as a strength and conditioning coach at a summer camp for kids with limb differences. The camp is built to teach them how to play several mainstream sports, and Michelle leads the entire group through a week of Olympic weightlifting training. After a few years in the sport, Michelle is proud of her technique.

“It's kind of a cool concept, especially being somebody who lifts with one arm, that I can lift more than some ladies with two arms in my division simply because I've honed my technique so much.”

On top of the summer camp, Michelle passes this technique on to others whenever she can. She currently mentors a high school freshman that lost his arm in an ATV accident. She’s taught him how to snatch and clean with one arm so that he can lift with his peers on the football and lacrosse teams. At the most recent Masters World Championships, she encouraged a technical official who had lost the use of a hand due to a stroke.

“I encouraged him to the point where he went out and he lifted in a competition with one hand for the first time ever as a Masters athlete in his sixties.”

While Michelle is a role model for those with limb differences, she also encourages those with all four limbs to get involved with weightlifting.

“It's so important as an aging woman to not just maintain muscle strength, but build muscle because every year that we age, once we get to a certain point, we lose muscle mass and that equates to shorter lifespan and less quality of life when we get older… Just making sure that I've built a really good brick house so it can't crumble when I get older.”

Leanda Keahi-Bevans

Leanda, 58, was almost 300 pounds when her son convinced her to try CrossFit in 2013. She lost almost 100 pounds in the first year, and was especially drawn to the barbell movements. It would be three years before she gathered the courage to compete in weightlifting, a moment that happened just a few weeks after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and told that she may never be able to lift things over her head again. Two weeks before having both of her breasts removed, she purchased a membership online and competed in her first weightlifting competition. Leanda hit the qualifying total for the 2017 World Masters Games, but was physically unable to compete at that time.

She eventually started to train with Jesse Vezina, a weightlifter and professor at Arizona State University. Leanda made the two-hour trek from Tucson to Tempe each week and went on to win her first American Masters Open a week before the anniversary of her double mastectomy. When her cancer returned in April 2018, she went against her doctor’s advice and postponed her surgery until after she competed in the World Masters Championships in Barcelona in August, where she won her first world title. Following her surgery that fall, she competed in multiple meets before requiring another surgery in 2019. After COVID closures, she started to make her comeback in 2021 before experiencing a stroke.

“Yeah, that happened. I felt ok a few weeks later and decided to try and compete anyway, but apparently there was a lesion and an occluded cerebellar artery, and because of the pressure on my brain on the place, when I landed I was nearly 90% blind.”

Despite the setbacks, Leanda still went on to compete. She convinced Michelle Lee of ALee Athletics to guide her onto the stage and to the barbell for each lift.

“For me, it was glorious to be back on the barbell. Regardless of my other issues, as soon as my hands felt the barbell, my training kicked in. I knew where to place my hands and feet, how to set up and execute each lift.”

Leanda continued to lift into 2024, including making an incredible nine kilogram jump on her second snatch attempt at Masters Nationals in Reno. She intended to only compete each lift once, but was encouraged by her coach to take more attempts. She ultimately earned a bronze medal in the non-adaptive category. Through every setback, Leanda has continued to flip the odds that stack so high against her.

“I just thought I need to get back to this sport and these people. For those of us who have these issues that try to take us away from the things and the people that we love, it really matters that if we have to fight for our life that we have a life worth fighting for.”

As her health issues have compounded, Leanda hasn’t been able to lift any weights for the past few months, but she still trains her movements with a PVC pipe. She hopes to be back on the competition platform one day.

“I have a few surgeries scheduled on my spine and a big surgery scheduled in December on organs in my abdomen. They say I won't be able to lift after all is said and done with these surgeries. All I have to say is, we will see.”

Thomas Smalley

Thomas, 27, had his obsessive-compulsive disorder lay undiagnosed until his sophomore year of high school. It wasn’t until he was failing classes and struggling with suicidal ideation that he was determined to have severe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This meant that he was plagued with disturbing, unwanted, intrusive thoughts all day that would lead to severe compulsions. These compulsions made his mind need to do things in multiples of a certain number. For Thomas, this number was 14. His compulsions could take the form of brushing his teeth to walking in and out of a classroom to writing and erasing things. What mattered is that he felt good about the way he completed this task on his 14th try. If he didn’t, it meant another 14 times. Once determined to have OCD, Thomas entered exposure and response prevention therapy.

“It's a form of cognitive behavioral therapy. It actively triggers your anxiety response and you have to sit and learn how to cope with that uncomfortability and that debilitating anxiety to show yourself that you can sit with it and it can decrease over time.”

At the peak of his therapy, Thomas was going through compulsions for 12-14 hours a day. It took him out of school and forced him to quit the sports he loved. A year after being determined to have OCD, though, he became a voice for the disorder by speaking at Yale University. He then continued to speak at various conferences and schools and became a Lead Advocate for the International OCD Foundation at age 21. Thomas eventually earned  his bachelor’s in psychology and his master’s in exercise and sports science, and became director of performance at Impact Athletics in Albany, NY. That’s when he found weightlifting at 23 years old. Thomas was excited that his competitive athletic career was not over. He first competed without knowledge of the adaptive category, but then saw Samantha Love post about it and became curious.

“My biggest worry in terms of disability was more so how people perceived my disability, not necessarily the way I perceive it. Mental health has a very different stigma around it than physical disabilities. It's not to say that my suffering is worse than somebody else's. I think people look at the two things differently and if they can't see something visibly wrong, it's like, why does this person deserve this opportunity? So, that was my biggest thing when I started competing as an adaptive athlete. Getting over the fact of, ‘Hey, I have a lot of times where my OCD completely takes me out of life and out of training and out of competitions. I deserve to have the adaptive category for myself, too.’”

Thomas, who lifts remotely out of Bexar Barbell, has been able to grow both physically and mentally through the sport of weightlifting over the past four years. He’s been met with support at every event, and loves how positive the community is. It’s given him a way to express himself, and a new sense of purpose. For someone who had hopes of competing athletically in college taken away at 15 years old, being able to experience competition at the highest level has rejuvenated him.

“I couldn't imagine life without it now. It's like the driving force. It's everything to me.”

Thomas is the founder of Struggle Into Strength Performance, offering science-backed, mental performance consulting services for athletes, professionals, and other high performers to achieve peak performance. On his social media, Thomas documents his life as a weightlifter with OCD. With the adaptive category still little known throughout the weightlifting community, Thomas encourages others with disabilities or conditions to not be ashamed, but empowered by the ability to show that you are winning your battle as an adaptive athlete.

“Maybe I didn't earn the gold medal in the sense that I beat someone's numbers, but I beat my OCD today. I didn't let OCD take away my life again, and that's been a big thing for me when people ask me why I compete in an adaptive category. It's like I’m telling OCD ‘No, I'm not letting you take my life again. I'm not letting you take everything I have, I'm taking everything back from it.’ That's been the biggest thing with how empowering being an adaptive athlete is.”

The stories of Samantha, Ray, Michelle, Leanda, and Thomas, are just five out of several athletes who face an added obstacle each day compared to the average weightlifter. These five spoke on their difficulties in the hopes that others would feel empowered in the midst of their own. Even today, adaptive athletes make up just a small portion of the weightlifting community. It’s likely that several current lifters would qualify as an adaptive athlete, but either aren’t aware of the option or are hesitant to try competing  because of their condition.

Ray wasn’t sure about his decision to become an adaptive athlete at first. But he, along with the others quoted in this story, continues to receive support from the weightlifting community at every event.

“It seemed kind of wrong to compete adaptively because on some level I can hang with non-adaptive athletes,” Harkness said. “Then someone explained to me that I’m lifting and competing despite my disability, so I should do it. There's other people out there who are also autistic and don't want to come forward because there's still a stigma about competing in an adaptive category.”

“Unless you're in it, you don't really understand how unbelievably supportive the weightlifting community is,” Thomas Smalley said. “People are rooting for each other because we're all, in terms of weightlifting, going through the same thing.”

To qualify as an adaptive athlete at a USA Weightlifting competition, an athlete must either have a disability defined by the ADA as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, be a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or be a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment. In the past two years alone, USAW has welcomed over 20 adaptive athletes to the platform at national competitions. Individuals interested in learning more about adaptive athlete opportunities at both the local and national level are encouraged to email USAW at usaw@usaweightlifting.org for additional guidance.