Why I Love Weightlifting Part 3: Lou

Sometimes you meet people by chance, and they end up having a profound impact on your life. For me, that happened unexpectedly at the 2003 Junior Olympics when I volunteered to load for the competition and happened to sit next to a man named Lou.

At the time, I was just returning to weightlifting as a competitor after my first shoulder dislocation and surgery. The 2003 Junior Olympics was my first meet back—and also the first time other lifters from Sandusky were competing. During one of the earlier sessions, I volunteered to load and was seated next to an older gentleman who introduced himself as Lou. We talked throughout the entire session, and at some point, I realized I had read a letter he wrote to Milo magazine about Naim Suleymanoglu the year before. As it turned out, Lou lived just two hours from us. Before the meet ended, he gave us his email and phone number.

As soon as we got home, I began exchanging emails with Lou regularly. I had found someone who loved the sport even more than I did. After a few back-and-forths, we arranged to train with him. When we arrived, we pulled into a normal-looking home on a quiet rural road in Ohio. It didn’t look like the kind of place that had a weightlifting gym—but Lou led us around back, where next to a gazebo sat a building that looked like a small house. Inside was a 24’x24’ gym built specifically for weightlifting. The entire floor was a platform. There were Eleiko bars and plates everywhere. I was in awe.

Shortly after that first visit, I received a package from Lou in the mail: a videotape titled "Various Weightlifting." Lou had made a compilation of lifting highlights from the past 20 years—footage he felt I needed to see. One of the featured lifts was Angel Genchev’s legendary 160/202.5kg performance at the 1988 Olympics, where he became the heaviest person ever to clean and jerk three times bodyweight. Lou also included footage of Yurik Vardanyan—a lifter I had only heard about before. After watching that tape, Vardanyan became my all-time favorite.

Lou had clearly taken an interest in me. He began teaching me about weightlifting—sending more of those curated video collections, each one packed with lifters and performances he believed I should study. My sister and I started making regular Saturday trips to train at his gym and lift in his local meets.

One vivid memory stands out: before one of Lou’s local meets, Bud Charniga was visiting. He was holding court in the gym, showing video of Galabin Boevski warming up in the training hall at the World Championships. Bud was explaining how, even as the bar moved slower and slower with each heavier attempt, Boevski moved under it faster and faster—anticipating the lift in his mind before it even happened on screen. I soaked in every word. It felt like a master class in weightlifting—an experience I never would’ve had without Lou.

When Sportivny Press released a translation of Naim Suleymanoglu: The Pocket Hercules by Enver Turkileri (Naim’s original coach), I was eager to get a copy. But I didn’t have to—Lou mailed it to me. That book became the single most influential text in shaping me as a coach. I’ve read it cover to cover at least 20 times—and the technical and training sections more than 50. The early training plans, the volume vs. intensity theory, and the long-term programming philosophy completely changed how I thought about the long-term development of a weightlifter.

I cannot overstate Lou’s influence on me. I could fill pages with the lessons he taught me—through hundreds of emails, phone calls, training sessions, and conversations at meets. Throughout my sister’s long national-level career, Lou was always there in the warm-up room. Always.

In a time and place where so much knowledge in the U.S. weightlifting world is transactional—always for sale—Lou never asked for a dime. In fact, the first time we went to his house to train, my dad asked what we owed, and Lou looked him in the eye and said, firmly, “Nothing.” And he meant it. Lou was there to help. To teach. To pass on knowledge, freely.

I’ll always be grateful for that random moment at the 2003 Junior Olympics when I sat down next to Lou. It changed everything.