Strength has no age limit – just ask the Hamptons.
Kim and Trina Hampton, the team behind the Focus FITness gym in Diamond Valley, and their children Hayden, Logan and Theo have made powerlifting a family affair.
“Powerlifting is you versus you, but the entire room is behind you and there’s not very many sports where that is the case, it’s usually a competition,” Trina says. “It’s super empowering and if we can ignite that power within, even the young kids, it gives them confidence to step forward into new things.”
Four years into competitive powerlifting, the Focus FITness lifters have made waves with a number of record-setting performances in the World Raw Power Federation and Canadian Powerlifting League.
Leslie Gurr, an experienced coach from Nanton, has given the Focus crew a friendship and know-how in the community to set them up for success, Trina adds.
“I think that’s why our athletes have had so much success on the platform because Kim is really good at strength training and she is really good on the platform,” Trina says. “The combination of the two set everybody up for success and that makes it easy for people to want to try.”
Even the youngsters.
The WPRF started its little lifters program, featuring those aged three to 11.
“Why not? Those kids are watching their parents all of the time,” Trina says. “It was an opportunity to include them in an event that they had to go to any way.
“It really made them excited, they got a medal, they got on the platform just like the big kids.”
Both Logan, nine, and Theo, four, are competition veterans, following in the footsteps of older brother Hayden, 16.
Hayden, a Grade 10 offensive lineman with the Foothills Falcons, burst onto the powerlifting scene and set a world record for deadlift (225 pounds) in his age category as a 13-year-old in late-2020.
At the same event, Trina made the most of her first opportunity to compete, pulling down eight of nine lifts while setting four WRP Canadian records in her age and weight class.
“Watching my brother, my mom and dad lifting made me want to start,” says Logan.
Powerlifting, which encompasses the core movements of deadlift, squat and bench press, is modified slightly for the youngsters with only deadlift on offer.
“It’s great, it gives them direction even at this young age, it’s something to look forward to, the training,” Kim says. “The training is different, they’re not in there five days a week like a seasoned lifter, it’s maybe one day a week or every two weeks to get the fundamentals and not really worried about how much we’re lifting.
“And it has transitioned onto the football field with Hayden and Logan and myself back coaching.”
Kim says before the younger lifters can step on the platform, they need to learn to trust themselves.
“Showing them how strong they actually are is always nice to see,” he says. “It’s about getting the form down, checking the ego at the door.
“They’re not all going to come in and be like an Aidan (Boyle-Gough), he was young and now he’s deadlifting almost 500 pounds, he’s 18 now and moving onto university. But some kids come in and see that and think I can do that. Well, no, it’s a process.”
Trina first got involved in lifting in 2020 and made her mark on the competition stage in quick succession alongside Hayden.
She’s gone on to set a number of provincial and national records and has recently started competed in bodybuilding.
Through that she started the Fuel nutrition business, located right above the Focus gym.
“It’s grown me into somebody I never thought I would see myself being before,” Trina says. “I had no interest in lifting so learning how to lift actually put me into working with the athletes and being able to coach the kids, which I love doing.
“Part of it is because I learned from two of the best, Kim and Les, giving me that solid foundation and I had just gone through the learning so it makes it easy for me to explain it.”
Teaching is Kim’s passion, be that instructing proper lifting form in the gym or coaching offensive linemen on the Foothills Falcons football team.
“I’ve seen the transition in some of the young kids I’ve coached at the Comp, the O-line how much stronger they’ve gotten in a year, gotten stronger, gotten faster, it’s the same process,” Kim adds. “Downstairs (in the gym) it’s form is good, your steps are good on the field, your lift is good, your blocks are going to be good. It all transitions.”
Kim says he gets a lift out of showing people how strong they can be, whether that’s a little lifter or a septuagenarian, adding 80 per cent of it is mental.
There’s a trick of the trade in coaching powerlifters that touches on that.
“I always add weight without them knowing,” he says with a laugh. “I’ll throw an extra 2.5 pounds and not tell them, because people get inside their heads.
“When they overcome and achieve, if we have a lifter that has a threshold that they can’t get past or a lifter that thinks they can only lift 150 pounds, that’s what I like about it.”
What differentiates powerlifting from your conventional workout is the removal of the plateau where results arrive from proper work, says Kim.
“With strength training and doing it in the correct format, they see that happen continuously, and I think that’s what keeps more people into powerlifting,” he says.
“The term powerlifting in the past might intimidate people to the point where they think I can’t do that. I had a guy last year say, ‘I can’t squat 300 pounds.’ He did two sessions with me and he was squatting four or five. And it was just his form and his confidence.”
Kim says he was very fortunate to learn from great coaches in his youth, and still has that network, when he did powerlifting as a football player.
“It’s been really cool to learn in Okotoks through both Bruce and Wendy Greig and now training with Bruce’s sister Leslie, it’s really full circle and you really appreciate all of that, different kinds of coaching, but same mindset,” Kim says.
The Focus FITness business came about in one of those moments of Zen for Kim, who was on his own health journey after battling alcoholism and Type 2 diabetes.
“There was a point where my doctor says, ‘If you don’t smarten up, you’re going to die, you’re 400 pounds, you drink, you smoke,’” Kim says. “And I did, I made an honest effort and started feeling pretty good, started taking some proper supplementation and Trina took me to this event and I saw a gym owner there and I had owned a gym prior to this.
“We’re driving home and I said, ‘We’re going to open a gym.’ And by 2 in the morning I had secured a space.”
Kim, who has lost 200 pounds in his journey, says there were some doubters in the community and it’s been validating to see those who’ve come through Focus coaching and gone on to set a plethora of provincial, national and world records.
“Our gym has shown it,” he says. “Hayden did powerlifting, he went to Bantam Selects, Summer Games, won gold in Summer Games and that all stems from here.
“Hayden is a student of football. I coach and if I have a question, I’ll ask him on the drive home.”
That same thirst for knowledge is part and parcel of powerlifting.
“It is never something you’re going to perfect, you always learn and I think that’s the best thing about it,” Trina adds. “It doesn’t matter if you’re four or 80, you get stronger and you always have to come back to basics, always have to come back to form first.
“It’s pretty cool that progress of learning constantly. That’s what I tell people at the start, don’t go chasing numbers, if you’re committed to this as a journey of growth, you will always be successful.”
