Is weight training considered sport?

A question as old as time and as controversial as religion or politics a dispute that has raged on most likely longer then any. Is weight training a sport?

I remember when I used to compete in athletics, predominantly running races. Marathons, half Marathons even the odd fun run of 5kms. There were all different king of fun runs to enter. Most often they were focused on fund raising while having a bit of fun. We used to use the fun runs as a test. Something to see how we were tracking amongst others, how much quicker we had become through training.

The NEON RUN was probably one of my favourite ones, a night time race with four stations. Each station a different genre of music. Techno, rock, rap, pop. At the end was a giant dance party where everyone who had energy still left to burn could dance the night away. A great excuse to race, burn calories and have some fun amongst friends. The race was only 5kms and each station was 1km away, a quick sprint. That's how you would plan it. You couldn't really run the course as a full proper race as it would be over in 15minutes.

So you'd do your 1km sprint as hard and as fast as you could and make it to the first station. Take a few pictures and dance a bit right after you caught your breath. It was an absolute ball.

My favourite was the rock station, I still remember burning towards the platform hearing "We built this city on rock and roll" one of my favourite tunes. Made me hit the ground harder, I might have shaved off a second or two 🤣

We burned through the race pretty quick including dancing and having fun, I wish we had have spent more time on the dance floors but I was too focused on not having too much of a rest between sprints as it would impact the training. That was the whole point we were were.

Crossing the finish line felt like a rock start at this event, absolutely beautiful running at night, a different feeling and it was fun!

We then hit the Moshe pit to party! I think you can tell from the expression on my face that I was probably buggered from sprinting. But as a dedicated partner I had my wife on my shoulders, knees buckling but I spent quite a bit of time like this. Responding to the "you ok? Not going to drop me"? With "I'm fine, light weight baby!" Clearly the image says other wise..... men ha? 🤣

The colour run was another fun run but I didn't like it as much, what started off as a plan to dash through the entire race in 15minutes turned into a choking fit and an inability to power house through the event.

It's not easy running through clouds of coloured dust, I'm not sure what the powder actually was but I remember the first station I crossed. They had people waiting for runners and as runners passed they threw coloured powder at you. Now I knew this was a thing in the race I just didn't expect people to be there throwing it at you.

It also sucks when you don't get a good start position as fun runs have people of all abilities which is great, an inclusive race for everyone. But if you end up behind a mob clustered together and you can't navigate through it. You're in trouble and you've lost a minute or two or even more from your top time.

Most of the day was filled with thick air, hard to breathe and a challenge in itself, I gave up not even half way through and decided to get in on the action and just started throwing colour at people. It was a ball!

Through all this, I remember attending the university gym for training nights. We'd spend 3+ hours on a treadmill trying to beat our times. Running on a treadmill isn't easy mentally and it also doesn't provide the same resistance as running in a race. Especially when you're running a marathon or half Marathon. No track is flat. You need to have random resistance in your run.

But I remember spending hours running watching people weight train and think what a waste of time? What's the point of lifting weights? To pick up chicks? I thought non functional training was useless and pointless. The equivalent of eating a blade of grass, no benefits what so ever.

Although running had its down sides. I gave up buying clothes because training for big runs ment dropping massive amounts of weight. Id bounce between 68kgs and 80kgs depending on peak and non peak times.

But dayum did we look good inbetween races! You'll probably never find images of my during because I didn't like the epically thin look. It's also caused a bit of issues in older age with stretch marks. My constant weight gain and dropping impacted elasticity of my skin. But meh, I've earned it.

I then had kids, got older and didn't have the 6hrs a day to train anymore, work got in the way and so did everything else. So I jumped straight into weight training and I felt dumb doing so.

But what I found is that it was alot less intensive and didn't hurt as much as running every day. There was also a social side to it as you weren't always gasping for air and you could talk to people. I bounced right into it and my body developed pretty quick.

I was planning on entering a comp at one stage but I found the sector filled with steroids and human growth and that's not me. I always like to best myself. Plus I'm scared of needles so I wasn't going anywhere near steroids.

Although, alot of old school mates have touched base asking me to train them but I can't. I spent 8 years running and 4 years weight training. To get to this level for them would be alot of work. That level of commitment from friends isn't seen. It's a niche industry and you need to have a passion for it. I'm addicted to it now and once the house is asleep you'll find my in my home gym. A form for stress release and I used to push myself to my limits.

But being older and always sleep deprived due to kids has ended that, my knees hurt and no more likely due to the thousands of kilometres I
have run and I've found myself having to alter my training routines alot more often due to my aging.

I still get stopped by people and I'm talk of the mums group 🤣 but hey who doesn't enjoy being the object of everyones desire. Although my heads pretty touch so clearly it's not for my looks 🤣🤣🤣

But that's got me asking a question, is weight training a sport? Let me know what you think below.