http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/nyregion/thecity/16weig.html?ref=thecity
Grab, Grunt and Lift in a Temple of Muscle
By JENNIFER BLEYER
Published: December 16, 2007
JOE TRIOLO, a barrel-chested 48-year-old firefighter from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, stood next to the weight-lifting platforms in the basement of Lost Battalion Hall in Rego Park, Queens, watching half a dozen people grunt, heave and hoist.
In the fluorescent glow of a room that smelled dankly of sweat, a young man with biceps the size of cantaloupes groaned as he pushed 225 pounds above his head. A blond woman with deceptively thin arms lifted 121 pounds before letting her barbell crash to the ground.
“You got to whip those elbows!” shouted Mr. Triolo, who in his spare time coaches weight lifting in this unlikely outpost in Queens.
Lost Battalion Hall, a Parks Department recreation center on Queens Boulevard, is the home of a group that calls itself the only organized Olympic-style weight-lifting team in the metropolitan area. The sport involves lifting barbells from the floor in two events: the snatch, which involves raising the barbell to an overhead position in one motion; and the clean and jerk, in which the lifter squats after hoisting the weight, then stands and hoists it overhead.
The team was started in 1961 by Morris Weissbrot, an assistant parks commissioner and weight-lifting coach who died in 2002.
“There was weight lifting going on here 365 days a year, and most of those days, Morris was here,” said Joe Elkins, 70, a former weight lifter from Forest Hills who started lifting at Lost Battalion Hall in 1963 and still participates as a tournament judge.
When Mr. Weissbrot started the team, Mr. Elkins recalled, it was immediately popular, but he could wrangle only enough space for two weight-lifting platforms in the recreation center’s boiler room. Now, there are six spacious platforms in the basement, sandwiched between the boxing ring and Ping-Pong tables, and the team has won regional, national and international competitions.
Forty people, among them seven women, now regularly train in Olympic weight lifting at Lost Battalion Hall, and Mr. Triolo is trying to recruit a new generation of lifters.
The youngest so far is Beth Terranova, a senior at Archbishop Molloy High School in Briarwood, Queens.
On a recent Wednesday evening, she prepared herself for what is called a snatch by rubbing powdery chalk on her hands, stepping onto the thick black rubberized platform and positioning herself over a barbell, poised to lift it over her head in one continuous movement.
“When I first came, I was just snatching the bar,” said Ms. Terranova, who weighs 116 pounds, or 53 kilograms. “Now I’m snatching 45 kilos.” The goal is to lift more than one’s body weight.
Squatting, she took hold of the bar, started to lift it, then teetered and fell. The barbell thundered when it hit the ground.
“You’re going from zero to 60, so you need that burst,” Mr. Triolo told her firmly. “Now go chalk up, Beth. You got one more shot. Let’s go.”
