A short distance from Tokyo Skytree, in a neighborhood full of manufacturers, there’s a small, fairly unremarkable factory. To the unfamiliar, it would most likely look strange and curious. To those who those who lift weights over their heads for fun, however, the facility produces the best weightlifting equipment in the world.
Uesaka is a mecca quietly churning out barbells, plates, weightlifting blocks, dumbbells, and weightlifting belts in the center of downtown Tokyo.
Earlier this month, I packed my gear and shoes and headed there, almost missing the small metal door next to the announcements of past Olympic sponsorship on the windows. I reached out a hand to knock when the door was opened by a large Greek hand. I was at Uesaka and I was there to lift with a former member of the Greek national weightlifting team.
By lucky chance, I’d virtually met Anastasios, an employee at Uesaka and a weightlifting coach at another Tokyo area CrossFit box, a couple years prior. Brought closer by our mutual love for weightlifting and intolerance for bullshit, we’d built an Internet friendship over the years with promises of meeting up peppered between discussions of dream/next tattoos and box gossip. It never quite happened until a few weeks ago, after approximately a month of dreading going to the gym and losing the confidence to lift anything over 25kg.
You know how they say knowledge is power? What they don’t tell you is that that adage is only true after you get your self-confidence crushed by said knowledge. Unfortunately, I am currently in possession of enough information to understand that my lifting form is awful. Despite constant tweaks and frustrated form practice, nothing appeared to be working. I interpreted this to mean that I would be doomed to forever lift with the kind of form that makes people visibly wince. It was completely demoralizing.
But on a custom lifting platform located in a small room off the main Uesaka factory, surrounded by custom lifting plates, I lifted for the first time this year without a knot of anxiety and fear in my chest. As I flung around the bare barbell, Anastasios made me sit down after three reps (“Sit! Rest!”) and groaned in horror when I described my squat routine which requires a total of 60 reps. We discussed our aversion to cardio, Instagram lifters, and the split jerk.
“You’re not as bad as you think,” he said after watching me fling the bar away from me during every snatch attempt.
“But, I don’t know,” I said, “maybe weightlifting…it’s just not for me. I used to be so excited about it and now I’m crying after every class.”
“You’re just in a bad situation,” he pointed out.
“Yeah,” I said, looking at the brand new Uesaka barbell in my hands, “yeah.”
After another hour of hanging out, which included a tour of the half-darkened Uesaka factory, we packed up and walked to the subway station. For once, on the walk to a subway station after a weightlifting session, I wasn’t trying to keep my shit together until I parted ways with whomever I was with so I could wallow in my self-pity. I actually felt kind of excited to learn more.
As they say, knowledge is power.