The Weight on His Shoulders: Jake Robinson’s Journey
Jake Robinson goes to the gym to lift weights. He goes there and lifts 2 or 3 times his bodyweight of 200 lbs.
That’s what Jake Robinson does every day.
This is what he loves to do. Lifting changed his life.
“This is therapy,” said Jake. “You just take all the hurt and things that bring you down and take it all out on that set.”
Jake hasn’t always been an athlete or as strong as he is today. It’s been a long journey to get here. That journey started around the age of 13.
“We had gone to Kohls to get new jeans, well none of them fit him and it was heartbreaking,” said his mother Gina. “He got in the car and broke down about how he hates himself and how he hates being fat and I truly believe that’s the day it all changed for him.”
Being obese isn’t the only obstacle he has overcome. He had to deal with his mother going through cancer, which took a toll on him. As a result of his mom’s fight, he learned to have “faith and hope” in everything. This also resulted in a tattoo on his right shoulder of those words in the breast cancer ribbon.
Jake is now 19 and has changed from being 200 pounds and obese to 200 pounds of muscle and being able to max lifts at 555 for a deadlift, 525 for 2 reps on a squat and 300 for a bench.
“At first it was really hard, but every night I’d just pray that God would give me the strength to go another day,” said Jake.
Jake changed his whole lifestyle to become a powerlifter. He started focusing on his strict diet. If he didn’t have enough time to get to the gym to lift, he would cut classes during college. He has made lifting a priority now.
“Besides work and firefighting, this is the next most important thing because it’s important to me,” said Jake.
The first taste of real competitive powerlifting came by way of the Beasts of New York full power meet at Hercules Gym in Syracuse, New York. It was run by world record holding powerlifter Rheta West.
“That meet was eye-opening,” said Jake. “When I’m at this gym, I’m the strongest one here and there I was one of the weakest.”
The competition didn’t go as planned when Jake was unable to complete a squat. When he missed the squat and moved back to the area he was sitting, you could feel the mood change. The atmosphere was different. His head was hung with his hood up. He knew he had the ability to lift it, but he was unable to.
His confidence was drained.
He decided it was time to go.
“No one talked the whole ride home,” said Gina. “It was a miserable, miserable ride home.”
Jake still has a lot of lifting and competing in his future. A 34-year veteran world class powerlifter Hank Sargent knows what it’s like to be lifting while you’re young.
“You can’t rush it,” said Hank. “The weight will come, you gotta be patient. You won’t get it all in two weeks.”
Now he’s back training. He paces back and forth during his squat session at the gym, giving little stretches as he walks in front of the squat rack. He moves through his warm-up lifts with ease. The weight increases with each set. He pulls on the bar with one hard tug before setting it on his shoulders for the lift. His little black book for tracking his workouts is getting ready for another entry as Jake mumbles his own motivation to finish a lift.
That motivation was enough to finish it here in the gym. During the competition, the result was not the same. That’s why Jake loves lifting.
“You can always work at being better at something with this,” said Jake. “You can get in better shape, you can get stronger or get stronger in a particular lift. It’s always something you can work at. I love the progress.”
