Life Worth Lifting
Club trainer Chuck Wilson shares his remarkable journey from childhood illness to powerlifting dominance.
When Chuck Wilson was 5 years old, he was struck down with rheumatic fever. The doctors told him that he probably wouldn’t live for more than another decade.
“From then on, I was told how weak I was. I couldn’t participate in any physical education programs or athletic events. It left me with feelings of diminished worth,” the Boston native says. “Those feelings settle in your subconscious and don’t go away. You have them your whole life, and you’re always trying to verify that you have worth.”
But at 15, Wilson learned that his heart murmur, a side effect of rheumatic fever, was, in fact, a temporary hemic murmur. While he relished the chance to play sports, he became a target for bullies.
“I decided that I wasn’t going to be that person, that I was not going to live in fear,” he says. “Instead, I would become physically very, very strong.”
By the time he was 18, Wilson was bench-pressing 180 kilograms.
He continued training in college, where he also took up judo. During his years in the United States Air Force, he was runner-up in the combined services judo championship twice. When his service ended in 1969, he followed his judo dreams to Japan.
“When I came to Kyoto, I found a city-sponsored place where young people gathered for recreation. They had a weight-training facility and there was no fee,” Wilson says. “But it wasn’t machines, it was free weights. People said, ‘Your bench press is good, but how much can you squat?’ I didn’t know. They convinced me to start doing deadlifts and power cleans. Then I participated in the western Japan weightlifting contest and did well.”
Wilson discovered powerlifting and his arduous training sessions in the sport’s three disciplines (squat, bench press and deadlift) paid off. A four-time Japan powerlifting champion, he held the Japan bench press record of 200 kilograms for nearly a decade in the 1970s.
This month, the Club trainer will share his knowledge during a powerlifting workshop for Members interested in entering the Club’s own powerlifting competition in September.
Wilson turns 77 this year, but the seventh-degree judo black belt’s passion for staying fit and helping others to do the same remains undimmed.
“If you lifted more weight than you did the day before, that’s an enhancement of your own sense of worth,” he says, “and that’s what fitness is really all about.”
Building Strength and Power
June 17 | 2–5:30pm
Words: C Bryan Jones
Image: Chuck Wilson at the 1990 All-Japan National Powerlifting Championship in Sapporo
