A new Olympic weightlifting gym is opening its doors in Alexandria’s West End on Saturday, Sept. 26.
Gym owner Brian Leung is opening Monument Weightlifting at 614 S. Pickett Street. The 6,800-square-foot gym will teach clients that want to learn Olympic lifts, or to continue developing their training.
Leung, along with cofounder/general manager Lauren McHugh and trainer Billy Hatton, got their weights and equipment after buying the former gym CH Fitness and Performance on Edsall Road in April, and hope to get about 100 members of that gym when Monument Weightlifting officially opens.
“We had a little over 125 members at the previous gym that we’re hoping to welcome back to this space,” McHugh said. “We’re excited to welcome those old members back so they have a proper training environment for the sport they love.”
McHugh decided to go all-in on gym management after getting laid off from an environmental consulting job earlier this year. In fact, she said that a lot of her clients have high-stress jobs.
“Olympic weightlifting is very interesting,” McHugh said. “We really attract a very technically minded group of folks. A lot of people that come to train with us are engineers of all varieties, civil software. My co-founder [Leung], he’s an attorney, and he’s still keeping his full-time job right now. We have a lot of federal employees that come and train with us that work for various agencies, and we have nurses and we have a hand surgeon that trains with us. It’s not like a powerlifting gym full of loud screaming meatheads.”
It costs $25 to drop in for a single visit to Monument Weightlifting, and an open gym membership costs $125 for four weeks.
The grand opening will be held from 12:30-3:30 p.m. on Sept. 26.
Image via Monument Weightlifting/Instagram
