Lynne Castellanos, a Solvang math teacher, wasn’t super athletic until her daughter went to college and started boxing. Now, the 65-year-old holds several world records in powerlifting, won female athlete of the year in 2017, and runs a nonprofit gym with her daughter as a way to give back to the community.
“We work with kids and we want to ensure their success as responsible and giving community members by working in three areas: the gym, the classroom, and the community,” the executive director of Youth Empowered Sports Club said.
The gym, which is located in an old outlet mall, has a powerlifting room, a tutoring center, an arts enrichment room, a wrestling room, and a boxing and martial arts space. Through its programs, the gym offers several training and tutoring opportunities for 85 to 100 children ages 6 and older guided by volunteer coaches and teachers, Castellanos said.
“We have a great group of volunteers who help. We have a team leadership program where our [junior high and high schoolers] are teaching boxing classes or in the wrestling room,” she added. “We have people who go away for college and come back to help because somebody helped them when they were 12 years old [and] they are in a position to give their time and expertise.”
For the gym’s powerlifting team, Cold Iron Lifting, Castellanos partnered with Amateur Athletic Union (AAU)—a sports organization that hosts several competitions to help develop fitness programs like powerlifting.
“There are a number of different organizations you can lift with, but we chose AAU because they are family-oriented and have success both on and off the playing field. Their motto is ‘sports for all forever,’ and that fits us,” she said.
This year, the Cold Iron Lifting team will be hosting AAU’s Junior Olympic Games on July 23 and 24. Although she doesn’t have numbers yet, Castellanos said she’s been receiving entries every day and is hoping for 30 to 40 competitors. July 23 will be the Olympic weight lifting competition featuring squats, bench press, and deadlift, she said.
“I anticipate it will be a high-energy event, a feel of community,” she said.
July 24 will have a more relaxed feel to it with odd events—competitors will carry heavy weights for a long distance or see how many times they can deadlift in a minute. All events will be monitored by trained referees, and safety will be the top priority, Castellanos said.
She said she hopes people come to the event to see powerlifters of all ages and genders compete. Oftentimes, people hold a certain image of the powerlifting community that isn’t always accurate.
“We are atypical. We are not what people are going to think when they think of powerlifting,” she said. “When I thought of powerlifting, I thought of big, giant, muscle-bound men, [but] it’s actually a sport for everyone.”
For example, Castellanos added that she works with a lot of women who start off very nervous in the gym, but with guidance and community support they are able to accomplish great feats like deadlifting a bar for the first time.
“I find it’s a really good tool for confidence building for students as well as adults,” she said. “The powerlifting community is very supportive of people. It’s never been anything negative, each person wants everyone to do their best.”
Confidence-building plays a major role at the gym because it carries over into other areas of life, like academics or in careers. But the most important aspect of the gym is the sense of community, she said.
“I think, particularly now in this time where our world is, we need to build community or rebuild community. People need connection, and our gym is a place for everybody,” Castellanos said. “We are really warm and cozy and comforting, but also hard work gets done here.”
For more information on donating to or volunteering for Empowered Sports Club, email youthempoweredsy@gmail.com.
Highlight
• Starting July 1, Guadalupe’s public transportation service—the Guadalupe Flyer—changed its transit service operation. Instead of one bus route between Santa Maria and throughout Guadalupe every 75 minutes, transit is now split into two routes. The Flyer Express route will run every hour between Santa Maria’s Transit Center at the top of the hour and the Guadalupe Amtrak station at the bottom of the hour. The Flyer’s local route will run every half hour at stops throughout the city and meet up with the Express route at the Amtrak station. Two stops were added: one in the Pasadera development and the other at West Main and Montez Court. Free transfers will be available between these two routes. For more information, visit smoothinc.org.
Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor can be reached at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 14-21, 2022.
