Topic: News: All In The Family: Jenny and Mitchell Sawyer

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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All in the family
Matoon brother and sister share in the feat of conquering Olympic weightlifting
By: Laura Griffith/ Associate News Editor
Issue date: 12/1/05
 
Quiet Mitchell Sawyer enjoys cartoons, electronics and riding motorcycles, much like any other boy his age, but his level of fitness and strength set him apart from the others.

Blond-haired, blue-eyed Sawyer, 15, of Mattoon, is already an Olympic weightlifter nationally ranked No. 1 pound for pound in the under-18 male category.

Lifting more than 200 pounds, the 5-foot-9-inch, 167-pound freshman at Mattoon High School spends much of his time in class, playing sports and, of course, lifting.

His 13-year-old sister Jenny Sawyer lifts, too.

"They started training together," said their father, Ed Sawyer. "They do everything together."

Initially, the purpose of weightlifting was to improve the children's physical fitness and athleticism without over-stressing them, which could be a major health risk.

When Mitchell was 8 years old, he wasn't good at sports. He and Jenny were among the last people picked for every team.

So Ed started them off on a total body workout, starting with push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, 5-pound dumbbells, then moving up to 10-pound ones.

After five years of physical fitness foundation work, they began to compete in various sports. Mitchell participated in wrestling, football and track and field, among others.

"Within a year and a half, two years, all of a sudden, they were the first ones being picked instead of the last ones," Ed said. "That was kind of neat, seeing that transformation."

Slowly, the two started getting more into their workouts with more intense routines. Ed started taking them to various area coaches, the ones he deemed the best, to get drills for his children to practice. For Olympic weightlifting, the best was Marty Schnorf of Charleston.

Currently, Schnorf has the Sawyers peaking (breaking their own records) every week, but something has to change, said their concerned father.

"There's some concern about doing too much," he said.

There are many risks involved with lifting weights at a young age, especially between the ages of 10 and 15 when children are still developing. These risks include some injuries that could permanently stop children from being able to compete in any sport.

Upon researching these risks, Ed learned about Amy Miller, a track and field star-gone-cheerleader at Charleston High School who suffered two pars defects, which cannot be healed.

The pars bone, Ed explained, is a bone in a person's spine that holds the vertebrae in place.

Recently, Mitchell suffered severe lower back pain, and two doctors confirmed that he had a pars defect. The family desperately continued to seek help from experts, and found a specialist in Springfield named Dr. Timothy VanFleet. Dr. VanFleet refuted the diagnoses and found that the injury was much less serious, a severe lower-back sprain.

After eight months of rest, Mitchell was training again. After only being back into his routine for a month, he could lift 100 kilos (220.46 pounds) snatch and 130 kilos (286.6 pounds) clean and jerk.

Ed also discovered in his research that it is uncommon for weightlifters to peak as often as his children do.

"Ninety-nine percent of Olympic weightlifters peak no more than four times a year, and we were peaking almost 50," Ed said.

Mitchell and Jenny choose four or five meets per year to compete in, and Ed makes sure they are spaced out. They train, peak, go into a resting period and repeat the process.

A normal day for Mitchell consists of waking up at 7:30 a.m. and going to school, where his first period is advanced physical education. After school, he attends practice (of whatever sport he is competing in at the time), lifts at the YMCA in Mattoon and then lifts with the Charleston Weightlifting Club.

"He just turned 15. If he took his shirt off and turned around and everything, you would see every little muscle, equally developed, equally defined," Ed said.

When he asked his father if he should give up other sports and concentrate on lifting, Ed encouraged him to stick with team sports as well.

"We don't want to socially isolate the children," Ed said.

Instead, he suggested that Mitchell use weightlifting to become better at other sports.

After his long days, Mitchell finds little time to do homework, watch cartoons and talk on the phone with his girlfriend.

Sometimes, he said he wonders where all his free time has gone.

"I calculated it," he said. "It was like eight or nine hours a week."

At school, his favorite subject is geometry. Math is Mitchell's strong point in school, his father said.

"I got to teach the class the other day," Mitchell said.

If he chose to dedicate himself 100 percent to weightlifting, his father said he would have about a 50/50 chance of making it to the Olympics in 2012. But that's not his goal, as it is his sister's. Mitchell wants to get a football scholarship and go to college in three years.

"The more success that they have because of their routine of physical fitness, you hope they continue to buy into the program," Ed said.

That being said, Ed said he will be happy with whatever his son chooses to do with his life, whether it be training to become an Olympian or going to college on a football scholarship.

"What you want is a lifetime thing," Ed said. "The instant stuff goes away."

Media Credit: Jay Grabiec
Mitchell Sawyer holds his 125-pound sister, Jenny Sawyer, on his shoulders. The two are world-class weightlifting champions and started lifting together as children.