By Elijah Maule

Jon Hughes, a senior at Ponte Vedra High School, made it to the national level for weightlifting and went to Colorado over the past summer to compete in National Week. It was his hard work and dedication that got him there.

Jon was born in Kentucky in 2006 and lived there for 13 years. He got into lifting at six years old as his parents joined a cross fit gym and he did workouts with them on a regular basis. Around the end of 8th grade, Jon’s family moved to Florida and he stopped doing all of the workouts and joined football. “I never really liked football but my parents forced me into it, but at the end of my sophomore year I got tired of it and quit,” said Jon. With that, he started to turn his attention back to weightlifting.

Jon always looked up to the Olympic lifters he saw on social media and decided to join the weightlifting team at PVHS. Jon had a decent first year with the team but wanted to improve. “I joined a nearby gym that had a barbell club and was training two to three times a week during my junior year mainly getting the basics of the sport down.” By the end of his junior year, Jon advanced enough to compete at high school states and eventually to the national level, which led him to going to National Week in Colorado. “I did pretty good at National Week, but I knew I could do better and needed to work harder when I got back home,” said Jon.

Jon did research to find a more serious lifting program near him and found Jacksonville Strength. “I saw that they have trained two people to the level of lifting internationally for the United States Weightlifting Team and were sending one of them to the Olympics, so I knew it was the right place,” said Jon. With his new training regime, Jon trains five to six times a week and the sessions are two to three hours long.

Throughout his life, Jon’s motivation was his parents as his mom always lifted with him. “Now I would say merging away from cross fit and more to weightlifting, it has been seeing people lift and the international level lifting tremendous weight over their heads.” Jon said he finds enjoyment in weightlifting as it really pushes him to work hard and it is very addicting to him. “Working hard and pushing to get better personal bests relates to my life outside of weightlifting as in life if you work hard to achieve your goal, you will most likely achieve it,” said Jon.

Jon is still lifting for the PVHS weightlifting team and his current maxes during his senior year are 185 pound snatch, and a 225 pound clean and jerk at a 154 pound body weight. Jon plans on hitting a 200 pound snatch, and 250 pound clean and jerk at the end of his senior year on the team. “I am going to keep working and hopefully get invited to the National Week again after this school season is over as it is my main goal besides from competing in the Olympics one day,” said Jon. 

Pictured: Jon Hughes(12) performing a lift at a meet