Hello and Welcome To The Bar, where there’s strength in every story.
Meet your hosts
We’re Aaron Holt & Jess Roebuck-Slaney and we’re the two British Weightlifting technical Officials behind to-the bar.
Pull up a seat, grab a drink and settle in as we’re joined by a host of individuals from across the weightlifting community to talk all things competitive weightlifting.
Whether you’re a fellow technical official, a competitive athlete or a coach looking to brush up on your back room tactics, we’re hoping we’ve got something for you. What is a dirty clean? What is oscillation? What changes are coming in the IWF strategy plan and why was Mattie Rogers lift a no lift? Well folks… we’ve got those answers for you.
What makes us different from all those other weightlifting accounts? Well, you’ve read the coaches stories, the athlete interviews, the ex-athlete commentaries… perhaps now it’s time to give the ramblings of the technical officials a try…. ?
originally a cheat sheet we set up to help us with our officiating, to-the bar grew into an online community relatively swiftly. What started as a way for us to share information amongst other TO’s, quickly became an online resource across instagram and the website, and then, eventually, grew into the podcast.
A core ethos of to-the bar is that there’s strength in every story, to us that means giving a platform to members of the community to discuss there views or opinions, and ensuring any information or news we bring you is accurate and fair.
Aaron Holt
I’ve been lifting for 10+ years now having discovered it through Crossfit. While I enjoyed CF, weightlifting was something that sucked me in more and more. Ever the technician, it infuriated, yet captivated me. It proved you didn’t have to be the biggest or strongest person in the gym to shift some heavy weights. This was more a sport of technique than it was brawn and I loved it for that.
I’m an M45/81kg Masters lifter and current British Masters champion, previously a runner up in European Masters and currently holding the M45/81 Snatch British record. As a TO I currently hold a BWL Level 3 and have TO’d at many BWL events as well as European Masters Championships.
Jess Roebuck-Slaney
Relatively new to weightlifting by comparison, training out of LOWA and now at Ascension, the passion for lifting has grown and grown, which is how I discovered officiating. I currently hold a BWL Level 3 cert, I’ve officiated at all national levels and you’ll generally find me on my favourite TO station, the marshals table where I get to be right in the mix of all goings on during the comp. Being a technical official is such a fantastic way to give back to the sport, you get to watch some amazing athletes with a group of likeminded weightlifting fanatics, I’d encourage anyone interested to give it a go!
