Numbers have boomed in the past few years and the national championships for both powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting will be staged in Dunedin later this year.
Otago Amateur Weightlifting Association president Callan Helms said the sport had really picked up in the past few years.
Five years ago, the number of Olympic weightlifters in Dunedin could be counted on one hand.
Now there were upwards of 45 lifters and the clubrooms in Fryatt St is a noisy and crowded place on a training night.
Helms said there were a couple of reasons why both Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting had become popular.
``Powerlifting has really boomed in the past few years as it is accessible and you can do it in most gyms,'' he said.
``Then Olympic lifting, you can thank cross fit for that. Cross fitters want to be better at Olympic lifting and they come along here and find they actually really like doing it on its own. We've found a few of them shifting over to lifting.''
Helms said Olympic weightlifting was as much as about technique as it was to do with power. It was a sport which encouraged a battle within the athlete and real gains could be seen.
Association vice-president Phil Murphy, who has a background in powerlifting, said about 200 powerlifters were likely to line up at the national powerlifting championships and the standard would be high.
The Otago Amateur Weightlifting Association, which started in 1939 and is the oldest in New Zealand, has just strengthened its floor, putting 12cm of concrete down with plywood over the top to make it easier to drop the weights.
The national powerlifting championships are set for August in the Dunedin Town Hall, while the National Olympic Weightlifting Championships would be at the Edgar Centre in early October.
The South Island Olympic Weightlifting Championships were in Dunedin last year and had made such a good impression, Otago had won the bid to hold the nationals. It is more than 40 years since the championships were last staged in Dunedin.
Meanwhile, Otago weightlifter Amanda Gould lifted a total of 164kg in the 63kg class at the Australian Open in Melbourne over the weekend.
She finished third in the international category, lifting 75kg in the hit and 89kg in the clean and jerk.
Her Commonwealth ranking, which she is looking for to try to qualify for the Commonwealth Games next year, will come out in the next few days.
