The healing power of strength training

WHEN Cheng Xu was serving in the Canadian Armed Forces as a paratrooper and infantry officer, he experienced a series of traumatic events in rapid succession — his best friend and fellow officer took his own life, a soldier under his command was injured during a live fire exercise, and a close friend’s father was kidnapped.

He felt like the world was collapsing around him everywhere except at the gym, where he trained in competitive Olympic weight lifting.

“The only thing I had that anchored me was weight lifting, because that was the only place where I felt safe,” said Xu, 32, now a doctoral student in Toronto. Surrounded by the clinking and clanking of barbells, he slowly discovered what he described as “the healing properties of strength training”.