According to the weight lifting definition, weight lifting is a kind of sports which provides sportsmen with an opportunity to compete in lifting of heavy weights fixed on steel bars, the execution of which is a combination of power and technique. The term "weight lifting" is frequently used inexactly when what is meant is weight training.

Weight lifting information contains some very interesting facts from the weight lifting history. Humans have been holding contests to measure individual strength and power for thousands of years. As a basic athletic activity and a natural means to measure strength and power, the lifting of weights was present in both the Ancient Egyptian and Greek societies.

In Ancient Greece, weight lifters held competitions to determine who could lift the heaviest rocks. Later on, the Greeks invented dumbbells for weight lifting competitions. The origin of the word dumbbells comes from the method of removing clappers from bells, which made them soundless during lifting. Weight lifting was among those few sports (alongside athletics, swimming, gymnastics, fencing, wrestling, shooting and cycling) which featured already on the program of the first Modern Olympic Games, in 1896, Athens.

The first World Championships in this sport, however, had been staged five years earlier: on 28th March 1891, in London, with 7 athletes representing 6 countries. Women first started competing in the Championships in 1987. Weight lifting is thus the only sport which history in world-wide competitions spans across three centuries: from 1891 through the 20th century until modern times.

The power-relations have undergone major changes over the past decades. So, based upon weight lifting information, at the beginning of the 21st century, Austria, Germany and France used to be the most successful nations. Later on, Egypt, then the United States of America reigned. In the 1950s and the following three decades the Soviet Union's weight lifters played the protagonists' role - with Bulgaria becoming a main challenger.

Since the middle 1990's, however, Turkey, Greece and China have catapulted to the lead. The most recent word power in weight lifting is Greece among the men. In the women's field, China has been dominant since the very beginning, with other Asian countries emerging as strong contenders to the champion titles. On the overall, however, Europe is the most powerful continent in competitions of both genders.

Weight categories were implemented and different lifts were approved. While one-armed lifts were part of the Olympics until 1928, the most commonly competed categories have been the snatch, clean-and-jerk and the press. Those three disciplines were cut to two in 1976 when the press was eliminated due to the difficulty in judging the validity of the lifts. While the disciplines have reduced, the weight classes have increased and from five prior to the Second World War, there are now eight for men and seven for women.

Today, weight lifting is a very popular kind of sport. Weight lifting information is available in the various books and magazines both online and offline, which shows the great interest to the sport.

Since 1896, weight lifting has been a popular feature in no less than twenty Olympic Games. At the sport's 21st Olympic appearance in Sydney, the program will for the first time include the women competitors as well, in addition to the men. According to weight lifting information, the most successful Olympic weight lifter of all times is Turkish Naim Suleymanoglu, who won three Olympic Champion titles (1988, 1992 and 1996). Hungarian Imre Foldi is a record holder being five-times Olympian (1960, 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976), while American Norbert Schemansky is the only one who won medals in four Games: a silver in 1948, gold in 1952, and the bronze in 1960 and 1964.