Athlete Spotlight: Meet Sean!

Get to know the people who make our Community Strong. This month, we’re catching up with Sean Higgins,  who joined Defined in 2021.

For Sean, Defined is a place he can go to reset and recommit to his goals each day: He recently competed (and set a new state record!) at the USAW Masters National Championship. Read on to learn more about Sean and why he calls our community home! 

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Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m from Arizona originally and have lived in Chicago since 2020. I’m a professor at Northwestern University teaching MBA students at our business school (Kellogg) and doing research on financial services in developing countries. I joined Defined in May 2021, so four years ago now!

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What first introduced you to Olympic weightlifting? How did you become the athlete you are today? 

I started Crossfit in 2013 in New Orleans, and continued as I moved around to Mexico City, Berkeley/Oakland, back to New Orleans, back to Oakland, Boston, and now Chicago. So I was exposed to Olympic weightlifting through Crossfit, and in 2016 started doing the Oly classes at my gym in New Orleans, Crossfit Nola. 

Then when I moved to Oakland for a few years I went back to regular CrossFit classes since they didn’t have Oly classes. When I moved to Boston in 2019, I started focusing on it more since my gym there had Oly classes three days a week, and I was excited when I moved to Lakeview that Defined had Oly classes! 

When I started at Defined I did a mix of Oly and CrossFit classes but shifted to focusing on Oly about a year and a half ago. In the Oly classes at Defined, Coach Noal hosts informal “lift-offs” twice a year where we all try to hit new PRs in the snatch and clean and jerk in a supportive environment, which is what inspired me to start competing.

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You recently competed and set a new Illinois state record — congrats! Tell us more. 

Once I turned 35 last year, that’s the age when the “old folks” (masters) age categories start for Olympic lifting, and all of a sudden the weights I could snatch and clean and jerk were competitive compared to the other old guys. So, inspired by our in-house lift-offs, I decided to start competing and asked Noal if we could do a USAW competition. 

I qualified for Masters Nationals in the 73kg (161 pound) weight class. Last month I competed in my second Masters Nationals in Atlanta, where I hit a 90kg / 198lb snatch and a 116kg / 256lb clean and jerk, which were both big competition PRs, and a 4kg / 9lb all-time PR for the clean and jerk. And both were Illinois state records for amounts lifted in a national meet in my age division and weight class. It was cool to see “Record Attempt” on the screen when I walked on stage and to hit those lifts!

What do you love about Defined Training, and how did it help you achieve your goals competitively? 

The community! The coaches, the athletes, the events like beach WODs, donation drives, hiking the Indiana dunes, and parties at the gym. 

There were a number of ways Defined helped me achieve my goals competitively: having Oly classes on Thursdays and Saturdays, two additional days of Oly programming that we could follow outside of class; the Oly lift-offs twice a year, and the support from Coach Noal to coach me at USAW competitions and to encourage other lifters in the Oly class to also start competing. 

Our Defined Barbell Club competition team has grown from just me competing and Coach Noal coaching last October to seven Defined lifters competing this past weekend at the Illinois Weightlifting State Championships. And we crowned multiple state champs from Defined!

Tell us a random fact about yourself — something people would be surprised to know! 

While I had not competed nationally in anything *athletic* before Masters Nationals for Olympic weightlifting, I was not a stranger to competing at the national level: from elementary school through high school I was a competitive chess player competing at Nationals each year.

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Thanks for being a part of our community, Sean! 

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