Powerlifting Gym · Charleston, SC
Charleston's Powerlifting Gym. And Charleston's Own Meet.
8 racks, 8 platforms, Texas Power Bars and old-school iron made in the USA. A decade of coaching on the floor. And King of the Hill, the world's fastest and most fun powerlifting meet.
Book Your Free Call →Just want to train here? Gym access and passes.
Our Meet
The Fastest Meet In Powerlifting
A traditional meet eats a whole day. Weigh-ins, a warm-up room, attempt cards, waiting around for your flight. Most people never do a second one.
King of the Hill takes a few hours. Everybody starts with an empty bar and the bar goes up together, in 25s and 45s. Your warm-ups are your attempts. Last lifter standing is King of the Hill. We run all three lifts in order, squat then bench then deadlift, and lifters are grouped by height so a single rack keeps moving.
The format came from Jordan Stanton in Portland, Oregon, who has been Coach Cam's weightlifting coach since 2017. Like this gym, he started in a small garage and needed a way to run a competition without a warm-up room. We have hosted it here ever since, twice a year, spring and fall, capped at 30 lifters.
It is unsanctioned, on purpose. Which means:
- No federation, no membership fee, no qualifying total
- Bench presses are touch and go, and no judge is going to wave off your lift
- Nothing counts as an official record anywhere outside this room
- Open to members and non-members, and lifters from gyms across Charleston enter every time
- All experience levels. Plenty of people do their first meet here.
What it is for is setting PRs in front of a loud room and finding out whether you like competing before you pay a federation and drive across the state. If you want a sanctioned platform after that, we will point you at one.
The house records: Squat 635, Joe. Bench 455, Brian. Deadlift 635, Coach Cam. These records are yours for the taking.
Get Ready For The Next One →Spring and fall. The next date gets announced a few months out. Ask on the call and we will tell you when it lands.
The Coaching
Meet Prep Here Is Not Complicated
Most of the people who compete here started as beginners in this gym. If you have a month of training behind you, you can enter. For most lifters that is the entire preparation.
For someone more experienced, not much changes. You train the way you have been training. Closer to the date, instead of heavy fives or heavy threes, you warm up as usual and work up to heavy singles until you are done. That is it. King of the Hill removes the reason meet prep is normally hard, because there are no attempt cards to plan and no warm-up room to time.
Which means the coaching is not really about the meet. It is about the total being worth testing when you get there. That part is the same work we do with everybody: a program written for you, a coach on the floor watching the lift, and small jumps that keep adding up long after motivation runs out.
How a total actually grows
Nobody adds weight the same way forever. The method changes as you get stronger, and knowing when to change it is most of what a coach is for.
Novice
You add weight to the bar every session. It feels too simple to work and it works for months. Most people put more on their total in this stage than in any stage that follows.
Intermediate
Session to session stops working, so progress moves to the week. Heavier days, lighter days, volume days, all of it adding up to one jump a week instead of three.
Conjugate
Weekly progress stops too. So you rotate the variation, chase a max effort single most weeks, and aim accessory work squarely at whatever is failing in your squat, bench or deadlift. This is where lifters who have plateaued for a year usually start moving again.
The full explanation of each stage is on our strength and conditioning page.
Who is coaching you
Cameron Cox got serious about barbell training himself in 2013. He started coaching in 2016 at one of Charleston's big box gyms, where most personal trainers in this town get their start, and has coached full time ever since. He began coaching lifters online in 2018, first with Starting Strength Online Coaching, then Barbell Logic, and now under The Strength Club. In 2019 he earned his Starting Strength Coach certification, a credential fewer than a hundred people worldwide hold.
He competed in a sanctioned USSF meet in 2017 and has lifted in every King of the Hill. His best there: 615 squat, 440 bench, 635 deadlift, a 1,690 total.
He also still has a coach of his own. Jordan Stanton, who invented King of the Hill, has coached him since 2017: a former competitive powerlifter with a 700 pound squat, a former collegiate strength coach, and the owner of two gyms. Nine years of being coached while coaching. If you have ever met a trainer who stopped learning the day they got certified, that is the difference.
Book Your Free Call →Who Trains Here
First Meet Or Fifteenth
Some people come in wanting to compete. Most find out they want to after they get strong enough that it starts sounding fun. Both are normal here, and neither one requires you to look like a powerlifter when you walk in.
“I put over 150lbs on my squat, 60lbs on my deadlift, 30lbs on my overhead press, and 70lbs on my bench.” — Richard S., a strength coach himself, in his first eight months
John W. came in new and hit a 365 squat, 275 bench and 405 deadlift inside fifteen months.
Todd started lifting at 55 and had a hip replaced at 60. At 61 he has beaten every personal record he set before the surgery. Nobody in this room is too old, too new, or too far back to be worth programming for.
And if you are already strong and just want a bar, a platform and nobody in your way, that works too. Membership is on the gym access page, and the floor and equipment are covered on our strength training gym page.
Book Your Free Call →Before You Start
Common Questions
Do I need to compete to train here?
No, and plenty of members never do. But we encourage everyone to give King of the Hill a try, because meet day is where people find out how strong they actually are. Lifters routinely hit numbers well above anything they have touched in training, in front of a room that is pulling for them. Most walk out with a PR they did not think they had and a target for the next one.
How strong do I need to be to enter King of the Hill?
Strong enough to squat, bench and deadlift the empty bar safely, with about a month of training behind you. There is no qualifying total. Everybody starts on the same empty bar.
Is King of the Hill a sanctioned meet?
No, and that is deliberate. No federation, no membership, no official records. It is a fast, loud morning built around setting PRs. If you want a sanctioned platform afterward, there are federations running meets in South Carolina and we will happily point you at one.
When is the next one, and how long does it take?
Spring and fall, capped at 30 lifters, and it runs a few hours rather than a whole day. Dates get announced a few months out. Ask on the call.
Can I come and just watch?
Yes. It is a good way to see whether you want to do the next one.
Do I need coaching, or can I train on my own here?
Either. Gym-only membership is 24/7 key-card access with no coaching and no contract, $70 a month. Coaching is a separate program with your own plan and a coach on the floor.
What equipment is there?
Eight racks, each with its own deadlift platform, Texas Power Bars and Rogue bars, cast iron plates and a deep range of specialty bars. The full list is on our strength training gym page.
Where are you, and is there parking?
95 Tall Oak Ave, Charleston, SC 29407. We are in Avondale, in West Ashley, about ten minutes from downtown Charleston, right behind Mellow Mushroom. Look for the Strength Club door, marked Suite A. Free parking on site.
Ready When You Are
The Bar Is Loaded. You're Up.
Tell him where your lifts are and what you want them to be, and he will tell you honestly whether coaching is the right way to get there.
Talk totals with Cameron Cox, owner and head coach
Already train seriously? Gym access, day and week passes.