When it came to sports, Aidan Sapp was accustomed to living in his big brother’s shadow. As a kid, he endured many a long day on the sidelines of soccer fields watching Ryan Sapp chase down a ball.
Before coronavirus put the brakes on everything, Aidan ran track at Fountain Valley High – the same school where Ryan, four years older and four inches taller, once excelled in soccer.
“I’m not all that good at track,” Aidan humbly assessed.
But now it’s his turn to shine.
Last year, when school went virtual, Aidan and Ryan started lifting weights in their father’s Westminster garage – for no other reason than to stay active. “I didn’t want to just sit around playing video games,” Aidan said.
On March 13, exactly one year later, Aidan beat the national record for his weight category in deadlift. At a competition in Orange, he hoisted 396 pounds – a whopping 55 pounds better than the previous top score.
It’s also the world record for that weight class, although not counted as such since the contest was only for national titles. The 17-year-old officially could reach the global high mid-July at an international meet in Palm Springs.
And not only did Aidan smash the national and world records, he shattered his personal best.
“I had never hit over 345,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. I guess adrenaline kicked in.”
It was Ryan, 21, who did the research and signed Aidan up for the national competition, and then hung out there with him. But, the brothers say, they were not always close due to their age difference.
“When I was 10 he was 6 and just sort of got in my way,” said Ryan, an education major at Cal State Long Beach. “I didn’t pay much attention to him until he got old enough to keep up with me in video games.”
This is how the brothers interact – with friendly jabs and wry humor. Now, clearly, they are in sync.
Ryan serves as Aidan’s weightlifting coach, urging him on. “I get him out of bed, make him breakfast every morning and drive him to Dad’s,” Ryan said.
The brothers also stay at their mother’s house in Huntington Beach. Tanya Sapp, a nurse at Orange Coast Medical Center, had no idea how seriously her boys were taking their new hobby.
“I thought they were just goofing around in the garage,” she said.
Cary Sapp, a project analyst, enjoyed watching his younger son blossom in real time. “It’s good to see Aidan have something all his own,” he said.
Ryan bought what he calls “best value” generic weights to supplement his father’s basic weightlifting equipment. “Forty-five pounds is 45 pounds,” he noted. “It doesn’t matter what name is on it.”
Aidan and Ryan work out with a couple of friends for at least two hours every day, all challenging one another to add another disk to the barbell.
The crew practices the three powerlifting exercises: bench presses, squats and, Aidan’s specialty, deadlifts. A deadlift involves raising the barbell from the floor to hip level.
Out of curiosity, the buddies started looking up statistics a couple of months ago to see how they were doing. To their surprise and delight, they discovered that Aidan was killing it.
“It was a gradual process, so I didn’t realize how good I was getting,” Aidan said. “All that time I’d been thinking, ‘Well, I’m picking it up so it can’t be that heavy.’”
Shorter school days and Zooming have allowed him more time to improve. “I don’t have track practice now,” Aidan said.”So this is all I do.”
Sometimes, he listens in on classes while pumping iron. “Why not?” Aidan shrugged. “Kids are on their phones and the teacher doesn’t get mad.”
Ryan proudly takes a dose of credit for motivating Aidan to the next level. “It’s always good to work out with someone stronger than you are,” he said, eliciting an eye roll from Aidan.
True, Ryan can deadlift 435 to Aidan’s current 405. But then again, Aidan lifts three times his own weight. For Ryan, at six feet tall and 175 pounds, that would be 525 pounds. “No way,” Ryan admitted.
At one point, when Ryan referred to Aidan as “small,” their dad interjected. “He means you’re slender,” Cary Sapp offered.
“You know what he means,” Aidan responded.
Ever low-key and unflappable, Aidan seems unfazed by sibling candor. After all, he’s on top of the world – or very well could be in a few months.
Stating the obvious, Aidan noted, “What national record is not going to build confidence?”