Powerlifting, Setting Records and Winning US & World Powerlifting Championships, and Becoming a Mental Health Advocate with Newton Cheng

The Asian American Athlete

On this episode, host Justin Hong interviews world champion powerlifter Newton Cheng about his powerlifting story and his journey to becoming a mental health advocate.
In his powerlifting career, Newton has set multiple world, US, and California state records and is a world-and 4-time US national champion. He's also currently the Director of Health & Performance at Google - where he’s spent 14 years developing, launching, and scaling global programs aimed at helping Google employees thrive.
During the interview, Newton talks about his backstory, his relationship with sports growing up, and how he got started with powerlifting (2:25), powerlifting basics, including the three lifts in powerlifting, how scoring in powerlifting works, etc. (10:20), and how welcoming the powerlifting community has been to Asian Americans (14:10).
He also shares his first powerlifting competition experiences (16:40) and how he decided to pursue a career in powerlifting (20:15), the highlights of his career, including winning national and world championships (23:55), and his aspirations for his powerlifting career (25:40).
Newton also talks about what he does as the Director of Health & Performance at Google to support the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of Google employees (28:05) and shares his own mental health journey and how he has become a mental health advocate (30:05), how he has changed his mindset during powerlifting competitions (40:00), and much more.

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