The Things Needed to Succeed in Strength Athletics: Legs, Butts, Back, and a Boatload of Faith

       Success is defined as "the accomplishment of an aim or purpose." Let's be honest the definition is pretty basic, and many of us understand what it means to be successful. But the real question I have always had, is what does it take to be successful? The obvious answers could be listed; hard work, time, patience, grit, maybe even a little luck. Now, let's take the same question and apply it to strength athletics. So, I pose a question to you, what does it take to be successful in strength athletics? Heck, what does it take to be successful in athletics as a whole? Now I know many of you will be thinking, "Strength, Speed, and skill." I'm not going to say you're wrong; technically, you are correct. I want to take a deeper look at this, or as I tell my class when I teach, "Let's break this down to the basic nuts and bolts." For this entire essay, I will be referring to the sport of weightlifting.

          So, other than a high skill level, what else does a person need? First off, strong legs and hips (butts). In this sport, you just can't have strong legs OR strong hips. You must have BOTH. It's an odd relationship when discussing how legs and hips work in tandem during a snatch or clean & jerk. First and foremost, a weightlifter won't be able to lift the bar from the floor, let alone propel the bar high enough to get underneath it for a clean or snatch, if the proper leg and hip strength isn't developed. Not only does the lifter have to have the leg and hip strength to be able to lift the bar high enough to get under it, but the lifter also needs adequate leg strength to recover out of the catch. Whether it is a snatch, a clean, or a jerk, catch recovery strength is paramount for success.

         Backs, more specifically lower backs, are critical when it comes to weightlifting. We could consider the back or "core" to be the most important aspect of the entire body during any athletic event because it links the upper body (chest, arms, and shoulders) to the lower body (legs, hips, and calves). If the "bridge" is weak, then power transfer from the lower body to the upper body will not be as efficient as it could. Also, due to the continued stress placed upon the lower lumber and upper hips, sufficient stability and strength in the lower back is a must to decrease the occurrence of an injury.

        Now for the final aspect, the boatload of faith. This aspect can be interpreted in many different ways. First, it could be faith in your coach. Second, faith in the training program that has been designed. The third point, faith in yourself and, above all else, faith in God. I have never been one to openly speak of faith or believe. I have always lived under the premise "as long as it doesn't directly affect me in any way, what a person's spiritual believes are, isn't any of my business." However, over the last handful of years of my life, my viewpoint on my own personal faith has changed.

         I attribute the slow progressive change to my wife, Amanda. She has possibly one of the strongest senses of faith I have ever met in a person. She has been the person to push me to be a man of God and, most importantly, the father who teaches his children about faith and belief.

        To be rather frank, I have never had a strong sense of faith or belief. I always had doubts about what was true and what wasn't. I was never sure if scripture was more or less fabled stories a collective group of people happened to create on their own or if the different stories of the bible truly happened. I guess you could say I was always skeptical of faith, which caused me to never dive in like many of the other things that caught my interest. It could be because I took scripture stories literally and never saw the deeper meaning to them. It could have been I because I never truly identified as a Catholic, let alone a Christian, due to fear of being mocked by my peers. It could be due it was never really a topic of conversation growing up. It is a multifaceted topic as to the reasons how I got to where I was. 

        Of course, growing up, I participated in the church with the youth groups, Sunday schools, and different fundraisers, first with the Methodist church during my grade school years and then the Catholic during my junior/high school career. But even during the times of participation, I looked at it as more of a chance to socialize with my peers than I did to learn a deeper lesson. In the end, it just never clicked with me, it was never a true priority to me. This continued during my undergrad career. I would attend mass when I went home, but that was really it. I never attended regularly on my own. 

        So how did I get to the point where I am now? As I mentioned earlier, my wife has played a major role in my "faith journey." She accepted me for my ignorance of faith and has supported me the entire time. She has subtly pushed me to express my concerns, fears, and troubles in prayer and always believe we will be okay as long as we have faith. Needless to say, as a person who has relied on himself and one to never really express my personal concerns to anyone, I can say prayer has been an interesting thing to learn how to do. Yes, I said, learn. At the age of 31, when a lot of this started, I had to learn how to pray and, at the same time, listen. You'd be amazed at the things you can hear when you calm your mind.

       So, you're probably wondering, "what does this have to exercise, or sports, or strength?" Well, to quote Rush Limbaugh, "Talent on loan from God." I heard that phrase about 2 years ago, and it always stuck in the back of my mind. A lot of people might disagree with what I am about to say, and that is fine. I thought for a long time about what it meant, and I concluded that it kind of sums everything up. Everything we are, know, and can do, is on loan from God. That's every talent, every skill, every ability, and every bit of knowledge we can absorb and apply is not something that is not actually our own, but something that is given or "loaned" to us. 

        Faith is best described as "a feeling, conviction, or belief that something is true or real without any evidence." Coming from personal experience, faith can be a difficult thing to fully understand and wrap your mind around. But if I can hold faith in my coach and his skills, my athletes and their abilities, or even my personal skills and abilities, why can't I have faith in the Being that granted all of this to us? Why can't I have faith that all of us were loaned these different skills and abilities for a reason? Then again, instead of having it all figured out, why don't I just allow myself to believe and do what I feel I was placed on this earth to do. I've got the legs, the butt, and the back strength I need. I like to believe God gave me great strength to hold up a world if needed. And, like my body, I need to continue to strengthen my faith. Because just like increasing my physical strength, my ability to lift and compete at a high level increases. The stronger my faith becomes, the stronger my trust in God becomes.

Take Care,

Coach A

Like Writing A Symphony: How Rest Days Are Just As Important As Training Days

        So an interesting thing that many don't know about me is, before I got into the field of kinesiology, I was actually a music major. Yep, a music major. For 3 years, I was a double bassist for the Iowa State University symphony. I had been playing music for a little over 10 years. Played all through high school for a matter of face. Anyway, during that time, I learned a lot about music. Aural theory (the ability to figure music out by listening to it), written theory (the ability to look at music and figure it out in terms of its actual structure), piano (considered the be the universal instrument), private lessons, and obviously symphony.

            It was about a year into my music education, I discovered kinesiology. In the fall of 2009, I switched 100% to kinesiology and never looked back. It's odd how life works. The more I continued to learn about exercise science, primarily strength and conditioning, the more parallels I found between the two fields. Even today, I continue to find parallels between the fields of study. The one parallel that I find the most fascinating is the idea of rest.

            During one of my aural theory classes, that's where I learned how to "decode" music by listening to it; Dr. Jeffery Prator once said, "A rest is just as important as any note." For some reason, even to this day, that quote has stuck with me. Then during one of my written theory classes, we began to learn how to construct music itself. It wasn't until I started creating my first training cards, 2 years later, did I see the first of many, many parallels between the 2 fields. Speaking from personal experience, a training program/card is no different than a piece of sheet music. If you're not experienced with either one, at first glance, a training card or sheet music appears like it needs a key to decipher what's written on it. However, to an experienced eye, either one is easily read.

            Now you're probably wondering, this is all nice and good, but what does this have to do with anything? In the words of Yoda, "Everything!" because if there is one parallel, there have to be others. And you're right! I started, as Steve Jobs once said, to connect the dots between these two fields. Over more time, and astonishingly enough, I began to find more and more. I remember one day thinking, "Holy crap, this is just like this from my music theory class or my piano class." There are many specific ways the two relate to one another, that I could go into a few others, but I'll skip them and get to my point. The most important parallel between the two fields is, just like resting (silence) is written into a symphony, coaches program rest days (recovery). This brings me to the point of this all and the title of this essay, the rest days are just as important as the training days. Now here's the reason why. 

            The human body is the most fantastic machine in the world. Yes, I said it, machine. If you break it down to its most basic components, the human body is a bunch of interconnected levers. Now here's the other thing, just like a machine, the human body will break down if it runs too hard for too long. Regardless of the physical activity, the stress incurred by the body will eventually break it down. The fantastic thing about the body and how it differs from any other machine in the world is that it will adapt to the stressor placed upon it (Hans Selye's General Adaptation Theory). However, there is an important fact to remember to all of this. The body can only take so much stress before it starts to deteriorate. And this is where rest comes in. During the scheduled rest periods during training, the body is allowed to recover and, most importantly, rebuild (muscle) and reregulate (hormones) itself. Yes, you read that right. It is not the training sessions that make us stronger. It's actually the scheduled rest periods we take that make us stronger.

            But why don't we think about rest days with the same importance as the actual training days? To be completely transparent about this, this is my professional belief, American society has been ruined by companies like Gatorade and Nike. American society has been inundated with the idea of "1-more" when it comes to sports practice. 1 more jump shot, 1 more swing of the bat, 1 more throw of the football, 1 more practice spike of the ball. So on and so forth. The same idea can be said about training, but this time, it primarily comes in the concept of 1 more rep or 1 more exercise, 1 more day. Where does rest fit into their equation? That's the thing, it doesn't. 

            As a coach, I have heard many different reasons for pushing so hard. And the one line that I hear some form or fashion of the most is, "If I don't train today, I'll lose it." Yes, this is true, to an extent. However, in this case, the magnitude as to how fast the body will lose said adaptations is a little off. It takes the body a reasonable amount of time to lose the gains it has achieved (7-20 days, depending on specific adaptation). I could get into the exact science, but I'll save you the lesson and just ask that you take my word for it. So here we are, pushing and pushing and pushing to the point of exhaustion, and more than likely not gaining a single thing out of it. 

            Now there are 2 scenarios that I see playing out in the end. One is incredibly likely, the other takes a lot of luck not to occur, and that is injury. I can say with almost certainty that an injury will occur if a rest period is not taken. Now to stay fair in this discussion, I'm not saying an injury will occur. All I am stating is, with every passing day, week, or month that goes by without a scheduled rest period, the likelihood of injury occurring increases. Just to clarify, when I state "injury," I'm not talking about a torn ACL or broken leg, which can happen. When I say injury, I am primarily speaking of pulled muscled, strained ligaments/tendons, the little things that, if not addressed, can really hinder adaptation and gains.

            There is also the other side of the coin. Even after five months of exercising hard, and injury never occurs. All I can say to that is congratulations, you rolled the dice, and it didn't come up snake-eyes.

            Let's face it injuries aren't any fun. So if you don't like injuries, allow the body to rest. Take a day, a week, or even a month (in some cases, a month of rest is needed) follow the rest day like you would any training day. Allow the silence to occur and bask in it for a while. Here's a thought, give even more effort during the rest day than you would a training day.

            As I mentioned earlier, every beat, every note, and moment of silence, in the greatest of symphonies, was planned and put there for a specific reason. The same is said for training. Every exercise, set, rep, and rest day has been strategically designed to help ensure the greatest adaptations possible. So next time you have a rest day take it seriously and sit back and enjoy the time off. Why not listen to a symphony. Personally, I recommend New World Symphony or the Planets... they are my favorites. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this.

Take Care,

Coach A

 

 

A Funny Thing Happened...

        So a funny thing happened a few days ago... I injured myself. It happened at a deadlift competition. During a 465 lb deadlift, I felt 2 small pops in my lower back. After I set the weight back down I walked off the platform and felt a small amount of tightness in my lower back. To be frank, it's nothing I have never dealt with before and didn't think too much of it. The really funny thing about the entire situation is the 465 lbs of the deadlift felt relatively light. Anyway, I pulled myself out of the competition thinking to myself "I have played this game before, and in the past, I have typically pushed through the discomfort and ultimately lost." So to make sure I don't hurt myself any further than I have, I decide to stay on the safe side. So as I said, I pulled out and watch the rest of the comp. So here I am walking around, talking with people, feeling a small bit of tightness in my lower back, again nothing I'm not used to, and going on with my day. I get home, I play with my kids, I put them to bed, and go through my normal routine after something like these 2 little pops happen. Heat, massage, ice and, rest. I lay down for the night thinking I should be good in the morning, with the expectation that I will be a little sore tomorrow. Was I wrong. I mean really wrong.

       I woke up the next morning and wasn't able to move. Amanda, my wife, got up with the kids in the morning and allowed me to rest a little longer. As I am trying to get out of bed, my lower back and left hip completely seize, stopping me dead in my tracks. The pain was excruciating. I could move, let alone even breathe. Knowing this is not a good thing, I call Amanda on my cell phone. Thankfully I had it next to my side of the bed. I tell her I need her assistance and she proceeds to help me at least get off the bed. In the process of getting up off the bed, my lower back seizes again, causing the most horrific pain I had ever felt in my life. I fall to the floor and try to get into a position that won't cause any pain. 

This all happened at 7:40 AM. It is at this point I have come to the conclusion that all of the things I wanted to get done around the house were not going to be completed. 

        Over the next 8 hours, I am on the floor of my bedroom staring at the ceiling. I try a few different times to get up, at one point I made it all the way to my hands and knees, and time after time, the same thing would happen. The lower back would seize and I would end up back on the floor. It wasn't until 3:30 PM that Amanda and I finally made the call for the Ambulance to come and take me to the ER.

        This is where the funny thing happened. During the time on the floor, I had a lot of time to think. Think about things I typically don't think about. Things like how my bedroom ceiling needs a coat of texture and, the carpet and the pad in my bedroom really need to be replaced in the next few years. But then there was a thought that came across my mind that I hadn't thought about for a long time. I remembered back to an essay I read years ago about a former elite powerlifter and how his life was forever changed by the sport. I remember back to how he described the bottles of pain meds on his nightstand, how he was in chronic pain. The essay was called The Price of the Platform. I would recommend reading it, it will open your eyes in many ways.

        I remember thinking to myself after I first read it, "that will never happen to me. I like to think train smarter than most." Again, I was wrong. It did happen to me because here I was stuck on my bedroom floor unable to sit up. I think back to many of the injuries I have had over my life. Dislocated shoulders, more than one broken nose, busted orbital socket, cauliflower ear, blown out hips, contorted vertebrae, concussions are only to name a few. I never thought about many of them until one specific point, that point was when my kids came into the bedroom and I was on the floor. 

        I have written about this topic before but kids change life in ways you never dream about, let alone, think about. Thinking about this now, it is hard to imagine not being able to do the things I want to do with my children. I'm going to be straight honest, this injury scared me. I have never felt pain at this level ever in my life. I was truly worried that I had really "done screwed myself up this time". And it got me thinking what price and I willing to pay? When will the platform really make me pay up? This is maybe one of the hardest questions I will ever answer. Truth be told, I don't know. I love strength athletics. Since I was little I have always been fascinated by watching strong people do the unimaginable. Now I get to live as one of those people. This brings me to the million-dollar question, is it worth it? Every time I step onto the platform to lift, I assume all the risks associated with it. Again, I thought this would never happen to me. And I thought wrong because it did. Now, what do I do?

My first thought is to use this injury as a way to change my training. Focus on my weak points like I use to and make them my strengths. Simple enough. The second thought that comes across my mind is "what the hell do I have to prove to anyone?". Looking at this with that perspective, I am a father of 3, I own my own business, I have a loving wife, many friends and I can accomplish many feats of strength some could only wish for. The final thought, and the scariest, I think it might be time to hang it up. Like I said, this injury scared me. Scared me to my core as a husband and father. Could it happen again? Will it happen again. These questions I will never be able to answer.

Granted, I haven't been in the right headspace the last few days. I learned a long time ago, to allow things to sit for a bit before making and huge life choices. I will revisit this topic in the next week or so and provide you all with an update as to how things are going. As of now, with a little thanks to modern medicine, I am able to walk around, perform a lot of my daily tasks with a little bit of discomfort, and most of all coach my athletes/clients. So yeah, a funny thing happened last weekend, I got my eyes opened in a new way. Which way I decide to go, I don't know. Only time will tell. Until then, I have some more thinking to do.

Take Care,

Coach A

 

Failure is Alway An Option: 
Accepting Failure as A Part of Sport & Life

       Over the last 3 years, I, as a coach, have undergone a major philosophy change. In 2016 I had the opportunity to learn from Greek Weightlifting International Coach Christos Iakovou. The time I spent with about 30 other weightlifters and coaches learning from the legend of a coach was for a lack of better words, priceless. Over the course of 28 hours, I learned as much as I could about the Greek weightlifting program, everything from training times, overall programming and, lifting fundamentals. Among all the things I learned during the seminar, the one thing that has stuck with me the most, other than a little Greek man telling me to add more weight after I had just beat my old clean and jerk max by nearly 4kgs, was the idea of missing lift.

            I can't remember the exact way the lecture got onto the topic but, we were discussing how to handle an athlete who is missing attempts during training. I thought it was a very interesting topic. What was even more interesting was Coach Iakavou's answer. His answer was simple, "it's part of the sport". With 5 simple words, I was both confused and at the exact same time, my mind was blown.

            This man, literally, just reprogramed my entire thinking process of how to deal with failure in sport. Then something else happened. It got me thinking and most importantly, noticing, how other coaches, in other sports, handle failure from their athletes. Over the course of a month, I started seeing a pattern. Regardless of the mistake, failure, whatever, nearly all coaches, freak out on the athlete. I found it so interesting that I was seeing the same reaction but in different ways. For some there was, cussing, swearing out the athlete (usually the collegiate level coaches), the throwing of a clipboard or something in the hand, and, of course, yelling, yelling, and yes, more yelling. The other aspect that I noticed was the failure was usually followed by some sort of punishment. Sprints were the common theme.

        Looking back on it now, I laugh because here was this man, this legend, of a coach in weightlifting, and all he says is, "It's part of the sport." Mind, officially, blown. So this whole thing got me thinking, what is the thing about failure not being an option? Yes, I understand there are things that failure is not acceptable, like designing a building so it doesn't collapse on itself, or open-heart surgery. I get it. But when it comes to other things such as athletics (the primary focus) and academics, failure should be completely acceptable. If anything it should be welcomed.

        I honestly believe we as coaches and athletes, need to change our viewpoint on failure. As I have told my younger athletes, there are 2 people in the world of athletics, winners, and learners. With every "win" we solidify what it is we are doing, and with every "lose" we learn what needs to be fixed. So in a way, if we want to grow to the greatest extent we can, we need failure. Most importantly, we shouldn't be afraid of failure. Like a friend we don't see often we should be welcoming and if it occurs, accepting of failure. 

        The final aspect that I have adopted is keeping my head when athletes are failing. After observing other sports coaches, I began to notice that many times the athletes were tentative during the next go-around of practice drills. I see 2 things wrong with this situation. 1) they are now thinking too much and not allowing the body to do what it knows it needs to do. This can easily lead to a decline in performance. 2) They are typically more afraid of screwing up, which in most situations, leads to further screw-ups due to their mind focusing on not upsetting the coach instead of being on the drill. Each situation leads to a vicious cycle that doesn't allow the athlete to perform at their best all because the coach is upset/anger/mad. Long story short, a coach that freaks out doesn't help the situation at all.

        As a coach, one of my jobs is to now teach my athletes that we grow through failure. And, as hard as it is, we must also be accepting, when a failure occurs. Remember, just like throwing an interception, missing a serve, or whiffing a pitch, ever missed lift is "part of the sport".

Take Care,

Coach A

        

 Barbells & Tiaras: 
Encouraging Young Women To Participate in Strength Athletics

       People say that having kids changes the entire way you look at your life. They say once you have a kid you begin to see the world through a different set of lenses. Some of the lenses show a world that is bright and full of learning opportunities. Others, not so much. The others depict a world full of danger and harm. 

        Since the birth of my daughter nearly 3 years ago, I can say that I now see the world through a completely different set of lenses compared to the ones I saw the world through after my son was born. I have always been an advocate for women participating in sport. But, the one thing I believe I have doubled down on is encouraging women to participate in strength athletics (weightlifting, powerlifting, strongman). 

        From the time I graduated high school in the mid-2000s to today, today's culture has changed tremendously. Text messages cost 10 cents a message, Twitter never existed, Facebook was still in its infancy. I can still remember the dial-up tone of the computer connecting to the internet. Yep, I'm old.

       In all of my years spent in weight rooms, whether it was in high school, college, or as a strength professional, there is one thing that I believe hasn't had the same rate of change that everything has. It's something I, personally and professionally believe could change the lives of a lot of people. That something is an increase in strength athletics by females. 

        I understand what I am saying is a MASSIVE blanket statement. But when you look at the gender ratio of those who participate in any kind of barbell/strength-based activity, it is easy to see that the ratio is skewed in favor of males. I want to make one specific point before I continue on. Female participation has increased over the last decade if not more, however, what I am getting at for the purpose of this specific topic is, with all the changes that have occurred in our society today, why is female strength athletics participation still not growing as fast as other societal changes?

        I have been in the field of Strength & Conditioning since 2006 at the collegiate level. At the collegiate level, nearly all teams regardless of gender strength train. With at being said, it can be save to assume there isn't that big of a disparity in terms of the male: female ratio. However, after working with many different women's teams, I started noticing one trend. Many of the incoming female freshmen I was to work with had no strength training experience at all. It was after I started working at the high school and middle school level in 2012, that I began to see the reason why. 

        It was after I can back home from Arizona, I started with a high school during my graduate career. It was during my first day, I looked back over the attendance and out of the nearly 100 athletes who attended the 3-morning training session, I saw there were less than 12 females who had attended. I asked the coach running the program if there would be more girls to come in the afternoon. He said he would be surprised if any of the ones who showed up come back later in the week, and would be even more surprised any others showed up in the afternoon. I can remember a feeling of shock come across my mind after he shared this information with me. I asked him why this was the way it was and he told me none of the female varsity team coaches encourage coming to the weight room.

        It was after this conversation I had an epiphany as to why so many of the females I worked with at the college level had no strength training experience. It was because they were never encouraged to participate in strength athletics, let alone strength training in general.

        It was in 2014 I took my first directors position in at a 4A Iowa high school. It was also in 2014 I became an advocate for females participating in my strength program. I would like to share with you a few of the talking I had with all of the female varsity sport head coaches.

• Stronger Athletic Performance

       This will probably be shorter of the 3 points as compared to the previous 2. Like their male counterparts, females will become bigger (relatively) faster, and overall stronger (physically, mentally, and confidence-wise). This can mean higher levels of athletic performance. It also means lower chances of injury occurring as well. The most prevalent injury that occurs with females is ACL tears. Due to wider hips and a large Q Angle of the knee females are more inclined to suffer an ACL tear than males are. By strengthening the hamstrings, glutes max, and other lower body muscles, and learning proper jumping/landing mechanics the chances of tearing the ACL reduce dramatically.

Female vs Male Development

        During one of my first one-on-one coaches meetings, I remember one of the varsity coaches telling me she didn't want the girls to lift heavy because the girls will get "big and bulky" like a guy.

        I found this statement incredibly mindboggling. Primary due to the fact that the coach I was speaking with was a little older than I was at the time, and she was a former college athlete. And to top it off, she had participated in a strength program while she was in college. I can also remember thinking to myself "I thought we were all past this BS." because that's what this statement is... it's total BS.

        For those who haven't taken exercise physiology or any kind of developmental biology course, unless there is a massive release of testosterone (4-10x that of a normal female) during puberty and all the of the strength training times thereafter, it is nearly impossible for a female to become as muscular their male counterpart. Nature won't allow for it.
        Now, there is one caveat to this statement. Naturally, there are females that have higher testosterone levels than others. These specific females do have a chance of becoming more muscular than females. When comparing females with higher testosterone levels to their male counterparts, the males are prototypically larger.

• Strength Training Will Build Confidence

        This final point could be seen as the most important point of the entire topic. One of the things I have noticed in many of today's female athletes is a lack of self-confidence. Again, I know, it's a blanket statement. But, there is a vast number of female HS athletes who struggle with some sort of self-confidence issue. It might be on the "field of competition" or off the "field". Either way, they are struggling with self-confidence issues. Some of these issues may be as simple as not believing they are as athletic as their peers or more serious issues such as body image and body weight concerns. By encouraging young female, and even male athletes, to participate in strength training and strength athletics, I have seen first many athletes work through said issues.

        One way specifically, female athletes gain greater self-confidence is they realize they are, pound for pound, just as strong, if not stronger, than the males. Once a female truly realizes she can lift just as much pound for pound as a male, self-confidence skyrockets.

        One of the other ways confidence in strengthening is females, and males for that matter, realize they are much tougher than they believe they are. By going through the daily struggle and "grind" that is strength training. Young girls and boys sometimes come to the realization they are a lot tougher than they give themselves credit for. The major difference between the two genders, however, once this fact is realized, I have noticed that females are more likely to not allow their ego to intrude on the training process. By allowing the ego never to intrude on the training process, young girls are more likely to trust the process more than their male counterparts. Which in turn, allows for greater gains in both to occur.

        The final point I want to make comes from my life as a father of a daughter and a strength coach, and that is "strength is beautiful." It is pretty common knowledge that modern American society still places a large amount of unwanted pressure on young women to look a specific way or to possess a specific body style. The bad news is this is still happening today, especially on social media. The good news however is, recently, this idea that "strength is beautiful" has begun to take hold in a few different pockets of American society. It has taken a while, but it is happening. The better news is many of the different communities of strength athletes are beginning to speak out about some of these body image issues that are still plaguing American society as a whole.

        Overall, The one thing I believe we as strength professionals and those who partake in strength athletics is to encourage as many young girls as we can to try these wonderful sports. Most importantly, when young girls do step into the weight rooms or training centers for the first time and have the "deer in the headlights" look, we as strength athletes should welcome them with open arms and minds. Most importantly, we need to teach these young girls what it means to be a strength athlete and share with them the joys we have experienced during our time and how strength athletics has changed our lives for the better.

        Thank you for reading this,

        Coach A

Snatches, Squats & Diaper Changes

Finding & Maintaining the Life Balance of a Weightlifting Coach

     Over the last few years, I have begun to see a lot of parallels between the sport of weightlifting and everyday life. One of the more interesting parallels I have discovered is how much of a balancing act life is. If you spend too much time doing "A" you run the risk of missing out on spending time doing "B" and possibly miss out on something in the process. It's kind of like a snatch, if it's half an inch forward or behind, it's going to be a missed rep. Just like missing out on something fun, new, or exciting, nobody likes missing reps. As an athlete, it can be tough to find the perfect balance. As a coach, I think it's even tougher. 

I should take a moment to step back and share this one point of interest. Speaking from personal experience, unless you have a very supportive spouse, who fully acknowledges and understands the world that is weightlifting and the associated madness (coaching, programming, research, competition travel) finding the balance between the two can be hard. When you add kids to the equation, what I call the "Game Changer" the level of difficulty just went from difficult to nearly impossible.

It's hard to explain just how impossible it can seem to balance everything to anyone who doesn't have children. The funny thing is every parent understands. Lord knows I am not the perfect parent, light-years from it. With my 4+ years of parenting experience, I already know I have made a lot of mistakes. I mean a lot of mistakes. Tons. At the same time, I feel I have missed a lot of different things. Bedtime stories, family evening suppers, first steps, first words. So on and so forth. Truth be told, it eats at me every time I miss one of these things.

For those of you who don't know or understand coaching in the field of strength athletics, primarily the field of strength and conditioning, it is a thankless job with more working hours than many realize. Without getting into too many of the details, at the college level, a 60-hour workweek can be considered normal. At the high school level, a 45-hour workweek can be considered normal. Point of interest, the hours worked aren't just hours spent coaching on the floor. It can be everything from research, to meetings, to programming, technical training, personal training (we are our own personal guineapigs when it comes to trying new program ideas) athlete meetings, conferences.

   

The same can be said for weightlifting coaches like myself. Same responsibilities but, now you add in the art of scheduling multiple athletes a day, you'll see the hours begin to add up really quick. Plus, unless you have a high enough athlete base to make a full-time living from coaching, more than likely there is a 2nd job that takes place before the scheduled coaching times. Personally, I'm a carpenter.

The point I am trying to make is simple, and it goes back to what I said earlier, if you spend time doing "A" you will not be able to spend time doing "B". In this case, whether I am at a job site or coaching, I am not able to spend time with my family. Now, am I saying I don't want to coach any longer, Heaven's no. What I am saying is there has to be a balance. 

I'm not going to sugarcoat this, finding the balance can be hard as hell and evening more frustrating. There have been days I have felt as though I'm at my wit's end because I don't feel like I have my life in balance. And even though I am doing what I do not only to follow my passion and use the knowledge I have gained over the years of study and work, I am also doing this to provide for my family. And even though providing in terms of finances is important, at the end of the day, my 2-year-old daughter or my 4-year-old son doesn't care who hit what weight for a 5 RM in a back squat, or what athlete "A's" new clean and jerk PR is. What they care about is, will I be home to put them to bed or even kiss them good night. This is why finding the balance is so crucial.

One thing my wife has told me about when it comes to raising the kids is setting boundaries and holding firm to them. As a coach I set boundaries all the time, I call them rules. However, I have never set boundaries for myself in terms of keeping the work: family balance. That is until recently. Some of them are simple, while others I have thought hard about.

The easiest one I have begun to enforce upon myself is "No Coaching on Sundays". That means no film, no programming, no reading, etc. as long as the kids are awake. Nap times, I go full till to get as much work done as a human can. But the moment the kids wake up, it's time to put everything away. Another that comes to mind right away is I will always do my best to put the kids down to sleep at least once a day. That means if I am home for nap time, I am the one to put them down for naps. If I am home for bedtime and I missed nap time, I will be the one to put the kids down for bed. I started doing this after my daughter was born and I believe it has worked out pretty well. There are countless others I could discuss whether it deals with the bond I have with my wife or my children, but I think you get the point.

I can't tell anyone what their "priorities" should be. I can only speak from experience when I feel the work: family balance begins to waver, my life begins to feel very chaotic. Again, I am thankful that I have this opportunity to pursue my dream of having my own team and starting my club. But, in the end, if success (money, champions, "fame") means that I have to sacrifice the family bond, then the "dream" isn't worth the time or effort. And for the young coaches and athletes like myself who are struggling with finding the balance, believe me, when I tell you, you aren't alone. It is there, and you will find it. It will only take time.

Take Care,

Coach A