When It All Comes Together

When It All Comes Together

Why do I coach Olympic weightlifting?  I ask this question to myself quite often.  I mean from the outside looking in, I might appear crazy.  There isn’t a lot of money in the sport especially the way that I do it.  Heck I pay my top athletes.  My company funds the majority of the expenses for my weightlifting team.  All of this sounds pretty bleak, but this past weekend in Overland Park, Kansas, I was reminded of the reason that I coach this amazing sport.

Weightlifting is the most complex sport that I have ever been a part of.  It’s gymnastics performed with a heavy apparatus that is moving.  It requires strength, speed, mobility, kinesthetic awareness, balance, courage, perseverance, and a tenacious work ethic.  Most athletes that think they like the sport, quit early on, when they find out what it really takes to succeed. 

This complexity is what draws me to the sport.  I am blessed to coach some of the most focused athletes in this country.  My athletes don’t have to be told to show up to the gym on holidays.  They are telling me that they need to train on holidays.  Their desire and determination is the very thing that makes this whole process so personal to me.  My athletes are focused on Team USA, and most of them have a goal of making the Olympics one day.  When an athlete trusts me with these marvelous goals, I take it very personal.  If they are going to trust me with their hopes and dream, I am going to do my very best to help them achieve these goals.

No one knows better than me, how precious these early years are to my athletes.  For most, you have until you are around 30-years-old, and for some maybe 35-years-old to make these dreams into a reality (yes there are a few outliers, so don’t get mad).  I know all to well how quickly those years will come and go.  In a blink this moment in time will vanish right before their eyes. 

I can’t promise that any of them will make it to the Olympics.  At this point in my life I know that it isn’t really about the end result.  It’s about the process and knowing that you did everything possible to make your dream a reality.  I remember the burning desire in my gut to be the best.  I know that my athletes have that same burning.  My goal is to make sure that each and everyone on my team will be able to look back at their lives and know without a doubt that they did everything possible to obtain their dream. 

The team that I coach is without a doubt the most focused team that I have ever coached.  That makes the results from Senior Nationals even more exciting.  Last weekend each member of my team accomplished something important towards his or her goal.  Tom Summa made an incredible comeback after a year off from the sport going 5 for 6 and totaling 314kg earning a Bronze Medal. Rabbit took 5^th in the Snatch and took a crack at a medal.

Hunter Elam became the athlete that we’ve all been waiting on.  She worked incredibly hard for me communicating weekly and sometimes daily to the point that we dialed her in darn near perfectly.  She took home the Bronze overall in the 69kg category, but there is so much more in the tank for her.  She is ready for something much bigger, and now I know that mentally she is more ready than ever. 

The night before Hunter competed, I was tossing and turning more than I ever did for myself when I was still banging it out on the platform.  I have known for a while that Hunter could be the best 69kg female in the country.  I just needed for her to make some lifts and get a glimpse of what she is to become, and she did.  She really did.  She competed and battled right up to the final clean & jerk. 

Man that’s why I coach weightlifting.  It’s my art to the world.  It’s my way of making this cold and dark world seem a bit brighter.  I took an athlete that has been struggling, made a few changes, and voila an improved performance.  Hunter’s performance is like a sculpture that isn’t quite complete.  There is more work to be done before it’s a masterpiece.  However just like a determined artist, I am back in my studio with a desire to compete the masterpiece.

It was the same feeling of accomplishment watching Nathan Damron battle for his first Gold Medal in the 94kg class with a hurt neck and shoulder.  He gave it his all to Clean & Jerk 190kg, while grimacing in pain.  Normally that is a warm up for Nathan, but on this day it took a tremendous amount of heart to stabilize that enormous weight overhead.  I can’t tell you how proud I am of him.  He has grown up so much in the past year.  I know that this young boy has grown into a focused man, so the world of weightlifting needs to be on the look out. 

I have to mention 32-year-old active fireman, Dan Koppenhaver, pulling off a lifetime PR Clean and Jerk of 187kg in his first National meet back from a shoulder injury.  It was the last lift of the weekend for my team, and it was the perfect ending consummating the greatest weekend of weightlifting ever for Team Mash Mafia.

Everyone walked away from the weekend with some major wins and some things to work on.  No one bombed out so that’s always a win.  This past weekend is the very reason that I coach the sport of weightlifting.  I was a small part of putting several smiles on the faces of my athletes, and there is nothing like those smiles on their faces at least for me.  Those smiles warm my heart and remind me why I do what I do. 

Now I am off to the Youth Pan American Championships in Colombia, South America being held next week.  We have three young men competing for Team USA in their first ever International Competition, so I am excited to see how they perform on the big stage.  I am confident that they will all kill it. They are prepared and ready, so we will soon find out if it all comes together one more time.

By the way we dropped our latest EBook "Squat Science", which breaks down every aspect of the back squat.  You can check it out at:  www.mashelite.com/squatscience/ !