A Year Long Transformation

A Year Long Transformation

These last few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind.  Let me give you a taste of what I experienced:

·      May 15-19 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic  Senior Pan American Championships

·      May 25-28  Overland Park, Kansas   USAW Senior Nationals

·      May 31-June 2^nd Canon Falls, MN  my daughter graduated high school

·      June 6-June 10th  Cali, Colombia Youth Pan American Championships

·      June 15-17^th Grand Rapids, MI Youth National Championships (Coach McCauley attended without me)

Yes you are reading that right.  There were four major events in a one-month period.  I think that USA Weightlifting is trying to get my wife to leave me.  We accomplished so much during this time.  This blog isn’t about making meet recaps, but I will give you a few highlights.  My four favorites are:

1.  Nathan Damron won his first Senior National Championship.

2.  Hunter Elam took Bronze overall at the Senior National Championships showing a glimmer of her capability.

3.  Ryan Grimsland went 6:6 at his first International Competition and lifted all lifetime PRs.

4.  Morgan McCullough won Gold Overall at the Youth Pan American Championships at 14-years-old.

5.  14-year-old Hannah Dunn swept Silver at Youth Nationals.

6.  Kam (10-years-old) and Lilla (9-years-old) both went 5:6 at their first Youth Nationals.

7.  Of course I am proud of all my International Athletes Jordan Cantrell, Nathan Damron, Ryan Grimsland, Jared Flaming, and Morgan McCullough.

There is a lot more to talk about with the performances of our athletes, but that’s not the point of this blog.  With all the medals and top performances, there was something that made all of this much sweeter and completely worth it, and that was the way we have all grown together as a team.  We were at team practice on Saturday, and we were stopping to watch Lilla and Kam Bam crush it at Youth Nationals.  We supported each other every step of the way.

There has been zero gossip.  There has been zero drama.  The gym is my home away from home once again, and I am so thankful for that.  Hunter Elam said that when she thinks about our gym from two-years ago, her stomach starts to hurt.  I totally agree.  Never again!

So why am I writing this blog?  I am not writing this blog to brag about how amazing our team is.  Well maybe I am a little.  I am pretty dang proud.  However, I am writing this article to teach all of you a thing or two.  This is for all of you that either have a club or want to start a club.  This is more for people that have weightlifting or powerlifting clubs, but it could apply to general populations as well.

Let’s get started teaching!

1.  One bad apple can ruin a bunch! My man Coach Waxman warned me of this one about a year ago, and he was so right.  Without naming any names, I will just tell you that one person isn’t worth sacrificing an entire team over no matter how good he or she is.  This can be a difficult situation.  I am the first one to get it.  As coaches we are still competitive creatures.  We want to win.  Therefore when we have winners, it’s tough as heck to let go of them.

However, let me remind you of one important thing.  Once you demonstrate to the weightlifting world that you as a coach can produce champions, there will always be another champion.  In the last couple of years, we’ve had three champions come and go, but the ones that are in our gym now are by far the most talented.  The best part is that the gym is a fun place to be now, which brings me to number 2.

2.  Formulate a culture of support and family! It really starts with the coach.  How do you treat the team as a whole? I have worked on this over the last year, and I am improving steadily.  I support all of my athletes.  I take my time to personalize each of their programs.  I celebrate each of their victories, and encourage them to do the same for each other.

The sports of weightlifting and powerlifting are too grueling and monotonous to have gossiping and selfish teammates.  A good culture will produce champions much faster than a good coach.  Yes, I am admitting that environment trumps coaching.  Here’s why.  If a gym or training hall is filled with selfish people that bicker and gossip all of the time, it doesn’t matter how good the coach is.  An athlete will never thrive in an environment like that. 

We have guests all the time that come to Max Out Friday, and normally they set personal records. Now is that because Don or I gave them some miracle cue or coaching correction that led to them lifting more weight?  Possibly, but more likely it was the fact that they are in a gym filled with cartoon characters lifting small cars above their heads.  I mean when you see Nathan Damron Clean 215kg, suddenly your 160kg doesn’t appear to be so daunting anymore.  My high school football players come in the gym and witness multiple girls Clean & Jerking over 120kg/264lb, so their 100kg/220lb appears easy.  That’s the real magic of places like Mash Elite, Cal Strength, or Westside Barbell in the powerlifting world. 

3. Create a Community- If you want a team filled with champions supporting one another, you have to find ways to hang out outside of the gym.  We are getting better at that with the help of our gym mom, Crystal McCullough.  Our gym has shifted so much in just over a year, and this has been a big reason for the transformation.  Now it’s common to see Nathan Damron and Jordan Cantrell reaching out to the younger lifters, encouraging them, and offering guidance.  The young lifters are convinced that Jordan and Nathan are the greatest lifters of all-time.  Hunter is the cheerleader for our younger girls team, and they adore her.  You can ignore this if you want, but this is the reason for our amazing strides as a team in the last year.

 The Mash Boys

We are set to go to the AO Series 2 in Pennsylvania in six weeks.  We are taking a squad, and I am so pumped to roll with my team.  Yeah I am excited watch them crush the competition and set some American Records, but more importantly I am excited to hang out with all of them.  I am excited to watch them support one another.

God has given this team to me. In that I have no doubts. The way that I love my team is the way that I show them a glimpse of God’s love.  No matter what your job is, if you are a believer in Christ, your attitude is the way that God is glorified or not with the work that he has granted you.  When you think of it like that, suddenly your job is a lot more than just a job.  These are just a few of my thoughts on this beautiful Tuesday morning.

Thanks for reading,

Trav

P.S. If you would like to help me support this 501c3 nonprofit or you just want to find out more, go to: 

==> https://www.mashelite.com/donate-to-the-team/

Coaches Seeking Help

Coaches Seeking Help

One thing that slows down a lot of coaches is their pride.  They feel like they have all the answers, or at least they want to make everyone else around them think that they have all the answers.  There is no way on earth that we can all be experts in everything.  I mean think of all the different aspects of strength and conditioning:

·      Nutrition

·      Recovery

·      Olympic weightlifting

·      Powerlifting

·      Strongman

·      Kettlebell work

·      Dumbbell work

·      Biomechanics

·      Physics

·      Rehabilitation

·      Injury prevention

·      Anatomy

·      Mobility

There are more, but you get the picture.  Can you really say that you are an expert in all of these categories?  Or are you the person that believes you are good enough?  I’m not, and you aren’t either.  Our athletes, young and old, trust us with their goals and dreams, and we owe it to them to find out every detail that might help them achieve their goals.

Personally I use the knowledge of others every chance I get from books, articles, and talking to them in person.  I am lucky to be friends with some incredible coaches and professors, so I get to ask them their opinions quite often.  Heck lately I have reached out to a few people to aid me with a couple of my elite athletes.  I’ll give you a couple of examples.

Jordan Cantrell ran into some small injuries last training block that slowed our process a bit.  Some people would have continued on with the same programming hoping that Jordan would just get over those injuries.  Not me, I took a three-step process to lessening the odds of the injuries returning.  Here’s what I did:

1.  I sent him to a professional.  Too many coaches try to pretend that they are physical therapists.  I always find this funny.  I don’t want to be a physical therapist, or I would go back to school.  I am a performance coach.  I get people stronger, correct their movement patterns, and increase their athletic ability.  I can do things that physical therapists have no idea about.  Let’s stay in our lanes coaches.  Dr. Howard is my physical therapist that I work with here in North Carolina.  I sent Jordan to him immediately when he started to experience some glute problems.  I’ve also sent Jordan’s next workout to him for his expert opinion.  I want him to tell me if the workout is written in a way to prevent his glute issue.

2.  I have also reached out to my man Dr. Brett Contreras, who all of you know as “The Glute Guy”.  He is going to help me with a protocol to make sure that Jordan’s glutes are J Lo approved.  Does this make me a bad coach because I think that others might know some things that I don’t?  No way, it makes me a great coach.  I’d say that this one quality is the very thing that helped me reach the top at such a high rate.  I am always learning, and I am never satisfied with my level of knowledge.

3.  I even ask other weightlifting coaches their opinions on programming and technique.  Every single day I get to bounce ideas off of Coach Don McCauley.  He has helped raise me in this sport from my first days are MuscleDriver USA.  He continues to help me with spotting and correcting faulty movement patterns.  He has several cues and drills to correct technique.

Coach Sean Waxman is my go to for Biomechanics and team culture.  He has helped me transform our team culture in the last year into what it is today.  He called me once, and I didn’t pick up.  Then he texted me, and said, “You need to answer this call.”  Only Sean would do that to me, and he was right.  I definitely needed to listen to his thoughts on my team culture.  It was going down, and it was going in a hurry.  I was ignoring it, and it was ruining my team.  I made some hard decisions after that call, and they were the best decisions that I have ever made. 

He often sends a text giving me insight on my various athletes.  I normally implement 99% of his suggestions, and they have all worked.  This is the kind of relationship that all coaches need to have.  In weightlifting especially, we need to help each other.  At the end of the day, we are all trying to improve Team USA.  Coach Dave Spitz and I have talked at length about this very thing.  As coaches in America, it benefits all of us when Team USA does well.  That brings more notoriety to the sport, and it qualifies more and more of our athletes for bigger competitions like the Olympics.

In the last year, I have coached Hunter Elam to some big improvements.  We are now working on the consistency of her jerk.  I have taken advice from Coach Waxman, Coach Spencer Arnold, and Coach Mike Gattone.  I have implemented pieces from each of them, and we are already noticing improvements.  We have some incredibly talented coaches in America, and we need to use each other for major improvements to take place. 

Let’s take Olympic Weightlifting specifically, and let’s look at some of the areas that coaches are responsible for:

·      Recruiting

·      Funding your club

·      Making a living coaching the sport that you love

·      Biomechanics

·      Physics

·      Programming

·      Correcting faulty movement patterns

·      Verbal cues to correct movement

·      Drills to correct movement

·      Competition Preparation

·      Coaching at a competition

·      National level coaching

·      International level coaching

·      Obviously teaching the progressions of the snatch, clean, and jerk to a beginner

·      Choosing proper accessory work

·      Correcting asymmetries

·      Team/Club Culture

·      Recovery

·      Nutrition

In a lifetime, you will never master all of these elements.  If you think that you have, then you’re the problem.  I will be on my deathbed still trying to improve as a coach.  My athletes deserve this much dedication because they trust me with their dreams.  Your athletes are doing the same.

Last week as we were at the Youth Olympics, the other athletes were sharing with my three boys the rumors that they have heard about our team.  We heard things like:

“Don’t you just max out all the time?”

And

“You guys take lot of supplements to get so strong.”

From the mouth of babes in the case teenagers comes truth meaning these young ones don’t have a filter.  They just repeat what their coaches have told them.  I think that it is so funny when other coaches spread rumors and gossip about our team.  I have an open door policy to all the coaches in America.  If you want to learn what we do, then come visit or call me.  There is nothing that I would keep secret.  Guys we are Team USA in my book. 

We don’t max out all the time. Not even close! Right now our young athletes and most of our senior athletes are experiencing a short accumulation phase as they prepare for the AO2.  Here’s day one:

Day 1	Week 1
Pull+Snatch+2sec pause in Catch	75% 9x1+1 (60 sec rest Between Sets)(work up on last two sets)
Front Squat with Belt	75% 2x4, 80% 2x3, 85% 2x2
Snatch Grip Deadlift from 2" Deficit	5RM, then -10% for 2x5
DB Leg Curls	4x10
Unilateral Farmers Walk	3 x 40yd ea arm

Their coaches are only seeing the PRs that we post, and they don’t know about the work that goes into the process to produce the PRs.  They would rather just think negative thoughts like “they must max out all the time” or “Coach Mash is too hard on them”.  Instead of spreading hate and rumors, I suggest coming to visit.  We’ve had five athletes qualify for Team USA spots already this year, which is more than any other club in America.  That means that there are a lot of coaches out there that haven’t performed as well.  If I were you, I would be learning instead of hating.

Every time I am around great coaches like Dave Spitz, Sean Waxman, Kevin Simons, Spencer Arnold, CJ Martin and Kevin Doherty, I am asking them questions and listening to what they say.  Coaches like Ray Jones and John Broz are filled with knowledge, and they are all willing to share that knowledge.  It’s up to all of you to reach out and learn from these coaches.  Quit making excuses for your shortcomings, and get to work learning and expanding your toolbox. 

Here’s my offer to all of you.  I will consult any of you that will donate to my non-profit team.  For a donation of any amount, I will answer any of your questions in a phone call or email.  Simply go to:

è https://www.mashelite.com/donate-to-the-team/

I will give this offer to any of you that donate any amount, and this will be on top of the other benefits that you might receive.  I want to help as many of you as possible.  I want to help all of our athletes in the US because I want to see Team USA dominate.  I formed my non-profit for this same reason.  In this case, you can help our athletes reach their goals, and in turn I will help you and your team reach their goals.  Thanks for reading:

è https://www.mashelite.com/donate-to-the-team/