Hi I’m Janet and I love pandas. And weightlifting…and thank you for coming and reading…

I’ve decided to get on the blog bus extra late. I have always loved reading blogs about things that interest me such as my friends and their lives or anything about weightlifting, crossfit, or paleo nutrition. I think people like to just know that there are other people out there going through the same things they are and it’s fun to see how other people approach those things.

Well, I got into olympic weightlifting through crossfit.  And I started doing some crossfit workouts with my rugby team at a place called Rowfit in Chicago in December of 2011. At the time I was still going to Xsport, but I was getting bored with spin classes and running on a treadmill and my trainer was getting expensive. I’m not a runner and to be honest running at the speed that I run doesn’t make me lose weight; and riding a bike (in spin class) to nowhere kind of just made me hate the gym. So I wanted to supplement my Xsport time with crossfit.

Hooooollllyyyy crap though. My first day I met Coach Heather and I instantly decided that she was awesome and quickly became one of my fitness role models. Heather had muscles, was pretty, strong, and she was the nicest little badass I ever met. I am pretty sure that when I was waiting for my class to begin she was doing pushups on rings and my mind was blown. (coach Morgan and coach Nell were working out too, and I wanted muscles like all of them and wanted to do the movements they were doing!) I could not even do good pushups on the ground…. I got really scared for a moment. But don’t worry, I didn’t have time to freak out bc before I knew it we had to warmup and the crossfit warmup made me want to die. OMG, and then we did a benchmark of burpees in some small amount of time like 2 minutes that made me want to barf all over the place. Then I find out that we are going to “begin the workout”.  WAIT…whaaaaat??  There is more??? Yes, we did a partner workout and my friend Madd was my partner. I didn’t know WTF a thruster was but that was my first time doing them and they were awesome. I still love them to this day.  I was so fat and out of shape, and at that time in my life I was working out 4-5 days a week. =\  Crap. I was doing something wrong.

Well, I had gotten a few of my friends to join plus my bro and my bf (who came once, and told me he was not fit enough to do it again, but now he’s a coach….) so I couldn’t not go back. So, I went back. It sucked less and less, but having friends, my brother and a great coach made it worth it to keep going back. Then it was time for rugby, which is my first love, to start and my crossfit classes came to an end. I also still had all these pre-paid training session with my trainer at Xsport though so I was super sad I didn’t have time to crossfit.

Then someone emailed me info on joining RowFit and so I looked at my calendar, calculated how long I had left at XSport and signed up for Elements…in March…2.5 months away. I was so upset that I’d been wasting so much time on running on a treadmill or on a stationary bike.  My bro and some of my friends joined earlier and kept telling me how awesome it was so naturally when it came time to start Elements I did not sleep for a week! I bought a YouSwoop for my bf to come with me and pretty much told him he had to come and I didn’t care how unfit he thought he was. Crossfit would make us fit, and I didn’t care what he did after the YouSwoop ended but I was going to join Heather’s LiftFit class twice a week. I wanted to lift weights.

So, there started my lifting career. I loved the deadlift bc it was a total no brainer, just keep your back straight and stand up then down. But as I started doing that class more, I realized I liked Crossfit, but I LOVED Olympic weight lifting. I remember my first day of snatches. I hit my chin like an amateur. The hook grip was the dumbest thing I ever heard of and so uncomfortable.  And it made me really nervous to have weight over my head. I couldn’t even do a proper squat! Oh man, I had my work cut out for me. Well, so one day I learned that Heather was leaving Rowfit. I got very sad. I cried a little. I knew that I enjoyed Crossfit, but if Heather left what would I do to learn weightlifting? She then invited me to go to Sayre Park.  I was so IN to check out Sayre Park, and then she emailed Kevin about me and then one Thursday after work I went to check it out.

I walked into Sayre and knew I was home. I mean there are platforms that were used in the Olympics! And I may have not found weightlifting until I was 30 years old, but I KNEW that I had greatness lurking in these muscles, I just needed to put in work.  Kevin had me do a bunch of power snatches and power cleans til I “maxed out” which was somewhere around 30ish kilos for the snatch, and then around 45 kilo for the cleans. I could not even fathom doing a full snatch or full clean. I didn’t even have weightlifting shoes. I remember hearing people who would talk about snatching body weight…I could maybe snatch a child’s body weight…

Then I started talking to Kevin. He kept telling me I was strong. I needed to be patient. It takes people years to learn the technique.  He made me sit at the bottom of snatches with the bar overhead until I got really uncomfortable.  Then somehow I was able to go lower… Then I went in on a Saturday. I met this man named Mark Levell who said he used to train there and he had a friend Jeff Michels with him. Well, little did I know I was standing there totally being judged on my shitty form by people who won multiple national titles, and are legends in the weightlifting world. I got a tutorial on the double knee bend from Jeff who was in the Olympics and I never forgot that day. I may not have known exactly what was being explained, but I know now, and I have the utmost respect for Jeff and my coach, Mark.

For a few months I was not allowed to do any lifting with more than my empty bar. I finally started adding a little weight to the bar a few weeks before my first meet – Mid-American meet on October 20, 2012.   After that meet – having a blast on the platform – I was ready for a program from Mark, and I was ready to see what I could do. I stopped playing rugby, stopped crossfitting, and was concentrating on just my olympic lifting.

Fast forward one crazy year of introspection and lifting and squatting, and frustration and elation and now it’s been a year since my first meet. I’ve increased my back squat by over 30 kilos…almost 70 pounds!  My snatch went up by 13 kilo (29lbs) and my clean and jerk went up by 17 kilos (37lbs) which is a total of 30 kilos (66lbs)!!! Additionally, I am 2 kilo shy of snatching what I once clean and jerked a year ago!

Now, I did some soul searching after this year anniversary of my first meet and decided I wanted to drop a weight class. I would need to get my numbers up by 20 kilos to qualify for nationals at the 75 kilo weight class. I have heard from some people that it’s going to be tough to drop weight and to increase my numbers that much. To those people who are essentially hating, I probably don’t need you or your sour opinion around me.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I don’t like to hold myself back. See, I like to have specific and aggressive goals or I won’t work hard enough. So, I set the bar high and I will work my hardest to have a 300lb+ back squat in a year and also to have the numbers I need to qualify and be in the 75kilo weight class. A lot can be done in a year, and I’m excited to begin my road to the Nationals!  Whether or not I make it there I’m having a really fun time trying!