So, when I was doing crossfit I knew I was a strong one – mostly bc everyone told me I was… I wanted to RX everything and was even convinced to do RX+ when Coach Morgan would tell me that my friend Teri was doing RX+ so I should too. A little friendly competition never hurt anyone right? I was going RX on weights my first week after graduating elements. I could not RX all the gymnasty (judge me, I just used that non-word) movements like TTB or pullups, but you better believe I was going to be RX on barbell movements. I loved the barbell. I loved throwing it around and felt stronger each time I picked it up and slammed it down.  I was doing movements I never thought I would ever do…why would I ever squat with a barbell over my head?????

But then as I started making the transition into weightlifting there was no RX weight to do. I had to push myself to get to a PR starting point, and then I had to start working off percentages of those weights. I was asked what my max back squat was…well, I had done 1¾ squat at 195….because my booty didn’t touch the med ball on my first rep, so I counted it as 1¾.   My snatch was a power snatch at 75lbs and I had cleaned 125lbs, but it hurt my wrist and it was ugly, and my jerk was more of a press.  I needed a lot of coaching, but I was willing to put in the time and reps.

When I started lifting more and crossfitting less I learned so much about the way my coach programs and why he does it. Like I have said before, I wasn’t on a program until after my first meet. I saw the volume of work that it took and was instantly nervous. I was going to have to be lifting 4 days a week, crossfitting 0 days a week, and there were two days where I’d be lifting with no coach’s eye on me.  I had to make sure that I was getting quality lifting sessions and not just go through the motions.

Now speaking of quality over quantity…a lot of people have A LOT of opinions. I honestly don’t really care about most opinions and certainly don’t listen to them. Everyone wants to help the lady lifters for some stupid reason…I don’t really need your help, unless your name is Coach Mark or unless I ask for help.  But it’s funny how many opinions there are. People are always asking me why I don’t go heavy all the time, or why we don’t train the “Bulgarian one rep” way or why I don’t go for pr’s more often. Well, the reason is that I do what my coach programs.  We get the opportunity to go for max a couple of times in a cycle but there needs to be de-load weeks too. He lifted for many years and won many awards and competitions. He’s a national level lifter, and if he tells me to do something that HE ACTUALLY DID then it’s in my best interest to do that.

Another part of the quality of my lifting is the good quality lifts when I’m lifting alone.  Let me be the first to say that I never thought I’d be able to lift on my own nor lift well on my own. I went through a lot of times where if my friends weren’t going to lift I’d either not go, or I would just go through the lifts, and realize I wasn’t trying as hard as I did when my coach was watching.  But then I talked to Heather she basically said it is really sucky to have to lift alone, but you need to get the work in. Heather is a real no-nonsense kind of girl, and she is a real inspiration to just HTFU and do your work.  You need to do the lifts and do them well.  After that I told myself it didn’t matter who was watching ever, I had better give it my all no matter what.

Remember, it’s not the quantity on the bar that matters (unless it’s a meet, then all bets are off, you rip it and go for max) but rather the quality of the lifts I do in practice.  As my coach says, “no one gives a shit how much you can miss.”  And the only way I don’t miss lifts is I do quality lifting each time I touch that bar. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a snatch, clean, pull or squat and doesn’t matter whether it’s 20 kilo or 100 kilo, you need to approach each with the same intensity – it is what makes the lift good quality.

So, a little over a year ago I had to make a really difficult decision. I was in the best shape I’d been in for years, I’d discovered weightlifting, and I was on the verge of knowing I should probably retire from rugby and I was so confused. Around this time last year I really had some big conversations with myself and I had to make some big decisions (that were really only big to me of course).

I was in the Sayre Park weight room one Saturday morning, and this guy and I were talking about how I liked to crossfit, play rugby, and had discovered weightlifting. I had committed to 1-2 days a week of lifting, and wanted to make sure I could still play or coach my rugby team and but I also wanted to do crossfit 3-4 times a week.  My lifting time was what suffered if I had something else to do. After all I knew I’d be lifting in crossfit. The thing was I didn’t understand how much dedication and hard work this weightlifting “thing” would take and therefore I never gave it the time it needed.  First thing this fellow lifter said to me was, “you can be good at rugby, you can be good at crossfit and you can be good at olympic weightlifting.  However, take note that you will not be able to be GREAT at all of them at the same time.”  Those words stay with me everyday.

OMG, I was going to have to pick something to do! I never had to think about making that decision. Well, there is lifting in crossfit so why can’t I do lifting and crossfit?  I could give up playing rugby as long as I had time to coach my girls. That team means so much to me. So, then I’d coach twice a week and do my crossfit and lifting the other days.

But then as the weeks went on I realized that what everyone was telling me was right. I could not be great at multiple things bc I wouldn’t be able to dedicate the time (both active AND REST) to both. I was getting really tired on my Saturday mornings at Sayre and I realized that it was bc I’d do crossfit on Friday nights! I made the decision to cut back my crossfit and focus more on weightlifting. I just could not fathom leaving my rowfitters though and go to just weightlifting.

I’d not say I’m a great weightlifter yet.  But several months ago in the training cycle leading up to the IL State Meet I decided I’d just do lifting. I’d see what kinds of things I could do if I trained exclusively the snatch, clean and jerk and all the auxillary movements in my program. To my surprise I made big gains in my numbers over that period and went 6 for 6 at that meet. That meet was a big deal for me. It was sort of a turning point. I saw what I could do when I pushed myself. I trained really hard. I made prs.  There were suck days when I failed of course, but overall that time when I concentrated on just lifting really made me a better lifter. I took my rest days when Coach Mark told me to and I stopped the crossfit. And it was a really hard decision. But I really don’t regret it. I’ve got goals, and like I said before, they’re lofty and aggressive and I’m excited. I think I finally picked the right sport for me.

Coach Mark always tells me that we don’t win the meet in October (or whatever month it is that the meet is taking place), we win the meet in July when everyone else is on summer vacation. Basically what he’s saying is that we don’t win the meet on the day of the meet or even on the few weeks leading up to the meet, we win the meet because we put in the hard work and time all year.

Olympic lifting is not EXACTLY like riding a bike if you’re talking about the technique. It’s something that needs to be practiced. Like, a million times. And then maybe after a million times you’ll start to get the technique down. Maybe one day Coach Mark will even call you a Master Technician…this is the ULTIMATE compliment from someone who even with a shattered shoulder with a metal plate in it is still faster than me….

But my favorite times lifting are when I can get to Sayre Park. We have a great time laughing, telling each other to grow man legs and just really supporting each other. It doesn’t really matter what the weight is that you’re lifting, but you better make damn sure that all your reps are good and that they count. Because whether you know it or not Coach Mark is watching your every move, and from 100 feet away he can see every detail. And my teammates are always there with encouragement before heavy lifts.

I need a lot of support. I will support all of my teammates and I know what they’re capable of. But me on the other hand, I can be incredibly insecure ESPECIALLY with the snatch. When they’re good, they’re really good, but if I’m an inch too low when I start my second pull, or if i’m even looking down for just a second, I’ve likely lost the lift. And I’m TRYING to do better with fighting for my lifts. Sometimes though I don’t realize I’ve given up on a lift. But that is where the support of Sayre comes in. If I give up too fast on a lift they know I can make, you better believe I hear about it. I love that I can get the negatives with the positive because support doesn’t just come from you telling I did a good job when I really sucked it up.

We all have good days and bad days, but we can bounce back from those bad days, learn from them, and make it better next time. If we have good people around us – which I have EXCELLENT teammates then we don’t let the bad days get to us. So, we have to let our support essentially support us!

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!