Garage Blog

One of the most important aspects behind teaching a progression is the goal of getting the athlete to understand the technique. When someone f...

A lot of weightlifting coaches will get into weightlifting competitions with their athletes and not have any plan. The athletes are coming in b...

When we are training all of our athletes here at Garage Strength, we like to get them to squat deep. There are a couple of reasons why. And let...

When we have someone with slight knees issues come into the gym at Garage Strength we want to check if they are mobile in an all-global perspec...

We all know the sport of olympic weightlifting is extremely difficult. It is hard, hard. Like new game plus difficulty levels. There are a who...

Catching a snatch and stabilizing a jerk takes tremendous overhead strength, technique and chutzpah. Fearlessness and loads of strength is the...

  ...

At the end of each day you could let all these things impact you negatively, or you could be positive about them. All good weightlifters love what they are doing, and I do love what I’m doing, but that doesn’t mean nothing bad can come from this sport. I wouldn’t change this for anything. Even the thought of being successful in this sport is enough to keep me going, making my life have an ultimate purpose.

When going up for a big lift, or even a heavy squat in training, all that should be running through your mind is making that attempt. A lot of times I find myself questioning a lift right before I attempt it. It either goes good or it goes bad. If I only told myself I could do it, then it would be done. Visualization doesn’t just happen right before a lift, it has to be done on a daily basis. Before you go to bed, lay there and visualize where you want to see yourself for 10 minutes. Only good thoughts should be running through your head. Visualize yourself being a champion and achieving all the goals you have set for yourself. This is only one small step in mental focus.

Olympic Weightlifting is one of the most rewarding and most frustrating sports you could compete in. I started Olympic Weightlifting in May 2014 after my collegiate football career. I came out of college hang cleaning 160 kilos, never really snatching or jerking in my life. My first senior nationals the May 2015 I snatched 147 kilos and clean and jerked 175 kilos to place 5th place in a very stacked weight class. After 4 years of increasing my clean and jerk and still snatching the same weight I decided to take some time off after the 2018 senior nationals. I needed to clear my head while also enjoy the birth of my beautiful daughter Henley. I think if I took a different approach toward weightlifting, I might still be lifting right now. We all look back and say, “damn, I wish I would have known that before I started”. Here are 4 things I wish I could have told myself before I started Olympic Weightlifting.

A lot of Olympic weightlifting athletes start around their teenage years (as I did). These I call the “Rebellious Years.” When I started weightlifting, I thought I knew everything. I would lift heavy when I was instructed not to, I argued in defense of my garbage technique for years, I did my own exercises sometimes because I thought what I was doing wasn't working, and most importantly, I wasn't coachable. When I got into my junior and senior years of weightlifting, I started to notice a minimal amount of growth. It was then that I realized that to be a champion you have to have the best technique. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to be a champion, but my technique was nowhere near the best. As we started breaking down my technique and fixing all my flaws, I found myself extremely frustrated and ready to give up. Slowly but surely, I found myself getting better with my technical movements, however I was still nowhere close to the best. Still frustrated and angry I continue to tell myself “if you would have just listened 5 years ago, you would be closer to the best”

This article was prompted with the question, "What would you tell your collegiate freshman self about track and training if you could?" I've touched on this subject before, in an episode of Dane's Platform--if you haven't heard it, it's one of our most popular episodes. Check it out here!