Monday, October 12, 2015

Putting a Pause on Weightlifting

If you've been following me, or know me, then you know that last semester and this summer, my main focus has been on the sport of Weightlifting (the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk). I first became really interested in it when I got my Romaleos II last November just to help me with my CrossFit by helping with my squats and other lifts. That first snatch workout I did, I knew then and there that weightlifting was what I wanted to do. I committed to it, I looked up technique videos, programming articles, podcasts, anything I could get my hands on to get better at it and to make progress.

I trained and trained and decided that once I was able to consistently hit lifts, not necessarily big lifts but just make them, that I should do a meet. I firmly believe if you are going to train hard for something, you should compete in it, at least once. Competing gives you a more specific motivation for training and you'll find that you can make much faster progress when you have a deadline. So I competed in the Capital City Open last April in DC and absolutely loved it. That meet, while incredibly stressful, reaffirmed to me that weightlifting was what I wanted to do for the foreseeable future. It was fun, fast, you could get strong, and everyone was so supportive whether you were like me or had been lifting for years and were a national level competitor. Simply put, weightlifting is awesome.

This summer, after interning at EXOS in San Diego, I learned something pretty simple about me, "Your biggest weakness is that you are weak". It sounds simple, and part of me knew that my strength was definitely my limiting factor, but once one of the coaches actually said that to me, it resonated. I knew I wanted to continue with weightlifting, but then my goals shifted slightly, I wanted to get strong. Everyone wants to get strong, but I at least knew what I had to get strong in.

This semester, with my change in situation in jobs and accessibility to equipment, I am no longer able to train weightlifting since they are not allowed at the gym here at school. As such, I am doing what I can to get as strong as I can in this time. But I am also going to take this time to have fun with training. I am going to try programs/ideas that may be unconventional or something I may never want to try at a different time. You might even see me doing things like bicep curls (Gasp!) or other movements that I wouldn't normally do because I have weaknesses that do need to be shored up with some bodybuilding type movements. However, I'm not going to be dumb about it, I am still going to keep training principles in perspective, as well as have a realistic understanding of where I am in my strength levels.

As such, this semester, I am not doing any weightlifting and hopefully in January, I'll come out stronger, maybe a little leaner (I'm still going to do my usual not-really-care-about-diet diet and simply eat for hunger), and have gained some weight (Hopefully mostly muscle). See you all in the future as a stronger me!