Kicking Out the Numbers

Lately I’ve been feeling burnt out. I told my coach that I wanted to take a couple weeks off to recover and focus on my diet, but what I really wanted to do was walk out of the gym and never come back. I felt defeated, broken down, and disappointed in myself. I had set goals that I thought were completely attainable, but when I fell short I decided that I just wasn’t working hard enough. My back ached, my shoulder throbbed, my knees were sore, and my hands were wrecked; I wanted to work harder, but physically it felt impossible. I was missing lifts that I had been chasing for months. No snatch or clean & jerk PRs for a long time can be slightly depressing for an Olympic Weightlifter. Thats when my coach reminded me how fun weightlifting had been when I first walked through the door.

Remember when you first started Olympic weightlifting? That day when you first walked into a weightlifting class and learned what a snatch was. That time when your biggest worry was making sure your hands were in the right place on the barbell. The days when you never wasted a second thought on how much weight was on the bar, or the person’s next to you. These days were what my coach was referring to.

This made me think back to all the fun that I had putting more weight on the bar simply for the joy of beating myself. One day I could only lift 50 lbs, but the next I could lift 55 lbs. I liked the feeling of being strong. Not the feeling of being stronger than so-and-so or lifting more than so-and-so, but just the feeling of self-satisfaction. This is where the true love of the sport comes in. The day that you start comparing yourself to everyone of a similar age, height, weight, etc., is when you lose the love of the sport. This started after my second weightlifting competition.

I was the youngest female at the very first the meet I ever attended, and this man named Charlie told me I should quit gymnastics and cross country to do weightlifting. I also found out that I qualified for Youth Nationals. I got a big head and convinced myself that I was pretty good at this weightlifting thing. From then on I wanted to do whatever would make me the best weightlifter. I committed 100% to weightlifting. When I registered for Youth Nationals my coach told me not to worry about my competition, as he didn’t know the skill-level of my competitors. We were just going to have fun and hit a PR total. His exact words were

Snatching 54kg at 2013
Youth Nationals

“It’s just you against the bar.”

At Youth Nationals I did pretty well. I hit a PR and missed qualifying for Junior Nationals by two kilos. This gave me an even bigger head. I started watching the results of the girls I competed against. I friended them on facebook, followed them on instagram, and added them on twitter. If someone made a PR, I made it my goal to beat them. By this point I was cluelessly lost in the numbers. I stopped working as hard; because my goal wasn’t to beat myself, it was to beat my competitors. By the third meet I was already knew where I would rank as far as placement. I knew my competitors best numbers before they ever stepped on the platform. This ruins the game. It’s just as bad as having someone give you a bunch of spoilers right before you go see a movie that you’ve been looking forward to.

My coach and I after
Youth Nationals

Even with all the congratulations and impressed expressions I was not satisfied with my performance. I knew that a few of the girls I had lifted against at Youth Nationals were lifting more than me. My training showed little motivation and my numbers stalled. By the time I competed in my fourth meet, which was a high school meet, I wanted to back out the night before. I told myself that weightlifting sucked and I wasn’t very good at it anyway. A couple people commented on how disappointed I looked after my last lift. My parents even jumped to the conclusion that I was tired of weightlifting, and wanted to quit. Well they were right; I was feeling a little bit hopeless.

The day after that meet I continued my usual routine of going to the gym. My coach could tell something was up, and somehow he got me to admit that I wasn’t having fun anymore. Thankfully he is an understanding coach who has been through all this before. He reassured me that it is his job to worry about the numbers, not mine. He told me to stop worrying and just enjoy weightlifting. So I’ve decided to do just that.

I’m officially kicking out the numbers because the only person I want to beat is myself.

Moral of the story: don’t compare yourself to anyone else or it will suck the fun out of life. We all have a unique story of how we got to where we are and how we will get to where we want to be.

Why You Should Try Olympic Weightlifting

Have you ever wondered how you could become a better athlete? Well I have the answer - Olympic weightlifting. Olympic weightlifting improves strength, speed, flexibility, and body awareness. It teaches self-disciple, can boost self-esteem, and helps release stress in a constructive way. Most weightlifting gyms have a positive and welcoming atmosphere that is great for kids to be introduced to at a young age. It is an individual sport, but you get the option to train with a team. Also Olympic weightlifting is an inexpensive sport with minimum equipment required to perform the movements safely.

        First of all most sports require strength to dominate. In football you must have strength to tackle people and to throw the football. In soccer you must have strength to kick the ball down the field, and in gymnastics you need strength to tumble six feet in the air. So why not get stronger during the off-season? Weightlifting builds strength through muscle hypertrophy. This happens when the muscle is broken down then increases in size and strength after recovery. Having stronger muscles results in a leaner body mass and a faster metabolism. Strength is even good for runners. Studies have shown that over a two-week period the athletes who trained the Olympic lifts had faster sprint times than the athletes who trained using specific exercises for sprinting. It makes sense that if you can exert more force to the ground in each stride you will be able to get farther in a shorter amount of time.

       

Another reason weightlifting is good for any athlete is that it teaches self-discipline. Weightlifting is an individual sport; which means that you get direct results of how much work and effort you put in. If you fall it is your fault, but if you win a medal it is all yours. You can’t blame anyone for your mistakes. Self-discipline is an important characteristic to have in life, and is imperative to learn at a young age.

       

You may not think of the word “flexible” when someone mentions a weightlifter, but you would be surprised to find that it takes a good amount of flexibility to get into a comfortable squat position. To be efficient in the Olympic lifts you must have flexible shoulders, ankles, and hips. Working the Olympic lifts daily or even just a couple times a week can dramatically increase your flexibility.

       

Young Girl About to Clean and Jerk

You may think that it is too expensive to get a membership at a weightlifting gym, but the truth is that weightlifting costs much less than most traditional sports. You do not need any special clothing: just shorts, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes. If you decide you really like weightlifting and want to commit to it you may want to buy Olympic weightlifting shoes in the future (which cost anywhere from $40-$300). All that is needed to perform the lifts is a good weightlifting or crossfit gym. There they will have bars and plates ready to use.

               

        Many professional and elite athletes use weightlifting to give them that extra “umph” that they need to be the best. If you are an athlete that values strength, flexibility, and mental toughness then you should give weightlifting a shot.

       

Why Do I Train?

Why do I train so hard? What motivates me to spend endless hours at the gym?

I want to prove to everyone who ever doubted me that they were WRONG! Nobody needs that type of person in their life, but everyone has one. That one person that never has anything positive or encouraging to say; the person who says hurtful words to try and bring you down. What they don’t know is that you are taking those pain filled words and turning them into MOTIVATION! You are training harder than you ever knew you could just because you want to show them how dumb they are. You want to prove to yourself that you are better than that.

I want to show my family that the hundreds of hours spent commuting me to the gym and back are so worth it. They are my biggest supporters; my family. They buy me supplements, weightlifting books, training clothes, and oly shoes. They listen to me rant about how everyone should lift weights, and preach that life is just better under the barbell. I want to show them that their support means the world to me.

I train hard to represent my gym and my coach well. The gym that contains my second family and home. My coach who has not only taught me how to snatch, but also the values of life. The lessons learned in the gym can’t be forgotten. Your coach sees you live through the barbell. The anger, happiness, sadness, nerves, excitement, and passion are all taken out on the bar. I want to show my coach that I was listening when he told me to never give up.

I train to show all my past coaches that they made a mistake when they put me on junior varsity instead of varsity. They made a mistake when they didn’t realize that I was a hard-working & talented athlete. Well they could sure use me now.

I will show the coach that always asked, “Are you working hard, or hardly working?” that I definitely was working hard. The same coach that called me a cheater; I’m proving to him that I know there are no shortcuts in life, and I love the daily grind. It’s what keeps me going.

I want to prove to the coach that believed in me that his time was worth it. The coach who helped me behind-the-scenes, while my assigned coach was busy yelling at me for my mistakes. The same coach that taught me that it isn’t all about winning. It is about having a strong team that has fun together, yet still trains their butts off.

I train hard to prove to all the people that think I am crazy that they are right. I am crazy. I lift weights in the morning, lift weights in the afternoon, and lift weights in the evening. Then I wake up and do it all again the next day. I do it Monday through Saturday, and on Sunday I dream of lifting weights. Mentally I am one with the bar. You could call me obsessed, and I would agree.

Li Xueying with her gold medal (some day that will be me)

The biggest reason I train hard is to show myself that I really can do anything I put my mind to. If I decide one day that I want to start a business or hike to the top of Everest (I want to do both) then I know that I can. I have faith in myself that I can do anything. I will prove to myself that I am not a quitter, I am a champion.