Bomber Strong: Scott Safe on High School Weightlifting

Liz - interviewer

Scott - interviewee

So how long have you been in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting?

I think 18 years. Longer with powerlifting, but for weightlifting I think 18.

So you have a big powerlifting background then?

That’s what I was. I was a powerlifter, then I converted to weightlifting because that was much better for athletics. My kids were coming up and I wanted them to do what was the best, so that’s when I made the switch.

How did you get involved in the high school weightlifting program?

We started it. I knew that when my kids were coming up I wanted them to have fun with weightlifting in a high school environment. So when my son, Nathan, and I were deer hunting one year, we were talking about this sitting in the woods, and I said “We’re going to make this weightlifting association up with high schools,” and he thought “Yeah, that’d be cool dad,” and that’s actually how it started. So I got with Roger Sydecki, and the NSCA (Scott Sully), the NFC people, and the USA weightlifting people. We called a meeting, and I said I wanted to run these high school meets, it would be for high school only, with high school state championships. They all kind of laughed at me, but said “Yeah, lets try.” That was the start of it, and I think this is the seventeenth high school state championships. That was seventeen years ago, and that’s kind of how it started.

So, just follow your dreams then right?

It was! It was something where we just had a plan and it worked out.

Can you tell me more about the program? Like how often are the meets and more about the season.

The meets start in December, after volleyball and football are finished. We like to be finished before track and baseball get started. So we’re kind of a winter sport. We follow the model of Texas with powerlifting and that, but the reason they did that is because more high school coaches are accepting of that. We’re not interfering with their sport seasons too bad, we’re just taking up one sports season, and that’s the one we picked; the winter.

How does this program benefit the students?

Physically, weightlifting is by far the best and as an athlete I think mentally it’s awesome. It’s all about hitting PRs (personal records), and building self-esteem. All kinds of good character-building things. Weightlifting is good in many ways, so I think it’s a beautiful program for kids.

Do you have any ideas for how to spread the program to other schools?

We try every year to bring new schools in, and so we’re always talking to schools. Not just myself, but Scott Sully does, a lot of guys do. Also now USA weightlifting is flying me around and we are going to other states trying to build the same kind of program in hopefully all 50 states. We need to get more weightlifters.

What do you see for the future of the program?

It’s very bright. I don’t think many people know how cool it is, but they’re finding out and as they find out, for every good experience that a youngster has that youngster and his parents tell other people. So I think the future is very bright, it’s a great sport that not enough people know about.

How do you think we could make it more entertaining?

Part of that is that we just need it to continue to grow like it is now. Nationally, weightlifting is growing because of the influx of crossfitters. That helps because there’s more interest, more money, more gear, and more people doing it. The more people do it, the more they like it, so it’s kind of like the chicken and the egg. You don’t grow unless you got more people, but you don’t get more people unless you grow. We’re kind of in that, but I think every time we can hook another school in, we bring another whole group of people; parents, kids, coaches, etc. I think we need to continue to just keep on doing that.

Any ideas to get weightlifting on the media?

The entertainment part is a good question. That’s a toughie, because we still need to get through six attempts with everybody. Cooler singlets are fun, people like that. Streaming live, like today, so people can watch from home is good. It’s a long day and I don’t think we can ever get away from that totally, because everybody gets six attempts. They need their six attempts. That is something we have to keep working on though; figuring out how to make it more acceptable to the TV audience.

Last question, what’s the most important thing in weightlifting?

Desire. If you’re really going to be the top of the top certainly there’s a tremendous amount of just physical talent. At the very very top of the heap you do need a big amount of talent, but I think passion more than anything. People with a lot of passion for it, they continue to train even when they don’t get maxes. You just keep on and keep on. I think passion is #1.

 The Cannon Falls weightlifting team. Each one medaled at the
 state championships. Coach Scott Safe is pictured to the far left.

Scott says none of his lifters are pure weightlifters, most of them participate in other sports such as volleyball, football, and basketball. If you are interested in the high school weightlifting program go to www.mnweightlifting.org.

Living The Dream

    It all started about a year ago, when I walked into Crossfit Progression for my intro session. I was crazy nervous and had no idea what I was in for. Coach Juli started by teaching me how to squat and other various barbell movements. I didn’t understand any of the Crossfit lingo at the time, and the only workout I’d ever seen was Fran. My mom decided I could try crossfit, but only if I quit gymnastics. I was a bit devastated, but I got over it pretty quickly.

I would spend an hour at the gym on Mon, Wed, and Fri, then 2-3 hours on Tues and Thurs. This wasn’t a huge deal for me, because in gymnastics I used to practice about 12-15 hours each week. I was always looking for some workout to do. If I had time when I got home from school I would sneak in a quick Jillian Michael's workout or a run before going to the gym (which I now realize was probably not the smartest idea).

Pic from the Pendlay Seminar
by Sherwin Samaniego

My favorite part of Crossfit was the Olympic lifts. I loved the feeling of having the barbell in my control. At the beginner’s lifting classes I learned what real weightlifting is; lat pull downs and squat jumps were not part of it. I guess you could call that weight training. Anyways, I thought Coach Nic was the coolest coach ever: he was always loud, enthusiastic, shouting encouragement, and he made the lifts very easy to learn. When I was finally allowed to do regular classes I was pumped. I got to push myself beyond my limits and set new PR’s.

In February there was a lifting seminar with Glenn Pendlay and Travis Cooper. I had no idea who they were and was pretty confused to why everyone thought it was a big deal that they were at our gym. Now I understand that they are like weightlifting gurus. At that seminar I think I was the only one lifting in tennis shoes. Glenn said something about getting real lifting shoes if you were going to be a serious weightlifter. So soon after the seminar I got a pair of Reebok lifting shoes. This was an exciting moment and led to multiple PR’s.

In March there was the MN LWC meet. Through talking to my friend Jack and asking him about a million questions I had a better understanding of how a weightlifting meet goes. I was confused when he said that they didn’t give points, instead you either make a lift with two or three white lights or you get red lights and the lift doesn’t count. I also learned who all the big name weightlifters were and how they trained. The meet was filled with personal records; we all had a good time. After the meet we got to have chicken fingers as a reward.

Later I found out that I had qualified to lift at the 2013 Youth National Championships, even though I didn’t know what that was. That was when I decided that I wanted to get really good at Olympic weightlifting. After that I started doing what Coach Nic told me too, instead of trying to max out every day (even though it was fun).

Last year I went to school 8 hours a day, just like a normal kid. I always looked forward to snow days and early releases – when I got to go train with Coach Nic and Coach Juli at 11am. In my mind they were (and still are) the most amazing weightlifters/coaches ever. I couldn’t wait until summer, when I could train with them everyday.

When school came around I knew I would have to wait until after school to train, unless I figured out a way to get there in the morning. In the end it worked out pretty well to do some online schooling. I have an insane schedule which includes riding in different transportation devices for about two and a half hours just to get to and from the gym. I don’t mind all the riding, but it can be pretty time consuming.

The coolest part is getting to lift with the coaches in the morning. I learn a lot from them, more than I could ever learn from hanging out with people my age. Although I do kind of miss my friends, going to football games, and eating skittles.

Pic from short film "The Artist and The Olympian"

Through being obsessed with weightlifting I have learned a lot. There are multiple podcasts, books, Youtube videos, Facebook, and Instagram accounts that have a ton of useful information. Not just on weightlifting, but on life. The people in this sport are a certain type of people. They are not people who are knocked down by anything or anyone. They are not people who give up when things get tough. No sport is easy, but weightlifting is different. I think the people who succeed in it must have passion. They must love the mental and physical struggles. Mental pain (training when you’re tired, feeling lonely, training hard when your shins are bleeding and bruised) and physical pain (being tired, always sore, little pains everywhere) are of course part of life, but we train through it. Weightlifters are the most powerful (fastest and strongest) athletes on Earth, so maybe I should suspect that it wouldn’t be easy to be one.

Right now I am living the dream; training about 20 hours a week (with some really amazing people too). There is 938 days until Rio, so I am going to make every minute count. I know that I will get to the Olympics; maybe in 2020 or maybe in 2016. I know that I will get there because I will not give up.

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.