The Olympic Training Center
This past weekend I reached a milestone in my career (nothing like Ken Griffey, Jr. hitting 600 homeruns, but still, respectable). I participated in and completed USA Weightlifting's Sport Performance Coaching Course. USA Weightlifting is the organization that trains and develops the Olympic weightlifters. They offer courses in how to train these athletes and really it was amazing. I stayed there in Colorado Springs, CO from Wednesday night to Saturday afternoon. We were there with the Olympic hopefuls and were able to enjoy the facility.
The course essentially took us through basic, core lifts of Olympic weightlifting, assistance lifts, and jump and medicine ball training in order to help the athletes and clients we train to improve explosion, power, and functionality. It was broken up into lectures and practical portions. We spent most of the time in the practical portions working on the lifts ourselves, coaching each other and getting help from the instructors. We don't have an Olympic platform at the Sportsplex so it was cool to be able to just drop the weights from overhead without worrying about damaging the floor.
On Friday night while we were there we were able to go watch the Olympians train. Both the girls and the guys were so powerful and were lifting crazy weights. To give you somewhat of an idea (keep in mind I'm not particularly strong) everyone in there, both guys and girls, could lift more than me except the lightest girls, with whom I was about even. It really was a treat to watch them train and see how hard they work to get there. Olympic weightlifters train about 10-12 times a week for about 2 hours each session. They are strong and dedicated. It was amazing.
In one of our sessions, the guys' 105+kg lifter, Casey Burgener, and the girls' 63kg lifter, Natalie Woolfolk, came around and helped us correct and improve our technique. Casey can back squat more than 600lbs., clean and jerk around 490 lbs. and snatch close to 400 lbs. It was so cool of them to come to our little wimpy sessions and help us out. I learned so much and am really excited to work with this stuff both for myself and my clients.
The course essentially took us through basic, core lifts of Olympic weightlifting, assistance lifts, and jump and medicine ball training in order to help the athletes and clients we train to improve explosion, power, and functionality. It was broken up into lectures and practical portions. We spent most of the time in the practical portions working on the lifts ourselves, coaching each other and getting help from the instructors. We don't have an Olympic platform at the Sportsplex so it was cool to be able to just drop the weights from overhead without worrying about damaging the floor.
On Friday night while we were there we were able to go watch the Olympians train. Both the girls and the guys were so powerful and were lifting crazy weights. To give you somewhat of an idea (keep in mind I'm not particularly strong) everyone in there, both guys and girls, could lift more than me except the lightest girls, with whom I was about even. It really was a treat to watch them train and see how hard they work to get there. Olympic weightlifters train about 10-12 times a week for about 2 hours each session. They are strong and dedicated. It was amazing.
In one of our sessions, the guys' 105+kg lifter, Casey Burgener, and the girls' 63kg lifter, Natalie Woolfolk, came around and helped us correct and improve our technique. Casey can back squat more than 600lbs., clean and jerk around 490 lbs. and snatch close to 400 lbs. It was so cool of them to come to our little wimpy sessions and help us out. I learned so much and am really excited to work with this stuff both for myself and my clients.
The Olympic Torch, only it wasn't lit because, you know, Beijing and all
The Strength and Conditioning Room with platforms
The USA Weightlifting training room
2 comments:
Looks cool. How far away is Colorado Springs from the Denver area? Like will you have more conferences in the next year or so?
Colorado Springs is about an hour away it seems like. Of course, that was from the airport. I'm almost sure there will be more conferences there and I may attend some because the headquarters for the NSCA (who run the conferences) is in Colorado Springs and the Olympic Training Center is there.
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