What did you wear for Halloween? This year, I dressed in a singlet and for Halloween I went to Savannah, Georgia, home of ghosts and all things Southern, to compete in the American Masters Open. It was my first time at Howard Cohen’s gym and it was a marvelous experience. There is so much history […]
A few years ago when I was first setting foot on my weightlifting journey, I joined a closed Facebook group of women who trained with weights. Some were powerlifters, some aesthetic competitors, many were just women looking to be better versions of themselves. I loved that group and have formed many deep friendships there that […]
I love new perspectives. Talking to new people either lends new insights into your own thinking or confirms that your own thinking was on the right track after all. With lifting this means going to seminars or teaching opportunities by different coaches. I adore my coach and the many people from whom I’ve learned in […]
I mentioned the 4 fundamental mistakes in the last post, but I didn’t really specifiy them. They are these: Balance – where is your weight distributed relative to the bar and to your center or gravity? Inappropriate muscle group tightness – my locked shoulders are but one example. I can imagine others such as rigidly […]
I had a glorious weekend. What did I do you ask? I spent hours inside an un-airconditioned storage building in the hot Texas summer heat. Before you start slowly backing away from the crazy lady, let me explain. I went to Denton, Texas to participate in one of the USA Weightlifting intro level coach’s certification […]
Today was the first day of the lower body half of decreased volume strength training (as opposed to working the classical lifts). It looked like this: warm-up: reverse hyper 3×8 with 30lbs hanging leg raises 3×8 Workout: Box squat (wide stance, toes turned out, sitting back, knees back on to 15″ box, then pause […]
This past weekend I traveled from the thriving metroplex of 70,000 people where I live to Kansas City, MO for the Fitness Summit. What is that you asked? A two day conference with presentations by some of the biggest names in fitness writing. And by writing I mean books, blogs, e-products, social media. I went […]
I’ll talk about the things I learned at the Fitness Summit in another post. But having gone to the Fitness Summit is relevant because that means in the last 4 days there were two days of dehydrating travel (flying means I shrink up like a prune that rolled into the back of the pantry out […]
If you read my post about masters nationals, you know I wasn’t too wild about my performance. Totaling lower than your first meet at a national event is not a good thing. I know progression is not always linear and that even much more elite lifters than I have off days where they don’t total […]
For those who don’t compete, olympic weightlifting is divided into four groups: youth (the under 17 crowd), juniors (the under 20’s), senior (20-35) and masters (35 and above). These are not inviolable divisions. I watched a 14yo girl snatch a US record at the American Open this year (ostensibly a senior event) in the same […]