In April of 2017, I started to shadow one of the lifting coaches at the gym. I drove over to our second location in Oldham County on Thursday nights. My only goal was to learn more as a coach to put my USAW SPC training to good use. After a month of shadowing, the gym owner asked if I could take over the Thursday night class as the regular coach had a schedule conflict due to medical school. I was really apprehensive about that, primarily because I only had the certification and 4 classes of shadowing under my belt. But weightlifting has always been such a passion and I felt that if I could just help others feel the same way about it that I do, and to see them improve, and learn along the way, then it would never be a failure.
In the beginning, our other WL coach was putting the programming in for the members on Thursdays but I eventually took that over. It was a really great, and often times challenging exercise for me. When I am training, I don’t have a specific time limit. Since I am there during “open gym” and have a lot more on the program than regular class, it naturally takes more time. Our WL class is one hour which doesn’t give me a great deal of time to work both lifts, accessory, etc. I also noticed very quickly that just saying “go ahead and get warmed up” that some athletes take that to mean starting on the first exercise in Wodify instead of actually warming up. Being able to craft a workout to address areas our lifters need to work on and fit it within an hour is one thing, but when they all show up for class and get started, it was an eye opener to see how fast some of them would work (or how slow). Many times what I would put into Wodify didn’t get all completed. On a very few occasions we had some time left over. To encompass all I have learned over the past 15 months in a single blog post would be nearly impossible. One of the most important lessons learned was confidence and trust what I know, but always be humble enough to want to learn more.
There is something bittersweet about last night being our last Thursday night lifting at our OC location. In some ways for me, it was much like being tossed into the deep end of the pool. It was a starting place for my coaching and “home” for a lot of members, their comfort spot, their place to let go of the stress of the day.
I really, really, really enjoyed the company and this group of people on Thursday nights. There were countless times when I did not want to drive over to this location (It was about 20-30 minutes from my house compared to the 5 minutes that it takes me to get to the location I train at) but once class was over I felt so much better. Watching the athletes push themselves, learn, and just have fun doing something that I am so passionate about has been extremely rewarding. It is a really powerful thing to be involved with the part of a persons day that they really look forward to.
After we took our group photos, we all met up over at a local Mexican place to grab some dinner, something we have talked about doing for way too long. This group on Thursday nights has taken on an identity in itself, almost, like it has become it’s own community and I love that. Part of me is a little sad that our OC location is closing, but another part of me is looking forward to seeing us grow WL at our primary location, which I know that we will do. Just happy and thankful to be a part of it.