BLOG POSTS BY AUTHOR
Matt Foreman
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To Everybody Who's Training For Something
Matt Foreman
| May 27 2013 |
Weightlifting
About a year ago, there was a sad news story here in Arizona. One of the top high school football coaches in the state died from cancer. He was in his forties and the disease took him quickly. I think there were only six or seven months between the time he was diagnosed and when he passed away. You want to know how he discovered the cancer? He had some pain in his elbow. He thought he banged it up while he was playing with his kids on vacation, but the pain didn’t go away so he decided to ......
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Rookies, Experts, and Pimps
Matt Foreman
| May 14 2013 |
Weightlifting
Those of you who read Performance Menu (i.e., the cool crowd) got a nice treat a few months ago when we published an interview with Christine Girard, the little Canadian weightlifting tornado who won the Olympic bronze medal in London. She gave us terrific answers to the questions we asked, stuff that provokes some hardcore pondering.
One of the things that caught my attention was Christine’s discussion of how she trains. She’s been lifting for seventeen years now, and she’......
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Progress... Twice as Hard for Half as Much
Matt Foreman
| April 29 2013 |
Weightlifting
In the spring of 1993, I was snatching 120 kilos (264 lbs). I was twenty years old and I had been training as an Olympic lifter for about three years. In my workouts at this time, I was usually doing my snatch pulls with 135-140 kilos. This weight was so heavy…I wondered how the hell I would ever be able to snatch it. It felt like I was trying to drag the Titanic off the floor of the ocean.
But I snatched 137.5 for the first time a year and a half later, in the summer of 1994.
Thi......
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Lots of Variety? Or Just SN, C&J, and SQ?
Matt Foreman
| April 15 2013 |
Weightlifting
Ooohhh, this is a good question. Weightlifters and coaches have been debating it for a long time. Let me give you a little more explanation so you know what we’re talking about.
You’ve probably already figured out that there are many different training programs and methods out there. Not all lifters train the same. Hell, not all world champions train the same. A lifter from China wins the Olympics and breaks a world record using a certain type of training program, while another l......
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This Is The Last Thing I'll Ever Write
Matt Foreman
| April 1 2013 |
Weightlifting
This is going to be the last thing I write for Catalyst Athletics. It’s actually going to be the end of my whole journey in the iron sports. I didn’t think I was ever going to say this, but it’s time to finally get it over with.
I’m giving up weightlifting, and everything involved with it. Training, competing, coaching, all the work and the sweat and the pain…screw it. I’m sick and tired of it. After all these years, I just can’t see the point in lyi......
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Spasm!! Spasm!! Dang it!!
Matt Foreman
| March 25 2013 |
Weightlifting
We’re all such a bunch of little go-getters, aren’t we?
We love to train hard. One of the big pleasures in our lives is going to the gym and working our asses off until we’re drained, sore, and completely shot. We want to feel like we made ourselves better, conquered obstacles, or whatever. Everybody who reads this blog knows what I’m talking about, so I don’t need to explain it much more.
And we get sore, right? Actually, it often goes way past “sore.&......
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What the #@%! just happened?
Matt Foreman
| March 12 2013 |
Weightlifting
Let me tell you about a little conversation I had recently. This is an exchange between me and one of the gals I coach after she attempted a heavy snatch and missed it.
Me: “Okay, do you know what you did wrong on that one?”
Her: “Yeah.”
Me: “What did you do?”
Her: “I f-----d up.”
I love people. They’re my favorite.
We all know things aren’t always going to be perfect, right? We’re going to miss attempts occasi......
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Some Words From The Olympic Champions
Matt Foreman
| February 25 2013 |
Weightlifting
The London Olympics finished up a few months ago. Recently, I got the new issue of World Weightlifting in my mailbox. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, World Weightlifting is the official magazine of the International Weightlifting Federation. It’s published in Europe and comes out about four times a year. I’ve been subscribing to it since the eighties.
Anyway, this latest issue had the Olympic Games coverage. One of the parts I dug the most was the post-meet interv......
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We Need More Disciplinarians
Matt Foreman
| February 11 2013 |
Weightlifting
Do you want to know one of the things I find most pathetic in weightlifting, and sports in general?
It’s when coaches let their best athletes get away with crappy behavior, simply because they’re the best athletes.
This makes me want to puke. It’s even worse when the coaches make excuses for the athletes and their shenanigans, defending them and playing the “they didn’t do anything wrong” card.
It’s sad to say, but I’ve seen this more tha......
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You Got a Lot of Freakin Problems
Matt Foreman
| January 28 2013 |
Weightlifting
Okay, I’m gonna make a list of common problems weightlifters have. Read this and keep a running tally of how many you A) have right now or B) have had in the past. I’ll write them as quotes so they sound authentic.
1) “My lockout sucks. I can pull snatches pretty high and clean a lot of weight, but my lockout when I get the bar over my head is terrible.”
2) “I jump forward in the snatch. I didn’t used to do it, but now I do it all the time and I can’......
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