anyone a coach?

[Timothy Scalise]

I have really come to love Olympic weightlifting, and was wondering if any of the coaches or assistant coaches, or soon to be's had any advice on how one can break into coaching. I understand that Olympic weightlifting is not really that bit in the USA, but I still would love to get into coaching this and maybe taking some young ones to a high level. So anyone got any good advice on how to start, what steps to take.

[Arden Cogar Jr.]

Timothy,
I'm not a coach yet, but love helping people. I'm attending a USAW club coaching certification course in Alexandria Virginia at Potamic Crossfit during January. So at that point, I guess I could officially call myself a coach. At this point, I'm just "a grip and ripper."

To answer your question, the USAW, Crossfit, and Performance Menu offer certification courses for olympic weightlifting coaches. To be frank, I think crossfit is the perfect avenue by which to expand the awareness of olympic lifting as the movements are part of the WOD's. Beyond that, there are over 500 crossfit affiliates in the US and the numbers are increasing. The gyms are olympic lifting friendly - which is not the same in most traditional gyms or fitness facilities (shame really). Beyond that, I'm noticing that a lot of the novice USAW lifters (Including myself) are cross fitters who were introduced to the lifts through crossfit.

Just so you know, I think your at the right place. What Greg has established with the protocols set forth here at performance menu is an awesome training protocol. Absolutely awesome for athletes and olympic lifters who want to get rugged fit. I love this stuff.

Hope that answers your questions a little bit?

All the best,
Arden

[Garrett Smith]

Find a coach for yourself first, and compete in at least a few meets.

Get the USAW cert, go to the PMenu cert, and watch as many OL coaching videos as you can.

Then either find an OL-friendly gym where you can start coaching or create your own. Don't expect to get rich doing it--keep your day job.

[Patrick Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Arden Cogar Jr.

Timothy,
I'm not a coach yet, but love helping people. I'm attending a USAW club coaching certification course in Alexandria Virginia at Potamic Crossfit during January. So at that point, I guess I could officially call myself a coach. At this point, I'm just "a grip and ripper."

All the best,
Arden

Hell yeah! I look forward to seeing you there.

[Kris Reeves]

Damn! Both you guys are going? Maybe I should convince the wifey to get the funds?



The one thing that plagues my mind though is that I'm not technically proficient and in effect I would be going to learn for myself...not necessarily learning to 'teach' so I fear that may be a cart before the horse sort of thing.

[Garrett Smith]

Kris,
Go learn for yourself first, absolutely. It is very difficult to teach something that you haven't learned from someone else first--it makes one able to relate to the process better.

"Cart before the horse" would be learning to teach before you knew even the basics of how to do the movements yourself (physically). Why would someone want coaching from someone who had never even tried to learn the movements properly themselves?

[Kris Reeves]

I guess that's where my confusion is...does the USAW cert assume some level of proficiency for the attendees? Or for instance, would it be ok for someone whose never attempted an O lift in their lives to show up?



I think I would really like to go...just need to double check the $$$ situation.

[Garrett Smith]

The amount of teaching the lifts to the attendees varies greatly from coach to coach at the USAW certs.

You're guaranteed to learn a lot yourself at the PMenu cert, then the USAW cert will remind you of what you learned previously.

If I could go back, I'd do the PMenu cert first, then the USAW.

[Kris Reeves]

Oh Shnap!....I didn't even notice Greg and Aimee were coming to the DC area until I read your post and checked the events page!

[Leo Soubbotine]

I'd go the route of CrossFit and then getting into the Weightlifting sport.

More lucrative, less expensive and in general a brighter future, that will let you afford the Weightlifting. And once you grow big enough with CF, then you can train more weightlifting while your trainers will coach CF.