Category: Olympic Weightlifting – Diary

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Olympic Weightlifting Update

The benefit of pushing our own boundaries and doing activities that aren’t easy for us.

I’m now over a year into training. It’s not been an easy ride I have to tell you. Firstly I feel like my body really is not designed for the two lifts – Clean and Jerk and Snatch. Both involve squats. For my structure squats are not a natural position. Femoral anteversion makes them rather tricky. In a front squat it’s near impossible to not have a knee drop in when standing up and in the jerk position my left back knee drops in which often causes my ankle to collapse.

The collapsing ankle is a feature I have due to hypermobility. I can literally just fall off my ankles for no reason.

Even though my coach is aware of my femoral anteversion he will still sometimes bring attention to a knee drop in. Like dude I KNOW, it’s literally what my knees do!

Out of interest I requested my medical records and found a letter that shows the degree of femoral anteversion which was a 90 degree inward rotation. The letter also states I was unlikely to grow out of it. Ideally I would have been operated on as a kid but I wasn’t and there is very little to be done about it now.

I did have the option of surgery at 16 but at that point in my life I was not in a great situation at the time and honestly didn’t feel safe. The idea of being in that same situation with two broken legs was honestly terrifying. Which meant that really it was not a viable option.

Anyway that brings us to now, I still have femoral anteversion and it still means my alignment in various things is a little off. Throw in hypermobility and well it’s fun!

Of course unlike bodybuilding style lifting if a certain lift doesn’t work for your body there are no alternatives. The lifts are the lifts.

Interestingly although I have the disadvantage/disabilities of femoral anteversion and HSD they are not severe enough as issues to count as disabilities in sports. Which means should I ever compete I would compete against able bodied people. That certainly puts me at a disadvantage for sure.

That all said it’s fun, probably made more fun because my body is not designed to do it. There is a certain joy to saying fuck it and doing something that for me is genuinely really really hard. Yet still trying to do the best I can regardless. Although the progress is slow I AM getting stronger and I am getting better at the lifts.

Snatch continues to be a frustration as I even with significantly increased strength I still feel unstable. I fricking love cleans and power cleans, the jerk aspect can feel great some weeks and then my ankle will sploot over again and again.

I also sometimes have weeks where my coordination is just off and the whole thing is arrrgghh. But then there are weeks where I start to feel I’m getting it, that my body is changing in ways that it never has before. I’ll never be the best lifter but I’ll overcome way more than most ever have to!

I would love to compete in a fun way at some point but honestly I’m terrified. Years of bullying and mocking on sports days etc. Jesus the idea of doing something on a platform in front of people makes me feel sick with terror.

I will get there though. Slowly working through my physical limitations and mental barriers one at a time. That’s what makes this worthwhile. It isn’t easy, it isn’t something I’m built for which means when I finally step on a platform it will for me be a huge achievement.

What are you doing that scares you or you aren’t built for?

If you are interested in training with a qualified yoga teacher, pilates instructor and personal trainer in a private home gym in Alnwick drop me a message.

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Why I strength train.

I don’t train to be the strongest person I know I’m not. Nor am I learning olympic weightlifting to win anything, it’s likely I won’t. I train in order to stay as independent as I can for as long as I can. To protect my muscle mass and bone density.

It’s also a big f**K you to all the kids who called me a spastic, spakka legs and bandy. Who made me mistrust and hate my body for having femoral anteversion and a hypermobility spectrum disorder. Nearly 15 years of bullying with not a single adult who intervened, to the point where as a kid I often hoped I wouldn’t wake up.

Over the years since then I’ve learned to love the body I’m in and how to work with it effectively. To take back who I am regardless, and yes I still occasionally get snide comments due to being disabled.

You don’t have to be perfect to enjoy movement and you don’t have to be the best at it to benefit from it!

Just move!

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Session 33 – Learning Olympic Lifting Diary

I love Sunday sessions the most, I don’t have work straight after and I usually have had an early night on Saturday which means I feel just a little more alive in the morning.

Today’s session felt generally good, there were a couple of positions that I am being to feel a little more comfortable in such as the overhead squat and clean pulls, jerks still are a struggle. Perhaps more mentally than anything, I am so in my head about the femoral anteversion that I perhaps subconsciously look for problems. For example in a jerk position with my left leg behind I feel like the knee is dropping in and the ankle unstable. But is that just because I expect it to be unstable? I have always felt the rotation was worse on the left side but who knows?

Front squat felt pretty good as did power clean. Honestly I bloody love a power clean!

Next session is Wednesday with Ashtanga yoga on Monday possibly a little running also and a rest day on Tuesday.

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Learning Olympic Lifting – A Diary

A year or so ago I decided to start learning Olympic lifting (if you do a search you will find a post somewhere about it) then a tweaky elbow and a slew of family ups and downs meant that I just did not have the time, capacity or finances to learn a new thing. Obviously I continued exercising but the free weights and HIIT style workouts I was use to.

Late this spring I decided I wanted to try again. Due to time and caring commitments realistically it made sense to find an online coach. I looked at a HUGE number of websites until I found this one https://www.trainingweightlifting.com/ the content was informative, educated and well written, I really felt like this was someone I wanted to work with. I was right, the coach in question is Lionel Isaac a coach who has a lifetime of experience training, coaching and competing. Not to mention many an academic qualification (we all know how much of a nerd I am!).

After a brief online chat Leo agreed to take me on as client, I have to be honest I feel genuinely grateful that he did. I don’t think I have ever learned as much from a trainer or a PT. What I particularly like about Leo’s method is it is very technical and incredibly precise, there is no single aspect that is left out of any of the lifts and honestly I love it!

Right now I have had 33 coaching sessions with Leo, between 90 mins and 2 hours each and all have been highlights in my day. Without stating the obvious there are a few obstacles in my way when it comes to learning a new physical skill, firstly I’m 52 and in surgical menopause then of course there is the hypermobile ehlers danlos, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and femoral anteversion.

As far as the being a touch on the older side the way I see it is that means there is all the more reason to learn a new skill. I firmly believe that it’s not just that we stop learning or experiencing the new because we get old but that we also get old because we fail to push our boundaries. We become complacent within our comfort zones, settle into routines and gradually find our capacity for the new becomes diminished. Plus all resistance training reduces the risk of both osteopenia and sarcopenia.

With regard to the slew of this and that my body has going on, I understand that various diagnoses mean I am classed as disabled, but I have always refused to see the various hurdles I have as reasons to not try anything. If anything the fact I am so naturally rubbish at athletics makes me more stubbornly determined to prove I can, what I lack in natural ability I have always made up in consistency and determination.

Then there is the fact that for me getting strong was life changing, I went from having chronic fatigue due to my lack of natural physical structure to having a close to normal level of energy. Joints sublax and dislocate less and my POTs symptoms are negligible as long as continue exercising. In other words some form of resistance work is essential to my day to day health so why not Oly style lifting.

With the ability to have 3 sessions a week with such an amazing coach I know over a year or so I will begin to feel stable and confident in the lifts. The biggest issue I have is that from what I understand in order to fully enjoy the sport at some point I really should enter a contest. It is after all a sport and sports tend to involve doing something outside the house with other actual people. The thought of that fills me with utter terror. I was horrendously bullied as a kid, my femoral anteversion was a large target for the bullying but so was my utter incompetence at sports. Sadly the more unsure I became of my body the less I ran, played or tried sports which meant that I continued to incredibly weak, slow and generally physically unstable. It became a chicken and egg situation where the more I was mocked the less I did, the less I did the less likely it was that I would develop any athletic skill and the weaker and slower I remained.

Sports days were a nightmare for me, being forced into races that I knew I would come dead last at every single time still leaves me with a feeling a dread that actually makes me feel sick. It was an exercise in public humiliation each year. If my parents had allowed me stay off sick I would have in a heartbeat. At the end of of a race when coming dead last…again what was worse than sniggers was the pity clap. Oh god, the pity clap makes me actually want to curl up into a ball. Usually it was part sarcasm, part “oh bless, poor thing can’t do better” the implication being not only bad at sports but just a bit useless generally. If you are someone reading this with any form of visible physical disability you likely have also had the experience of people presuming it extends to your mental acuity. That was very much a part of my experience with any kind of public physical endeavor, dread, followed by failure accompanied by pity and being treated as though I was mentally disabled.

You can imagine then that the idea of doing anything in public in particualr a contest does not fill me with much joy. In fact sitting here typing even thinking about it brings a welling of that nauseous terror to the pit of my stomach.

Still at some point I want to do it, for me, for my daughter who has as many health issues as I do plus some worse ones her genetics through in for good measure and because I can do better. Because I always was more capable than I showed and if one person had taken me in hand, helped me develop some running ability helped me build some structure I may never have developed chronic fatigue. I can’t say I wouldn’t have been bullied because once it starts it very often never ends but maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad that as a teen I would go to bed praying fervently and in all sincerity that I just…would…not…wake….up again. Finally I want to do it for each and every person who experienced growing up not trusting their own body or is capability to do anything athletic, When the truth is they likely absolutely can, those of us not naturally gifted may never set world records but we can learn new skills, improve our health and longevity and have huge fun while doing so.

I don’t know where I am going with the Olympic lifting but I have always firmly believed that a new skill learned is of value in itself. Mostly I am enjoying the process.

For the moment I am going to plod along with 3 coaching sessions a week and give myself time to grow in ability and confidence, there is no rush to get anywhere or achieve anything. Right now it’s about taking time and enjoying the process.

If you are interested in learning Olympic Lifting I thoroughly recommend Leo both his coaching and books and resources.