The Youth Nationals is this weekend in Daytona Beach, FL. I am so psyched for so many reasons! First, I am ready to see my athletes tear it up. There are several that stand a great chance medaling, and possibly Gold for a few. This is exciting for the future of our program. The youth team has grown from two last year to seven this year. It has been so awesome watching the kids make their place on our team and in our family. They are as much a part of our team as Jon or Jared.
What’s really cool is watching my Senior Team Members help out with the youth, support them, and generally love them. It’s one big family that one day I want to write about if I can figure out how it all happened. Weightlifting is such a great sport for kids. It’s superior for getting them ready for other sports, and it is a great sport for them to compete at. No other sport is growing like weightlifting, and now the Youth Nationals is the biggest Olympic Weightlifting Meet in US History with over 500 athletes registered. Now there are scholarships for the better athletes, awesome meets, financial support, and the Olympics. Parents are starting to take a real notice.
Training youth athletes is a real art form. Adult athletes need individual programming, but youth even more so. We are finding that puberty is the biggest factor. Athletes that are going through puberty need more technique work, stabilization, and slightly less volume. Once they are through that period, it is go time! It’s like they are on drugs with the improvement that they make. Almost weekly PRs can be expected at certain points of their training.
The biggest key is extra time being spent in the beginning to perfect technique, movement patterns, and mobility. This is a great time to spend on strengthening positions with exercises like sotts press, overhead squats, standing presses, front squats, back squats, pullups, bench presses, and rows. General strength is the main goal at this point. I’ll let you all know the full report after the whole thing goes down this weekend.
This week was great for my training. Here is what happened:
Wednesday
Clean off the Blocks 135k/3, 140k/308lbs/3 PR
Front Squat Paused 215k/475lbs x 1 PR
Standing Press 65k/3, 75k/3, 85k/3
Friday
Snatch 123k/270lbs x 1 PR(since comeback)
Clean & Jerk 151k/332lbs x 1
Total 274k PR of late
I took the weekend off because it was my 5th Year Anniversary with the most amazing woman on earth, Emily Drew Mash. We took a trip into the mountains to see my new born niece, Baby Ella! Trust me she is so cute. Here is a pic:
I am excite about how well my training is coming for the August 30-31 Bar Slamming Festival. It’s going to be the most epic competition in history. I have finally come up with a way to train Olympic weightlifting with Powerlifting successfully. The key is taking extra time to recover and mobilize. Here is a video from last week’s training:
I will be in Rhode Island with a Learn 2 Lift Seminar at the end of this month, and our summer camps kick off early next month. Check them all out at www.MashElite.com/seminars/.
Join the Attitude Nation Online Team at http://www.mashelite.com/join-the-online-team/.