Chapter Six: Training gets serious
When we got back from Nauru, on the first session back in the gym, I was facing some punishment. Literally. You see, during the competition in Nauru, my inconsistent Clean & Jerk technique let me down. Well, the truth is, in my moment of the competition with the adrenalin running, I forgot my newly learnt technique for doing a proper ‘Clean’, where I was supposed to catch the weight as I was on my way down to landing in the bottom of a squat position. Instead I reverted back to my brut strength old technique where I would ‘power-clean’ the weight, basically ripping it up as high as I could, pulling with my arms, catching it up high on my chest. “So what” you might ask? Does it really matter as long as you are successful with the weight? Yes it does matter, because sooner or later if you can’t perform a proper Clean you are going to be disadvantaged, as it’s not physically possible to lift as much weight in a ‘Power-Clean’, compared to a ‘Clean’.
My coaches had been drilling me for the past 6 months about my clean technique and had even barred Power-Cleans from my program.
So back to my punishment. It was 20 sets of Cleans (3 rep’s each set). I was very unimpressed, started to protest, then thought better of it (I didn’t want to give Luke the satisfaction of having another reason to shout at me) and so I proceeded to do my sets. It wasn’t on a heavy weight, but nevertheless I hurt at the end. My hands were wrecked, I had to put tape around them to stop the bleeding from my torn blisters. I learnt my lesson and never Power-Cleaned in a competition after that.
From there on, training got serious. There was no ‘chit chat’ or joking around in the gym during training, that was only allowed before or after training. Everyone had to start training at the same time and as the platforms were getting crowded we would buddy up with someone lifting similar weights. I was to become training partners with Meagan as she changed her shifts at work so she could train with the rest of the team.
Our programs generally consisted of three phases: (1) a few weeks on a strength-building program with high sets and repetitions on lower weights (ie 5×5); (2) then a few weeks of medium intensity phase where rep’s would drop to 2’s and 3’s and the weights would get a bit heavier; (3) then finally the pre-competition phase where we dropped our rep’s to singles and doubles and the weights were at or close to our max. We all had similar but tailored programs, to correct our individual areas of weakness and my program was designed with the purpose of improving my technique.
Friday nights were our ‘heavy’ night, especially in the pre-competition phase of our programming. I looked forward to Friday nights with trepidation. I was excited as I was pushing myself towards a PB each week, so was keen to see what I could do. At the same time though, I would find myself getting nervous as I walked into the gym, because I was so eager to see what I could do and didn’t want to disappoint my coach. Those heavy Friday nights really helped my preparation. Particularly because Luke used to set up the sessions to mimic a competition environment. We would only get 3 attempts as we got to our top weight and we followed competition rules within the gym confines, even down to everyone stopping in silence to watch whoever’s turn it was at their top weight and the coach shouting out the ‘down’ signal after a successful lift.
Coach support became really important. Most people outside Weightlifting don’t realise how much teamwork goes into our sport. Because you only see one person up on the competition platform, it’s easy to think it’s an individual sport. To some extent this might be true, in that you can’t really blame anyone except yourself for a failed lift and bad performance. However, in actual fact, behind the scenes there is a whole team of people assisting, from coaches, to sports massage therapists, to your fellow lifters shouting and encouraging in the audience.
Luke Borreggine was my main coach. He was the head coach of our gym and wrote my programs and planned everything but he also had a few assistant coaches at that time, including Steve Tikkanen and sometimes John Way or Vince Boutros. Luke and Steve would always be in the gym, at every session. It wasn’t possible for Luke to have eyes everywhere at once so he relied on his assistants to watch and coach whoever he wasn’t. Every lifter was given close attention, with technique cues and reminders, no matter what level they were. The coaches were all volunteers, none of them were paid. In addition to the coaching, Luke and Steve spent more time in the gym than the lifters, passionately discussing and planning each lifter’s progress and their programs. Their dedication was necessary for the success of the lifters and I recognised this and appreciated it immensely. I always made it a point to thank my coaches, especially at the end of a competition.
The coaches weren’t the only ones volunteering their time either. We had no money for physiotherapists or sport massage, so Luke & Steve convinced some masseurs to give their time for free, to give us the treatment we needed to keep our bodies performing. Most injuries, I discovered, come from muscle tightness. Since we were training 8 sessions a week, sports massage became an important part of our regime, to rid the tight knots that could otherwise lead to injury and tendonitis. Steve Tikkanen was the best! I heard he actually started as a massage therapist before becoming a coach. He knew a lot about anatomy and was awesome at kneading out the knots. We also had Fran for a while and a few others down the track. By the way, those massages were not relaxing! We were lucky if we could last 5 or 10 minutes. With the right, strong hands, it hurt like hell, especially ITB’s – we would squirm and leap off the table, which was usually set up in a corner of the gym. We often came away with bruises, to add to the bruised shoulders and grazed shins we received from the sharp knurling on the weightlifting bars.
The mind games started too around this time. There were many days when training would not go as planned, I would feel like I was going backwards and come away feeling negative and doubtful, wondering if I was going to make it after all. Sometimes a few of us would be sitting around in the gym after a training session, stretching, and we would talk about this and encourage each other, lift each other’s spirits. I remember a few pep talks along these lines with John Epta and Steve Tikkanen.
I was starting to live and breathe weightlifting. It was all I thought about and talked about, so it was also important to have a supportive environment at home. Living with my fiance, Steve, who was an athlete too, although not in Olympic Weightlifting, was immensely helpful. He understood what I was going through, patiently listened to my recount of what happened in training each night and dealt with my constant tiredness from all the training sessions. It was only going to get worse…
Coming up next – Chapter 7: Some advancements