People love watching athletes celebrate. Have you ever thought about that? I’m talking about the times when athletes go nuts and explode with emotion after they hit the jackpot. Football players in the NFL score touchdowns, and then immediately spike the ball and do some kind of ass-shaking dance in the end zone. Soccer players kick goals and then spend 30 seconds ripping off their shirts and running across the field with their teammates, screaming in some foreign language. Fans love this stuff. They eat it up like pumpkin pie.

If you watch a lot of Olympic and World Championship weightlifting, you see it too. Some of it gets pretty dramatic. Back when Germany had a lot of top lifters in the 90s and early 2000s, their victory celebrations were totally over the top. Guys like Marc Huster, Ronny Weller, and Matthias Steiner seemed like they were never going to leave the freaking platform after they set world records or won gold medals. They stayed out there as long as possible, jumping up and down, shrieking, crying, blowing kisses to the crowd, etc.

Back in the old days, the Chinese lifters never showed much emotion. They came from that old school Chinese mentality, know what I mean? They walked on the platform, bowed to the audience, lifted the weight, bowed again, and walked off. But over the last ten years, since China has become more modern and progressive, their athletes have started to bust out with some excitement after their big lifts.

Have you ever wondered WHY these athletes celebrate their successes? Why is there so much passion and animation after they break records and win gold medals? This might sound like a stupid question because there’s such an obvious answer. It’s really damn cool to win the Olympics. Setting a world record is awesome. DUH! These are the biggest things an athlete can accomplish, and they give you a tingly feeling that makes you bounce around the room like a cricket. This isn’t exactly rocket science.

However, there’s something deeper I want to talk about, and it occurred to me when I was reading an interview recently with Chinese weightlifting coach Yu Jie. Yu is a pretty recognizable figure in international weightlifting. If you’ve watched the Worlds or Olympics over the last 5-6 years, you’ve probably seen him. He personally coaches two of the best lifters in history, Lu Xiaojun and Liao Hui. Both of these guys are Olympic champions and world record holders (Lu in the 77 kg class, Liao at 69 kg). Coach Yu has guided them to the pinnacle of this sport, and he did an interview with World Weightlifting magazine a few months ago that really made me think.

I’m going to share some of Coach Yu’s words in this article, and then we’re going to transfer his thoughts over to your weightlifting life. Despite the fact that he’s working at a much different level of the sport than you are, it’s amazing how much we all have in common. This Chinese coach who cranks out world champions is basically fighting the same battles as all of us. His interview was a great reminder to me about why lifters celebrate after they succeed.

Who he is, what he does…

Coach Yu is a scary looking dude. He’s tall and imposing, with eyes that look like a combination of Charles Manson and Wolverine. You can tell when he’s pissed off or stressed, because he glares at people like he’s ready to gut them with a samurai sword.

When Lu Xiaojun won the 2012 Olympics in London, he grabbed Coach Yu and pulled him onto the competition platform immediately after he finished his last clean and jerk. They were hugging and celebrating together while the massive crowd went berserk with screams and applause, and Lu started pointing his finger at the coach and yelling something to the audience. I obviously couldn’t understand what the hell he was saying because it was in Chinese, but I found out later that he was shouting, “IT’S NOT ME!! IT’S HIM!!” At the moment of the greatest triumph of his life, he was telling the world that his success came from Coach Yu. He wanted to give credit to the guy who took him to the top, so it’s very clear what kind of respect the lifters have for him. It was one of my favorite Olympic moments of all time.

Let me tell you a few things Yu said in the interview I read. He was asked, “Your athletes are internationally well-known stars. How do you deal with this in training?” His response was: “They are stars now, but in everyday life they are just like anyone else. They may face difficulties, and being present as a friend or father figure can be more helpful and pertinent. After so many years spent together in weightlifting, I know them so well that I always know when to act like their coach, friend, or father. This relationship is built on trust, whether we talk about their sporting career or their personal ambitions. You always have to deal with eventual problems separately and come up with the solution that will help them to surpass themselves again and again.”

I love this, because it drives home so many of the same things we all deal with in coaching. Let’s summarize a few of them in simple terms.

Coaching is about personal relationships.
Athletes have to trust coaches to have success.
Coaches have to know when to assume different roles in an athlete’s life.
Coaches and athletes have to work together to solve problems.

Sometimes, I think we look at these weightlifting superpowers like they’re in a completely different dimension of the universe. Know what I mean? Because their accomplishments are so far beyond anything we’re capable of, we develop this mentality about them like they’re totally above all the problems we face. For god’s sake, Lu Xiaojun snatched 176 kg (387 lbs.) at 77 kg bodyweight (170 lbs.). That’s an incomprehensible feat of strength. Because it’s so incredible, we make a natural assumption that the guy who did it is totally different from the rest of us. This is especially true with Chinese weightlifters, because we think of them as inhuman robots with brains and hearts that are programmed by the government like a computer system.

According to his coach, who probably knows him better than anybody in the world, none of those assumptions are true. Coach Yu describes working with his athletes exactly the same way we describe working with ours. There’s a lot of personality involved, and the athletes need to feel a strong sense of trust and loyalty. Coaching and hard work are necessary, and counseling is also necessary. Obstacles are going to pop up, and it’s a collaborative effort between the coach and the athlete to move past them.

Is this useful information for you? I sure as hell hope you think so, because it’s pretty obvious. First of all, it’s valuable to understand that you’re doing your job the same way the best coaches in the world are doing theirs. This should reassure you that your methods are on the right track. As coaches, we second-guess ourselves a lot. When our athletes have problems, we wonder if it’s our fault. Are the problems coming up because we’re not doing a good job? Most of the time, the answer is no. Athletic success is a tough thing to reach, and problems are just going to be part of the game. When you run into roadblocks as a coach, you have to do exactly what Yu described. You have to work together to find a solution.

As an athlete, it always made me feel better when I knew the best lifters in the world were fighting the same battles as me. I gained a lot of confidence (and reassurance) when I learned that I wasn’t the only one who struggled. So if you’re reading this article as an athlete, you should feel a little better about your own issues because the legends of our sport are dealing with a lot of the same crap as you.

Rock bottom…

The other part of his interview I really liked was when he talked about the rough patches his guys have dealt with. He was asked the question, “Have you ever lost faith in your athletes?” His response was: “I never lost faith in my athletes. Both had rock bottoms in their respective careers and were facing difficulties at one point or another. In 2005 at the Chinese National Games, Liao Hui ended up with no total. He failed all three clean and jerk attempts and lost his self-confidence. I needed to put the focus on his technique in the snatch. Then, spotting his weaknesses, working on it and improving his results gave him a strong will to continue. An option is of course giving up, but when you see the potential of these athletes, you have to make them believe in what they are capable of. We had to overcome these obstacles and get back to the platform as a team.”

This is my favorite part, for a couple of different reasons. First of all, I love the way Coach Yu stuck by his athletes when they failed. Hui bombed out at a huge meet, which is a major no-no when you’re lifting in a system with the kind of high expectations and pressure as the Chinese national program. It crushed him, but his coach built him back up.

I’ve known a few coaches who throw athletes on the s--t pile pretty quickly if they have bad meets. The lifters perform poorly in a high-stakes situation, so the coach basically excommunicates them. This is something you usually only see with coaches who haven’t been high-level athletes themselves. They don’t know what it’s like to struggle because they’ve never really been in the fight. So when their athletes blow it, they can’t empathize. As you can probably guess, these coaches don’t last long. Athletes are going to have bad days, plain and simple. It’s unavoidable. If you walk away from them every time it happens, you’re going to wind up with an empty gym.

The second reason I like this interview is because Yu described how Liao Hui “lost his self-confidence” at one point. We’re talking about a world champion, people. This guy is the greatest lifter in the world, and apparently he’s had to battle his own confidence issues…just like all of you. Most of you are nowhere near the same level as Hui, and you might think it’s because you don’t have the same mental strength and toughness as him. He’s stronger in his heart and mind than you, and that’s why he’s the Olympic gold medalist and you’re not. Right? Wrong. According to his coach, this Olympic gold medalist lost faith in himself at some point. He was confused, frustrated, and doubting his ability. Isn’t that crazy to think about? How can a guy with this kind of talent have any self-esteem problems? Answer (directly from Coach Yu): “They are just like anyone else.” That means you, buddy.

So, why do they celebrate?

Brothers and sisters, I think we’re left with the understanding that these lifters celebrate so excitedly because they’ve endured so much to get to where they are. By the time they get to the Olympic platform, they’ve been through a long war. They’ve spent years of their life in training that would destroy most human beings. They’ve had ups and downs. They’ve had huge victories, and also miserable defeats. They’ve had injuries. They’ve questioned themselves. Their lives have been placed on hold. They’ve sacrificed everything. They’ve dealt with constant pressure and competition from their rivals. To make a long story short, they’ve gone through hell and back.

So when they finally achieve the best results of their lives after all that trial and tribulation, the emotional impact is hard to contain. They stand on the platform with a world record clean and jerk above their heads, knowing they just nailed the lift that’s going to hang a gold medal around their necks, and the feeling of relief and reward is unlike anything that can be described in words. They’re not just jumping and screaming because they’re happy for the success. They’re jumping and screaming because they’ve survived all the pain. They made it through all the fires that tried to burn them down over the years. They overcame, and that’s the most important part of the whole situation.

And they did it because they had great coaches who never gave up on them. That’s the kind of coach you have to be. It’s not an easy job, trust me. As a coach, you’ll doubt yourself and have moments where you lose your self-confidence…just like the athletes. It’s even harder because you’re the leadership figure, which means you’re completely alone with all of it. You don’t have a coach to guide you…because you’re the coach. You might have to rely on family, spouse, or whatever. Regardless of the source, there has to be some kind of fuel that keeps your motor running. Sometimes, that fuel might not be sitting right in front of your face. The missing ingredient that gets your mojo back may be something you have to search for. But don’t worry, you’ll find it. Everybody has to go through the same process, even the best in the world.