My name is Steve, and I’m a novice weightlifter. Although I’ve been weight training for many years, I’ve only been weightlifting for just over a year. During that time, I made a few observations that I’d like to share with you.
 
I’ve seen the Instagram posts of people throwing 180kg snatches overhead, the 350kg squats and the 200kg clean and jerks. They’re great. They’re inspirational. They’re also a million miles away from what a guy like me is capable of at this point, the first few baby steps of my weightlifting journey. With that in mind, it’s time to rewind and share a few insights from the point of view of a new lifter. If you’re new to this world too, I hope this article will give you a few pointers towards what to expect in your first year as a weightlifter. If you’re not, I hope it triggers a few distant memories from your early days in the sport!
 
You’ll be sore
 
In my first few months, I was sore in ways I didn’t expect. My hands, wrists, and elbows grumbled pretty consistently. The discomfort was in the connective tissues—they were being asked to do things they hadn’t done before, and at 34 years of age, they weren’t always happy to oblige.
 
A chance listen to an interview with the gymnastics coach Christopher Sommers gave some insight to the problem. He explained that muscle tissue adapts in around 30 days, whereas connective tissue takes around 210 days. He was bang on the money in my case. After around seven months, the pain that had been easing for a while went away. Not all discomfort is due to poor technique. Sometimes your body just needs time to adapt.
 
It’ll highlight flexibility issues you didn’t realize you had
 
Before I was weightlifting, I was weight training. The gym wasn’t a new world to me by any means, but the demands of weightlifting are so different from standard weight training. The positions required by weightlifting highlighted some gaping holes in my flexibility and mobility. At first even establishing a solid rack position was tough. Overhead squats made me rotate more than a pirouetting ballerina. My ankle mobility needed work. I’d been a fairly high-level soccer player for years and (perhaps surprisingly) it’s not a sport that demands huge ankle flexibility. My thoracic spine was fairly locked up, so I spent a lot more time on foam rollers, going through mobility drills and stretching to undo over 30 years of stiffness.
 
You can get away with a moderate level of flexibility in general weight training. Bench and curls don’t require a great deal of mobility. Not so with weightlifting. Try executing a passable snatch when you’re as stiff as a board.
 
I really had to work on stretching and mobility work. You’ll probably have to do the same. Don’t neglect it. Be disciplined, and you’ll be thankful you were.
 
You’ll be training harder than ever
 
We all train hard, but the demands of a weightlifting program were a bit of a surprise. I’d never spent so much time lifting towards the edge of my capabilities.
Every programmed session kicked my ass and reignited my love for training.
 
Weight training is mostly aesthetics driven. In weightlifting, it’s performance-based and as such, training programs have more clearly defined purposes and outcomes. This means programs are almost prescriptive in nature and there’s less room for slacking.
 
I’m a fit guy. I’m a pretty strong guy, but in the early days of weightlifting, I was wiped out by my sessions.
 
I loved it.
 
You’ll PR regularly
 
Assuming you’re coached well, in the early days of weightlifting, you’ll PR regularly, possibly every session.  Soon that may drop to every week, then every month and so on.
 
You’ll be updating your PR logs regularly, which mean you’ll have to adjust your percentages in training programs, too. It’ll feel like a constant upward trajectory. I remember well when a 50kg snatch was the target, then 60kg was the target, then 70kg, etc. Those 10kg jumps were being made every few weeks.
 
As with anything new, you learn all the time. Set up position, sequencing, improved bar path, strength improvements – everything is heading in the right direction. You’ll be improving as a lifter almost every session. A seemingly simple tweak may add another 5kg to your PR.
 
When you see progress so rapidly, it’s an easy assumption that you’ll continue to make these jumps for a long time. Such improvement brings about a sense of achievement you’ll experience regularly, but don’t get used to it.
 
You’ll spend a lot of training time frustrated
 
What? I thought you said it’s all sunshine, daisies, and PR’s? Well, it kind of is. The problem is that when it’s not, it sucks! When you’re learning a new skill (or in this case, series of skills), your execution isn’t consistent. In fact, it’s horribly inconsistent. I still suffer from this.
 
This lack of consistency can frustrate the hell out of you. I remember a training session a few months ago. My coach had programmed five sets of single snatches at 75kg. At that point of my training, 75kg wasn’t much of an issue, certainly not for singles. I expected to breeze through it.
 
I was wrong. My execution of the lifts was terrible. I kept missing snatch after snatch. It wasn’t a strength issue. I was well recovered and had eaten plenty. It was a skill issue. I was strong enough; I just wasn’t technically good enough to consistently execute the skill. Before these motor patterns are embedded in us, they are frustratingly inconsistent. Don’t worry; eventually there’ll be more good days than bad. I’ll let you know when I reach that point.
 
You’ll change. A lot.
 
I’d run the gambit of training over the years. I’d done the naive ‘beach muscles’ bodybuilding style of training most teenage boys do. I’d been a HIIT guy. I’d dabbled in CrossFit, and I’d swung more than my fair share of kettlebells.
 
What I hadn’t done was spend a lot of time working on strength and power in the way weightlifting demands. Working almost exclusively in the 1-5 rep range was completely new to me, and it forced adaptations in my body that I’d never experienced before.
 
I gained a fair bit of muscle. During the first year of weightlifting, I jumped from 88 to 94kg, with the vast majority of that being muscle. It wasn’t my intention, it just happened. I also felt way more powerful than I ever had before, which is a nice by-product. This change needs fuelling, so remember to eat plenty and take the rest you need, but no more than that.
 
Bottom Line
 
I’m still a novice at this. I’ve been weightlifting for just over a year and part of a weightlifting club for 10 months, but these are observations I’ve made. Being a 34 year old father of two when I started weightlifting, I know I’m not going to trouble the top guys in the sport, but any time I feel insecure that a 53kg Chinese lady snatches 15kg more than me, I remember this section of a Greg Everett quote: "There is nothing wrong with loving weightlifting. You can be as shitty as you want to be and you're allowed to love it. You should embrace that."
 
And that right there is the message to remember. You’re allowed to love it. I don’t do this to win Olympic medals. I do it because I love it. It makes me feel great. It has introduced me to wonderful people. It has made me better at my job. It has improved my health. That’s enough reward for me.
 
I’m still learning all of the time, but after my first year, I’m starting to understand more about this weightlifting world we’re in. Hopefully the insights in the article will help you overcome some of the struggles you may have in these early days of your weightlifting journey, too. Happy lifting.