Although weightlifting has increased in popularity in recent years, female masters lifters—particularly beginners—are still comparatively rare. Now that you've decided to take up weightlifting, you'll face a few challenges that are unique to your age, level of experience and athletic background. Your reasons for starting are your own, but in general, most masters athletes who tackle weightlifting have a lot of motivations in common. We all want health, fitness, and real challenge. If I were starting out today, I would emphasize a few key things that worked well.

Be Committed

Since your youthful window of opportunity for going to the Olympics is already closed (sorry about that), your priorities should be to have fun, learn something, and boost your health, fitness, and well-being. Developing the speed, strength, and confidence to get under the bar requires unrelenting self-discipline. You need ready access to a well-equipped gym (look for kilogram bars and plates), and a skilled coach who understands masters athletes and is dedicated to helping them progress. Otherwise, regardless of your love for weightlifting, you’ll have a hard time getting your ass on the platform after a long day at work, dealing with kids, or whatever other obligations you have.

All athletes benefit hugely from encouragement by other people who understand their sport. There's not much mainstream media coverage of weightlifting, it won't make you rich, and many people confuse it with powerlifting or bodybuilding. And here's a brutal fact: few people consider masters athletes to be worth any attention at all, and female masters even less— so the number of people who are going to encourage you when weightlifting gets hard is close to zero. Find your own motivations for tackling these tough workouts, and a club with friendly and supportive teammates so that you can cheer each other on. 

Train Often

Weightlifting requires regular and consistent training that is physically and mentally taxing. It's not like pulling on your shoes and running around the block, or putting a rolled mat under your arm and heading to a lunchtime half hour yoga session. You're a masters athlete, a grown-up with responsibilities, not eighteen years old and living at a national training camp with nothing to do but train every day. But if you're serious about this, you will be in the gym at least three times a week, and each session is going to take at least two hours, not counting transit to and fro, getting changed, and warming up.
A lot of masters athletes train every three days, particularly experienced heavyweight men. Women can usually handle more volume, and when starting from scratch, you need to practice the movements frequently to build your confidence and develop the neurological pathways required. Doing six sets of four exercises two to three times a week might be enough if you are already proficient and can move a lot of heavy weight in each workout, but not enough practice mileage for a novice who needs to build strength and skills. Much like learning to play an instrument, it's essential to engage in consistent and frequent training. It's better to do moderate weights properly with many repetitions and sets than to rely solely on blasting off huge singles that you might miss. Missed lifts in training are very hard on the psyche of even a high-level lifter, so just imagine how much they undermine the confidence of a beginner.

If you're in love with weightlifting and your work ethic is strong, you'll want to train as often as you can. But be smart about it: do many different exercises, be very selective about which ones to go heavy on, take regular rest days, and get plenty of sleep.

Silence your Inner Critic

In the beginning, you can make a million mistakes and still get the bar legitimately overhead, because light lifts are forgiving, and even your untrained strength is much greater than your skill. There's a burst of satisfaction in watching the victory parade of personal records marching across your logbook pages. But it gets really tough very quickly. And the toughest part is dealing with your inner critic.

You’ve no doubt heard it said that weightlifting is a mental game as much as physical. Here's how it is: say there’s an error in your lift that becomes gradually more obvious as the bar gets heavier. You’ll attempt a new weight, the error will take charge, and you’ll drop it. You won’t know exactly what happened, you’ll try again, make the mistake again, and drop it. Being a driven, dedicated and determined person, you'll keep trying. You could back off the weight a few kilos, or live to fight another day, but you won't, because your inner critic has just woken up from hibernation and she is whispering, that would be admitting defeat. That weight is now an invisible barrier in your brain. You'll lift x kilos with no problem, then attempt x +1 kilos, and your Inner Critic will fold her arms and wryly remind you that this is the weight you missed last time. And you'll drop it. Again.

Or one day when you are feeling a bit tired, maybe after a long day at work, you'll fail at a moderate weight attempt, and your Inner Critic will say you did 5 kg more than this last week, so why can’t you lift this now? It’ll start to poke you in the ribs when you approach the bar, saying stuff like you-didn’t-get-it-last-time-what-makes-you-think-you'll-get-it-this-time or you-might-whack-yourself-on-the-chin-in-the-jerk-like-you-did-last-week, and a host of other niceties. You’ll forget all about fun and start to get mad at yourself, wondering why you're heaving weights around in a smelly dungeon when you could be on the couch in your lounge pants eating pizza like everyone else.

In the moments before a weightlifting attempt, there’s plenty of time for your Inner Critic to say horrible things to you that you wouldn't tolerate if you overheard them said to someone else. But there’s also time to replace her with visions of success. Silence her by giving yourself credit for your achievements, not tackling too much in one day, and being happy with incremental progress. Do not give up. Remember that your Inner Critic is not a real person. Don't allow her into your weightlifting house.
Here is a secret, and it is true for everyone: Weightlifting never gets easier, it just gets heavier.

Compete Often

Weightlifting without competing is like rehearsing a play that never has an opening night. You really need to compete to have the most fun and feel like you're getting somewhere. Your experience will be richer and more educational for competing, and the rush of stage fright alone is worth the price of admission.

You can lift at open meets where there’s no minimum entry total, and at age-group masters competitions where you can snatch 40 kg and still have a good chance of getting some hardware. It's just you and that bar, loaded with a weight that challenges you. This is the same for athletes competing at the tiniest local club challenge as it is for those at the World Championships. Approach the competition to do your best and aim for a personal goal. Remember that you are competing for the experience and confidence that you'll build. The more competitions you enter, the more you will learn and the better you'll get at managing your nerves.

Many sports require staggering levels of near-mindless endurance. You've probably trained at something that required several minutes - maybe even hours – to do. But weightlifting is a game utterly unlike anything else. The point is not to lift it as many times as possible, as fast as possible; it is to lift as much as possible, only once. Every approach to the bar needs all your focus and attention because so much effort is packed into just a couple of seconds of quick and efficient motion. To quote my coach: “What makes me a weightlifter? I want to feel that heavy weight.” So fall in love with picking up that heavy bar, being squeezed under it, and driving it up overhead. Grip it until your thumbs hurt and your wrists are sore and your callouses tear. Live for adding just one more kilo.

But don't hurry it. Quality is vitally important. You need to train with many consistent sets at lower weights to build the necessary strength, speed, and skill to attempt your highest weight with confidence. At every meet, aim for six successful lifts, even if you only take the automatic increase. If you do this consistently, your total will gradually build and you will soon have a reputation as a good lifter and a good competitor. It will give you far more confidence and success in the long term than taking big jumps in your attempts and finishing with four missed lifts and the very crummy feeling that you didn't do what you set out to do. Always take your time, start your warmup early, stay focused and don't worry about what everyone else is doing. Lift a dowel with exactly the same care and attention that you would take with 60 kg. Some of the world's best weightlifters spend a lot of time wielding an empty bar.

Press

Here is a fact: you can train diligently for months to add weight to your lifts, kilo by agonizing kilo. Then one day some guy will waltz into the gym and on his first day, lift double your max. This is the tyranny of testosterone, and it is very unfair. It has zero to do with hard work, dedication or talent. Your female upper body strength is probably roughly half that of your boyfriend or husband, even if he is much older than you, and even if he doesn’t lift.

The overhead press is the gold standard of upper body strength. A weightlifter’s press uses the arms, back, shoulders and core, down to the glutes and legs. Every single competition lift must happen very quickly, and end up with that bar overhead and your elbows locked out. You do the same with the press movement. Every kilo you can add to your overhead press will build your confidence and stability in being under the bar. (It will also make your shoulders and back look superb.) There are front presses, push presses, behind-the-neck presses, seated presses, snatch-grip presses and bench presses. Plant your feet and press as much as you can, in every workout. Do not skip this.

Learn and Give Back

One of the best things that I've done in weightlifting was taking the time to become an official. Weightlifting meets always need volunteers, so it's great to study up, pass the test and make some time to help out. Not only does it demonstrate how meets work 'from the inside', but the subsequent experience provides many examples of really good (and bad) lifting. It helps to watch hundreds, even thousands of lifts. Seeing skillful athletes at work is a great help to understand and visualize correct technique. It feels good to contribute to the sport you love, improve its development, and make lots of new contacts who share your passion. Officiating is another pathway to learn, build credibility, and gain satisfaction. For every rich experience in weightlifting, there are a million more yet to be enjoyed, freely accessible by fully participating.

Live It

The most important thing to do to improve focus is to look after yourself, physically and mentally. In physical terms this means taking the healthy option that buys future joy and happiness at the expense of momentary cravings. Mentally and emotionally, it means making the right choices to create an environment in your brain that is clean and ready to perform. It is maximizing immediate productivity and eventual long-term gains by improving energy levels through quality recovery time and fueling correctly for challenging workouts.

Enjoy the feeling of doing right by yourself. There is a certain pride in doing the right things and knowing each day that you are closer to your goals. Then you have all the power you need to live the life you want.