You know it when you see it. You know it when you lift it. You’ve legally managed to power through a lift you’d otherwise be buried by, shaking your head as your feet recover underneath the bar. It felt like shit. It looked like shit. “But did you make it?” asks coach, and you nod begrudgingly to own a lift you aren’t proud of, and you’re reminded that a make is a make is a make. But in a sport that is so technically grueling, where every day is a fight to get it all right, it can be confusingly unsatisfying even when we’ve completed the task of securing the bar overhead. We demand more of ourselves.
 
Most often, the mistakes we make feel much worse than they are physically pronounced—like a back-breaking jerk, looking like minor overextension on camera—but I know I can’t be the only one who has felt this dissatisfaction before. I learn over and over that my experiences as a weightlifter have been lived many times over and will continue forth in this fashion. But I refuse to believe that greatness in weightlifting is achieved by just getting by or being technically proficient enough for legality’s sake.
 
The rules are simple, and the size of the splash has no place in judging a lift. But sometimes, I think it ought to.
 
Did the lifter maintain elbows off the knees? Check. Did their elbows lock out instantaneously and maintain rigidity? Check. Did the lifter wait for the down signal? Check. But was it technically sound? Did the bar take the lifter for a ride? Who was lifting who?
 
I often wonder why these qualities are left unevaluated—it’s a sport scored on merit after all, is it not? Why not raise the standards? If the scoring of our sport doesn’t press technical excellence, how can we as lifters expect this of ourselves? Perhaps subjective scoring will be our ticket out of drug misuse…
 
Now before I go too far in my accusations, let me remind you all that I am mostly a local competitor and a coach for beginner lifters and CrossFit. My frustrations are warranted. I am quite used to seeing technique go south in attempts of lifting north of 85%. If CrossFit’s founder defined virtuosity as performing the common uncommonly well, I up the ante for a sport like ours: performing the uncommon, commonly with technical excellence.  I do not encourage an ever discontent when the lift is less than perfect, as that is all too easy a loop to ride, but I do suggest that we recognize the Jenny Arthur’s walking among us, honoring smooth, obvious, and poised movement on the bar.
 
It took me around four years to decidedly attempt each warm-up set intentionally, rather than blow through them to get to the main event. Until then, it hadn’t added up that crap warm-ups would make for crap working sets. The commitment to technique all the way through is what allows a max effort attempt to be executed in the same fashion as lighter lifts, at least much more likely.  Have you ever seen a crap lift trying to be sold to a judge by slapping on a smile? Yeah, don’t be that lifter. In the last few months, I’ve witnessed jaw droppingly terrible lifts (even straight up illegal lifts) granted the pearly whites, left in the running alongside some beautiful technicians.
 
“Good Lift!” the marshall says.
Good lift? That lift was garbage!
Is the judging too lax? Does crappy technique make it harder to see said illegalities?  I think it may be both. But let's call that shit show what it was—legal lift, or okay lift would be more sufficient…
 
There is a point in our lifting career where we have heard the same cue over and over, by more than one coach at times, and we begin to feel what is going wrong in our execution. We become self-critical—in a good way—knowing what a good lift felt like (MIRACULOUS), and when it falls short of our best work, or lacks to reflect our efforts. In this act we are cultivating standards for ourselves, a gauge beyond our coaches’ response of what was good, what went right, what we’ve learned and conquered. This is precision strength, after all—we should encourage our lifters to be critical in this way.
 
By no means is this a call to action to revoke any honors granted to lifts that may have been deemed janky in their execution. This is a call to action for coaches (their struggle is real; teaching people to move beautifully is no cake walk) and lifters to raise their bar, so to speak—to aspire for a higher quality. Be clear about the expectations of yourself and drill the hell out of them with 50%. When we’ve seen the sport performed well, it is so easy to be a purist, and I recognize the months and possibly, years, that I ask of your attention.
 
I forget—often—that every lifter’s objective, their “why,” if you will, is different, and not everyone cares to have their legacy determined by their technical proficiency. This is a strength sport, and when it REALLY comes down to it, it is about the weight secured overhead by way of two distinct disciplines. But this is also a sport for the obsessive type. It is undeniably mesmerizing when record breaking weight moves with speed, accuracy, and appears impossibly weightless. To me, that’s the magic of the sport as a spectator, and the feeling of it as the one in the arena is what I lift for.