As a weightlifting coach, you want to help your athletes improve as much as possible. You probably have an entire playbook of cues, tips and tricks, drills and complexes. You have probably developed a particular coaching style. However, your style of coaching may not work for everyone.
 
When it comes to athletes with disabilities, most people would think of the challenges that come with physical handicaps or with blindness, but very few people factor in the challenges that come with hearing loss. Deaf athletes have physical considerations to consider, but they are not the most important thing. Communication will be the biggest difficulty in working with hearing impaired athletes. Managing the environment, prioritizing your cues and working with your athletes will be necessary to make sure you can lead them effectively. Coaching hearingimpaired athletes may not require as Herculean an effort as coaching those with physical or visual impairments, but hearing loss does necessitate its own accommodations that will make a world of difference for your athletes.
 
As a note, I am offering these considerations from my perspective as a bilateral cochlear implant user. I don’t use sign language and I don’t rely on lip-reading, so most of my tips are based on making hearing and listening easier rather than accommodating visual or physical assistance. Additionally, people with hearing loss usually have a preferred term to describe this loss. Terms include hard of hearing or hearing impaired, and Deaf or deaf (the former referring generally to those using sign language, the latter referring generally to those using assistive devices and speech). To include everyone, I alternate the terms I use, but please note that these terms are not synonymous. Ask your athletes what term they prefer.
 
PHYSICAL CONSIDERATIONS
 
There are two physical considerations to make with your hard of hearing athletes: balance and imbalances.
 
In terms of balance, your athletes may find it difficult to stay steady. The split jerk in particular may be far more challenging than it might be to another lifter with similar strength, mobility and experience. Even lifting and planting the feet can cause their balance to be shifted more dramatically than it might for another lifter. Balance is a greater concern for deaf athletes because hearing loss is often accompanied by vestibular issues. With practice and training, these athletes can improve their balance, but it will require more effort than most other athletes would need.
 
You will have to gauge the most effective plan because you know your athletes best, but you should consider having these athletes working in and holding staggered positions as often as possible, switching to a power or squat jerk, or altering their lifting style so they are sliding their feet (to receive the snatch, clean and jerk) rather than lifting and replacing them. The simplest strategy is just training, as eventually increasing their strength and body awareness will help their balance.
 
I found that split squats of all kinds as well as holding my jerk split with a wobbly bar (my coach at that time used bands to hang kettlebells from the end shafts) helped my balance the most. That said any unilateral, staggered, alternating or “wobbly” accessories in conjunction with all the other work I was doing for my strength and technique would have probably helped just as much.
 
Some coaches attempt to have their athletes lifting in an environment with nothing in front of them is moving. Typically, vision will be a huge component in a deaf person’s balance, and seeing things move can make it harder to stay steady. But I wouldn’t recommend controlling the view in this way. It will be harder, but lifting with a CrossFit class happening on the other side of the gym or lifting in front of a mirror could force your athletes to adapt to their balance issues faster, and it will prevent a situation where they are in competition and are unprepared to handle it when someone in the audience starts moving. Perhaps controlling the view is a useful strategy in the beginning stages of your athletes’ training, but I would not recommend it in the long term. At most, recommend they pick a focal point to help them keep their balance.
 
You will also find your athletes have various imbalances. This problem is so common for any athlete that it almost isn’t worth mentioning, but it’s important to note that these imbalances may never decrease. They might could be caused by hearing better in one ear than the other. In my case, I hear so much better with my right cochlear implant than with my left that my entire body, including my tongue, twists to my right. These imbalances may be more effort than they’re worth to correct. You should continue programming accessory exercises and drills to address their imbalances as much as possible, but recognize that for your deaf athletes, these issues may never be resolved.
 
COMMUNICATION CONSIDERATIONS
 
Every additional strategy to help coach your hard of hearing athletes is intended to improve your ability to communicate with them. These strategies include controlling your environment, prioritizing your cues and working with your athletes.
 
Controlling Your Environment
 
Where possible, you should consider the environment when accommodating your deaf athletes. Keep class sizes smaller so your athletes don’t need to handle conversation noise and compounded lifting noise on top of trying to hear you. If you usually play music, lower the volume on the speakers and, while it isn’t usually a problem, make sure the speakers don’t cause interference with your athletes’ assistive devices. (I mention this because it has happened to me once with an old radio.) If your gym has large windows or garage doors, avoid opening them during peak traffic times to minimize outside noise, including wind. Keep your gym lights on and replace dead or tinted bulbs to make sure your athletes can see you clearly. These changes are minor and the easiest suggestions to implement, and they will likely benefit all your athletes rather than just those who are hard of hearing or hearing impaired.
 
If you can, install SVR platforms or have all your athletes drop their bars on rubber mats to minimize excess noise. It’s unreasonable to undergo costly renovation for the sake of one or two athletes, so installing new platforms should only be a consideration following other factors, including your gym’s location, your finances, and your gym’s equipment needs.
 
Prioritize Visual and Physical Cues
 
It should go without saying that when communicating with Deaf athletes, visual and physical cues should be your priority. Verbal cues can and do help, but they may not be as effective. Show your athletes what movement you want them to achieve, or— remembering to ask first—manually guide them to the correct positions. If you are verbally explaining your instructions as you demonstrate or manually guide your athletes, make sure they can see you or their interpreter. If you have a whiteboard, try drawing pictures or writing cues on it.
 
If you send your athletes a video to watch (for exercise guides or other information), find one that either doesn’t have sound or has subtitles. If you can’t find subtitles, transcribe it for them. YouTube’s automatic captions are not accurate and make following the video more difficult, and Instagram does not have a subtitles feature. Instagram accounts that always have subtitles include @drjacobharden and @achievefitnessboston.
 
Working with Your Athletes
 
The most important thing you can do as a coach with all your athletes is work with them to learn how to help them. With hearing impaired athletes in particular:
 

1. Face the athletes when talking to them.

 
They may need to read your lips to supplement their hearing (with or without assistive devices) and will need to be able to see your face clearly. Sign language users will obviously need to be able to see you directly.
 

2. Give cues and instruction only when the athletes are able to pay full attention.

 
Avoid shouting cues at your deaf athletes while they are in the middle of a lift. For those using assistive devices, they will need to be paying attention to be able to hear you at all, and those using sign language and reading lips won’t be able to watch you while they’re mid-lift. At best, they won’t hear you and the cue will fall on deaf ears (pun very much intended), and at worst they will lose their balance and get hurt.
 

3. Avoid standing behind the athlete.

 
This point relates partly to the recommendation that you face your athletes to talk to them, and partly to the suggestion that you give cues and instruction only when the athletes are able to listen or watch you fully. As with any of your athletes, give them a heads up if you plan to spot their set so they know you are behind them.
 

4. Work with your athletes’ specific circumstances.

 
Your athletes might have hearing in one ear, or their assistive device (hearing aids, cochlear implants, etc.) might be more helpful in one ear than in the other. Ask your athletes if they have a preference for where you stand to talk to them.
 
If they give you a microphone (FM or digital), use it. Your athletes may be able to hear you if you go to the washroom or talk to another person on the other side of the gym, but they will also have a much easier time hearing you cueing them over the gym noise.
 
If your athletes use sign language and have an interpreter, TALK TO YOUR ATHLETES, NOT TO THE INTERPRETER. You could also be that really cool coach who learns sign language, but until then, make sure you are talking to the person in question, not to the interpreter. This point is a huge matter of etiquette among signers and is generally the primary complaint of deaf and hard of hearing communication.
 
Bottom line
 
The most important point to make about working with any athlete that requires special accommodation is not to make these accommodations about you. You are not the important person in this equation; your athletes are. If they ask you to switch sides, switch sides or explain why you have to stand in that specific spot at that time. If they ask you to use a microphone, use it and don’t whine about how you don’t like feeling overheard or you don’t like wearing it clipped on properly. If your athletes have an interpreter, talk to them and not the interpreter just because the interpreter is the one who can hear you.
 
At my previous gym, I would give a microphone to whichever coach was supervising weightlifting that day. Most of the coaches were great about it, and one would even use it to my greatest advantage by cueing someone else and say, “Lauren, do this too,” or quietly joking around to make me laugh and relax if I was getting too wound up. One coach gave me a bit of a hard time about clipping the microphone to his shirt as opposed to holding it, but I explained why it makes a difference and the issue was resolved. Another coach, one who was coaching me directly at that time, made a similar fuss and when I explained again why I needed him to wear it. He whined “I don’t like it,” into the microphone, and continued to need reminding to use it properly in future sessions. Remember, these accommodations are not about you; they are necessary to facilitate your athletes’ improvement.
 
These suggestions are fairly comprehensive, but always ask your athletes what they need and encourage them to approach you with suggestions or questions. Hearing loss is easier to accommodate than most other disabilities might be, but it will make a world of difference to your hearing-impaired athletes not to have to explain these most basic considerations. It will serve to make you a better coach and produce better athletes.