Over the years, I’ve seen plenty of highly talented athletes burst onto the weightlifting scene. And when I say “burst” onto the scene, I’m talking about a specific kind of situation. Just follow me on this one.
 
Let’s say you’re at a local weightlifting meet. You’re watching all the competitors making their lifts on the platform, and many of them are familiar faces. You see them at the meets all the time. They’re the regulars. But then you see a new face, and this one makes a big impression. For example, let’s say we’re watching the women’s session at this meet. The first six or seven gals in this session are all snatching around 45-55 kg, normal local meet stuff. Then you get to the next group of ladies who are snatching 70-75 kg. These are the regulars we talked about. They’ve been around for a few years, working their asses off and making progress at each meet, and now they’re the top lifters on the local scene. Some of them probably compete nationally.
 
Then, a new girl hits the platform and snatches 85 kg in the 64 kg class. It’s her first competition. Nobody has ever seen her before. She’s a complete rookie, and she’s crushing weights that are miles beyond all the experienced lifters in the meet. She then goes on to clean and jerk 100 kg, qualifying for every national competition on the calendar her first time out. Everybody is blown away, and the buzz has already started.
 
When this gal was on the platform, you looked over at the chalk box to see who her coach is. You might have expected to see an experienced, accomplished coach who has a long track record of producing successful lifters, considering how impressive her lifts were. But you were surprised to see her coach is just a regular Joe Blow dude who runs the barbell program at the CrossFit gym she trains at. This guy isn’t really a weightlifting coach. He doesn’t even compete himself. He just happens to be the guy who knows how to teach the OLifts at this girl’s gym, so he’s the one who coached her at her meet.
 
Let me tell you how this situation is going to play out, my friends. As sure as God made little green apples, other coaches are going to try to recruit this gal. You’re going to have a handful of serious coaches at this meet who run their own clubs, and they’re going to be licking their chops at the thought of getting this thoroughbred in their stable. When they approach her, they’re going to talk a big game about how much potential she has, how she could win a medal at Nationals next year and make an international team, etc. They’re probably going to tell her about the amazing team of lifters they coach, and how she would fit right in. In a nutshell, they’re going to tell her she could go straight to the top of the mountain if she comes and trains with them. Some of these coaches might do this in a subtle way, while others might march straight up to her in front of her CrossFit coach and try to poach her right out from under him.
 
Most likely, this gal is going to be flattered and overwhelmed by all the attention. Even though she likes her CrossFit coach and she’s grateful for all the help he’s given her, she’s going to be interested in the idea of joining a big-time club and working with a big-time coach.
 
In this kind of situation, it’s very easy to wind up with too many chefs in the kitchen. This girl is going to have multiple people telling her what she should do, how she should train, what kind of technique changes she should make, what kind of program she should follow, etc. In the era of social media and texting, it’ll be easy for this kind of communication to flow. Her CrossFit coach might be open to the idea of letting her get input from other coaches because he knows he’s not a real weightlifting guy and this girl’s talent level is way above his pay grade. Or he might think the opposite way, wanting to hang onto her and fighting furiously to ward off all the vultures that are trying to steal her away.
 
In this article, I want to take a look at this whole mess. And when I use the word “mess,” I mean it. This is basically a bad situation for everybody, for multiple reasons. If you’re a coach, athlete, or parent, you need to understand how to handle a predicament like this, just in case you ever find yourself in the middle of one. First, I want to tell you about my overall philosophy in this department. Then, I want to tell you about the right and wrong decisions that can be made by both coaches and athletes.
 
Overall Philosophy
 
Actually, I think a list of rules and guidelines is the best way to communicate this. Weightlifting people love lists, so here you go:
 
Rule #1: Athletes will have the most success if they’ve got only one coach working with them.
 
I believed this as an athlete, and I believe this now as a coach. When a weightlifter is getting coaching input from more than one person, there’s an unlimited range of negative possibilities and very few positive ones. You’ve almost got a 100 percent guarantee that there will be conflicting input, at some point. Coach #1 will tell the lifter to never do power snatches, and coach #2 will tell the lifter power snatches are valuable, this kind of thing. This leaves the lifter confused. It also creates tension and animosity between the coaches, with the lifter stuck in the middle. This establishes a dysfunctional overall vibe, which is terrible for a weightlifter. This sport is already hard enough, with the setbacks and the challenges and the injuries and the mental game and all that other crap. If you throw in a negative vibe on top of everything, it’s a recipe for disaster. I’ve seen some promising careers destroyed because of this.
 
Rule #2: If you’re going to have multiple coaches, the boundaries and expectations have to be extremely clear and everybody has to be okay with them.
 
Even though the basic premise of this article is the destructive outcome of having multiple coaches, we want to acknowledge that there are certain situations where it can work effectively. I think this is possible if you’ve got different coaches who are responsible for different parts of the athlete’s training, and no toes are being stepped on because everybody is totally fine with all of it. For example, I know a highly ranked national lifter who has a programming coach and a “everything else” coach. The programming coach sends her the workouts, and that’s it. He doesn’t live in the same area as her, so she never trains with him, and he doesn’t come to meets. The “everything else” coach works with her in the gym on her technique and whatnot, and he also handles her in competition. The two coaches know each other and there’s a mutual respect. The everything-else coach obviously does the most hands-on work with her, and he’s comfortable with the programming she gets from the other guy. There’s no dysfunction. No negative vibe. Everybody is happy with the arrangement, and the lifter is having success.
I’ve also seen situations where the athlete’s daily coach is an inexperienced newcomer, so the athlete does frequent training sessions with a more accomplished high-level coach. The daily coach knows he’s not going to be able to provide the athlete with the kind of advanced help he/she needs, and the more accomplished coach isn’t trying to poach the lifter. There’s no dysfunction. Both coaches just want to help the lifter out, and nobody is working a hidden agenda or undermining the other one. In any areas of disagreement, the inexperienced coach defers to the expertise of the more accomplished coach, so the lifter never has to feel trapped between two voices. These kinds of setups are rare, and they often don’t work for long because the coaches’ egos are eventually going to tilt things out of whack. But we have to recognize that it’s not impossible.
 
Bottom Line: Most of the time, multiple coaches aren’t a good idea. It can be done, but only with a lot of clear communication that everybody feels comfortable with.
 
Individual Responsibility
 
Once again, let’s break this down into sections. It’s important to know what both athletes and coaches should do if they find themselves in a situation like this:
 
Athletes: If you’ve got a coach, stay loyal to your coach. Plain and simple. You’re in a committed relationship, so you have to honor that commitment. Don’t cheat on your coach with somebody else. Now, if a time comes when you need to break the relationship off because you want to go someplace else, do it the right way. If you want to switch coaches, have a face-to-face conversation with your current coach where you explain yourself, shake hands, and walk away from the whole thing with the lowest level of hard feelings you can manage. Be totally up front with everybody. It’s a lot like boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, don’t you think? If you’re in a committed relationship, you don’t flirt with somebody else on the side. In weightlifting terminology, emailing back and forth with another coach for training advice is the equivalent of that flirting. It’s pretty low-rent behavior, so don’t let yourself get sucked into it.
 
Coaches: One of the fundamental rules in coaching is that you don’t poach lifters from other coaches. This actually doesn’t happen too often, simply because it’s such an understood scumbag move. Even if you’re an elite coach and the athlete in question is working with some CrossFit dude who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, you still don’t get in the middle of it. It’s completely unacceptable. Now, the trickier situation is when the athlete comes to YOU. Let’s go back to our example of the rookie gal who did 85/100 at 64 kg with a no-name coach working with her. This girl clearly has the potential to go far, and she needs guidance from somebody with a bigger track record than the CrossFit dude who started her. At some point, she’ll probably realize that, and she’ll start putting out feelers. If you’re an accomplished coach and this girl contacts you, you should probably say something like this: “I’m flattered that you’re asking me for help, but I know you’ve already got a coach, and it would be inappropriate for me to advise you on your lifting when you’re working with somebody else.”
 
And leave it at that. Now, the next words out of the athlete’s mouth might be something like, “Oh I talked to my coach. He’s okay with me asking you for help.” In this case, I would double-check on it. You don’t know this athlete, and you don’t know if you’re getting the truth. I was once in a situation exactly like this, where the athlete assured me that it was okay with her coach if I work with her on the side. Well, you guessed it. I started giving her some help, and her coach didn’t know anything about it, and it eventually led to a blowup where she got herself kicked out of her gym, and her coach thought I was a prick.
 
Was it my fault she got kicked out? Not really, but I think the whole disaster could have been avoided if I would have done a little checking before I started giving input. Like I said, this is all about communication. It’s amazing how many problems can be avoided simply by talking things out in advance.
 
And finally
 
The lifter might want to jump ship. She might realize that she needs a better coach if she wants to take a shot at making the Olympic Team, and she might want to leave her current coach and join up with you.
 
If that’s the case, fair enough. Given the circumstances of the example we’ve been using, it’s probably the smartest move for this lifter. A 185 total at 64 kg in her first meet? Yeah, she’s got a shot at the big leagues, and her CrossFit coach probably won’t be able to take her there. If I was in her position, I would make a change. Actually, I WAS in this exact position when I was 19, and I did make the change. I left my first coach, who didn’t have the tools to take me very far, and I went to one of the US elite coaches. The result? My total went up 35 kg in the first year I was with him, and I jumped straight into the medal mix at the national level. Like I said, changing coaches can sometimes be the right move.
 
But I made a clean break when I did it. I didn’t spend three months working with another coach on the side, getting input from different sources. Even back then when I was still a teenager, I knew how the game needed to work. Aside from all the weightlifting logistics of getting confused by conflicting voices, I always knew loyalty was pretty important. This sport works best when you’ve got a bulletproof bond between the athlete and the coach. Why do you think lifters sprint off the platform after they make big lifts and dive into hugs with their coaches? It’s because of loyalty. That tight bond is one of the main reasons the lifter is making those big lifts.
 
Weightlifting is basically a monogamous sport. Just like in real life, having multiple partners at the same time dramatically increases the potential for catastrophe, especially if these partners all think they’re the only one. Take my advice on this one. Don’t let too many chefs into the kitchen.