The countdown is on. There are three issues of this magazine left, including this one. That means I have three more Performance Menu articles to write…including this one. I wrote my first one in October 2008, and I’ve never missed a month. It’s currently September 2021. That’s a long run.

I find that when people are near the end of a job, there are two common approaches to finishing it out. They either phone it in and put forth the least effort possible until they get a chance to slide out the door, or they push hard and go for a big finish. Guess which one I’m going to do?

I spent a lot of time this week trying to think about the three best things I could write about with this final trio of articles. After much deliberation, I had brain blast. I’ve been in weightlifting for three decades now, so I’m going to dedicate these last three issues to the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my first, second, and third decades as a weightlifter. One decade per article.

The main thing I’ve always tried to accomplish in this magazine is delivering some useful information to the weightlifting community. You’re reading this because you want something that’s going to make you better as a weightlifter or a coach. I’ve been around the block quite a few times in the sport, so I’ve seen and done just about everything. What I’ve loved most about Performance Menu is the opportunity to share some of my experience with all of you, hoping it’ll make your careers better. When I was getting started, I learned great lessons from the veterans of the sport. They taught me a lot, and I want to pay it forward.
 
So, when I look back at my first decade in Olympic weightlifting (1990-2000), what’s the most valuable thing I learned in that time period? Honestly, it took me a while to narrow it down. 10 years of full-time commitment to a sport covers a lot of ground, and I could write endlessly if I really wanted to touch on everything that took place during those years. But if I HAD to pick the BIGGEST idea that stands out the most, here it is.
 
Weightlifting is a “stand in line and wait your turn” sport.
 
Read on and I’ll explain. Trust me, you need to know this. It applies to you just as much as it applied to me.
 
The basic concept
 
Let me use some personal experience to illustrate this. I’ll talk about my story for a moment, and then we’ll talk about you.
 
I was 17 when I competed in my first Olympic weightlifting meet. I snatched 80 kg and clean and jerked 100 kg in the old 90 kg weight class. Just some run-of-the-mill local meet numbers from a young kid, nothing special. But I was hooked on the sport, and I knew I wanted to keep going with it.
 
Like many of you, I immediately dove into learning as much as I could, and I got addicted to following the action at the top levels of the weightlifting scene. I knew the names of all the top national competitors, along with the international superstars. I was a fanboy, big time.
 
However, I wasn’t JUST a fan. I wanted to be one of those big dogs, and I believed I had the potential to do it. I wasn’t sure if I had the ability to make it to the Olympics, but I definitely thought I could at least make it to the national scene.
 
So I jumped in head first and dedicated my whole life to Olympic weightlifting. I found a great coach, moved halfway across the country to lift for him, and started the long journey. Did I eventually make it to the top of the national level? Yes, I did. And here’s the progression for how it worked.
 
1991-1992: I competed in the Junior Nationals and University Nationals, usually placing 4^th or 5^th. No medal podiums.
 
1993: I won a silver medal at University Nationals and qualified for my first American Open.
 
1994: I won University Nationals and qualified for my first National Championship.
 
1994: 1999- I competed in six National Championships. Here were my placings.
1994: 6^th place
1995: 7^th place
1996: 5^th place
1997: 4^th place
1998: 3^rd place
1999: 4^th place
 
So yes, I eventually did reach the medal podium at the National Championships when I placed 3^rd in 1998. But you can see how the journey worked.
 
I had to stand in line and wait my turn. For my first couple of years, I couldn’t even qualify for the Nationals. I could only get to Junior and University National level, and I wasn’t even a medal winner. Then, over the next two years, I made it to the podium in those lower-level national meets before I finally qualified for the big dance: the National Championship. And take a look at my placements.
 
I just slowly worked my way up the ladder, year after year. 7^th place…6^th place…5^th place…4^th place. I spent eight years waiting my turn for my moment on that national championship medal podium I’d dreamed of when I went to my first meet at 17. And guess what you’re doing while you’re standing in line and waiting your turn? Every year, every month, every week, every year…you’re working your sweet little ass off.
 
You’re constantly fighting, clawing, biting, and scratching for one more kilo of progress. One more PR. You’re living with pain, dealing with injuries, mentally struggling with setbacks and lack of progress, and sometimes doubting the whole damn thing. You’re broke, putting the rest of your life on hold to chase the dream. You can’t have normal relationships because everything has to revolve around your training. You have to pass on a lot of fun life stuff because it would interfere with your lifting, and you can’t take your foot off the gas pedal for one second if you really want to make it to the top. It’s a very, very difficult life, and you have to eat, sleep, and breathe it for YEARS if you want to reach that big-time moment you dreamed of.
 
If you set big goals for yourself in this sport, this is the life you’re choosing. Now, let’s talk about those exceptions many of you are thinking about right now, because you’re all coming up with names of lifters you’ve known who DIDN’T have to stand in line to get to the top. Those rare freaks who qualify for nationals their first year and win it their second year. Okay, sure. Let’s say something about them.
 
Waiting your turn for YOUR level
 
Everybody who does this sport has their own individual range of ability. They’ve got the potential to reach a specific level, and that level is completely dependent on their personal athletic capability.
 
Personally, my level of potential was obviously medal-podium-at-the-top-national-level-but-not-GOLD-medal-position. In addition to these National Championships, I told you about, I also competed in ten American Opens and won silver or bronze medals in five of them. In other words, I was good enough to place near the top of the food chain at the US national level for several years, but I never made it up to the #1 spot. I gave it everything I had, and that’s how far I went. And like I said, it took many years to get there.
 
But what about lifters like Shane Hamman, our top superheavyweight throughout the late 90s and 2000s? Shane won the National Championship the first time he competed in it. He didn’t have to stand in line and wait his turn for that national gold medal. He got it with less than a year of training in the sport. Doesn’t that contradict my whole argument?
 
No, it doesn’t. Because even though Shane became national champion almost immediately after he started Olympic weightlifting, he still had to stand in line and wait his turn to get to his own personal level of capability. Shane eventually did a 197.5 kg snatch and 237.5 kg clean and jerk, which are the biggest lifts in American history. He made two Olympic teams and won the Pan Am Games. His individual level of potential wasn’t the national level. His potential was “best in US history and one of the best in the world.” THAT’S what he had to stand in line and wait for.
 
See what I mean? It’s all about levels in this sport. For some lifters, their top level of capability might be winning the state championship in their home state. That’s the biggest thing they’re capable of accomplishing. I won a state championship after one year of training, so I didn’t have to stand in line and wait my turn for that. But the state level wasn’t the top of my personal potential level. Mine was the national championship podium, and I definitely had to wait my turn for it, as you saw in my career results.
 
Some people get pissed off about this because they see people with higher potential levels blow right past them. The first time Shane competed at the national level was at the 1996 American Open. At that time, I’d been training my ass off for six years and I’d worked my way up to a 142.5 kg snatch. Shane showed up at that ’96 Open and snatched 157.5 kg. I think he’d been training for six months at the time.
 
And we can find plenty more examples out there. Lifters like CJ Cummings, Kate Nye, and Harrison Maurus rose to the top of the US national ranks while they were still teenagers. CJ could beat any grown man in this country before he even had a driver’s license. But as we’ve seen, their levels of potential are way beyond the national championship. Olympic medals (and maybe GOLD medals) are the capabilities of these studs, and guess what? If they want to reach those heights, they’ll have to stand in line, wait their turn, and work their guts out every step of the way.
 
And this is what your future looks like
Listen, some of you are doing this sport completely recreationally. You’re not revolving your whole life around it. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that. People can pursue and enjoy Olympic weightlifting at whatever level of seriousness and commitment they want. Freedom of choice.
 
But you’ve probably still got goals. I’ve never met a weightlifter in my life who didn’t have some kind of pinnacle out there in the distance that they’re chasing. Maybe it’s a medal. Maybe it’s a weight. Maybe a 200 lb. snatch is your personal Olympic gold medal.
 
Whatever it is, it’s probably something you’re going to have to put in years of hard work to get to. If your big goal is something you can achieve quickly, with only a year or two of work, that’s fine. But it’s probably not your top level of capability. Let’s say you start weightlifting and you snatch 80 kg after your first six months. So you say to yourself, “90 kg is my career goal. That’s my top-of-the-mountain number.”
 
Sure, that’s fine. But my experience tells me you’re probably selling yourself short. You should dream bigger than that. I mean, 90 kg might very well be the top number you ever hit. Who knows? But if you snatched 80 kg after your first six months, I doubt if 10 more kg of progress is the absolute limit of your physical capability. If you choose to invest more years of hard work and commitment, you’ve probably got a lot more in you.
 
Brothers and sisters, this is the best thing I learned in my first decade as an Olympic weightlifter. It’s not the ONLY thing I learned. Not by a long shot. But it’s the biggest thing that stands out in my mind when I look back on the whole picture of my career, and I think it’s the mentality you need to ingrain in your mind IF you really want to squeeze everything out of yourself.
 
And you won’t know what your highest level of capability is when you’re right at the beginning. At that point, it’s too early to predict where you’ll top out. You have to put in quite a bit of time and work before you even start to get a ballpark idea of what you’ve got in you.
 
Weightlifting takes a long time. I know it sounds simplistic to say that, but it’s something you need to keep reminding yourself as you continue on your road. That’s the bottom line of my early years in the sport, and you’ll understand someday if you push it long enough.
 
Until next month, my friends. Decade #2 and lesson #2 are coming up next month.