While I have been wanting to write this article, and my good friend and training partner, Kara Yessie, has been encouraging me to write it, I was avoiding it simply because I didn’t want it to seem as if I were pulling out a page in my diary for ya’ll to read. But I figure someone other than me may struggle with this little thing that is a pretty important factor in one’s training: motivation.

Let’s start from the beginning. Well not the true beginning; the beginning of my new beginning. I was lifting pretty well in 2007 until I got hurt, then continued to train hurt, continued to be hurt, when it all came to a tearing halt (literally) at a very disastrous American Open in December 2007. I spent most of 2008 recovering from a gnarly injury, mostly because I wouldn’t stop training (big mistake), even though I wasn’t on a program and would just do random stuff every day (another big mistake). In 2009, I was almost ready to think about training for real again, and the thought of competition was on my mind, but barely. We had just moved, I was working on my thesis for my MA in Psychology, we were opening a new gym, and I was still hurting 88.737% of the time during training. While I had increased my 2-3 days per week of training to 3-4 days per week, it was purely because I hated being skinny and weak. I really wanted to lift big weights, but I wasn’t motivated to do so. I wanted to start competing again, but I wasn’t motivated to do so. I wanted to be motivated, but I was too busy pretending to be motivated to actually work on being motivated.

Then, with three people who weren’t even lifters, the beginning started.

Jolie

We were hosting a seminar at our gym at the end of January of last year and during the break we were training. I had just finished snatches and had moved on to rack jerks. In those days, I pretty much snatched, jerked and back squatted every time I trained, because those exercises hurt me the least, and well, I was not on a program, and was only doing stuff I liked, while pretending it was really effective. A little gal walked in and was sitting with some other folks watching us train. I jerked 105, and I saw her quickly calculating on her blackberry how much was on the bar; apparently I had caught her attention. A couple days later I received an email that said, “Will you train me?” That was the start of Jolie and I.

From coaching Jolie (in CrossFit and O-lifting), I learned a tremendous amount about having undeniable drive. This girl put 137% in to every training session, she poured herself in to her workouts, and she made me realize that I was falling way short as an athlete. She was the first to show me motivation, and through her, I found what I had lost; the desire. Coaching Jolie helped me become a better athlete. She demonstrated the passion to always push herself past what she thought she was capable of, and she did that for me, because I was asking her to. Jolie never quit during a hellacious metCon, she never stopped when it got heavy, and she rarely stopped when she started missing. She has the most amazing will and guts I have ever seen—she didn’t want to let me down, and she refused to fall short of what she desired—and through that, I realized how selfish I had been with my own training. I couldn’t remember a time that I had ever given more than 90% effort in my training. I treated my lifting like school; I knew I could cruise through and get As and Bs, so I never put in any more effort than I had to. If I could get a B+, than why work harder to get an A? I know! Bad attitude. But this is exactly what I did in training my whole career. I always stopped short of what was hard for me. After a couple months working with Jolie, I was still pretending to be motivated, if we are being honest, but I was starting to have more desire, and was coming close to having more drive to become motivated. Jolie gave me desire, something I had lost with the injury. She helped me to believe again.




Jocelyn

I went to a certification in March of 2009 and saw a gal with strong legs that made me incredibly jealous. I knew who she was because Coach B had emailed me asking me to touch base with this gal, Jocelyn, who he had worked with a bit in the lifts, and he thought she would appreciate some help in preparing for the CrossFit Regionals. Shortly thereafter, I contacted her and invited her to our open gym on Saturday, and that became the start of Jocelyn and me. Through coaching Jocelyn, I learned how an athlete is supposed to fight. I envied her mental strength, and became resentful of my lack thereof. Jocelyn had been a pitcher for UC Berkeley, and in 2002, toward the end of her senior year, her sister was found brutally murdered. Something that is supposed to bring you to your knees, to shatter all your motivation and will to continue to compete, gave her the anger and fire to be better than she had been before. One week later, Jocelyn was back on the mound, pitching the game of her life. She struck out 15 and allowed one-hit against Arizona, and she led her team to Cal’s first NCAA women’s National championship in any sport. She went on to play professional softball for six years, and eventually found CrossFit (and now is focusing on her lifting career, thank Budha! She is hooked!). Coaching Jocelyn taught me how to be tough. Unstoppable. She has been an amazing athlete to coach, and an amazing lesson in mental stability. Watching and coaching her really got me serious about thinking about becoming motivated again. Jocelyn gave me fight, something I doubt I ever had. She taught me to approach everything without fear. She is my hero. In a very non-cheesy-superman-as-your-hero-when-you-were-a-kid kind of way.




Tamara

Tamara Holmes is strength. This girl can kick anyone’s ass, anytime, anywhere, without training. In mid-2009, I invited her to the gym out of pure selfishness. I saw something in her that I was dying to have, and I wanted to absorb it as quickly as possible. So of course I told her to come in for some training with the girls (Jolie and Jocelyn), and used my wanting to coach her as an excuse, when I really just wanted her to be my training partner. Which is exactly what she became. Coaching Tamara showed me what it is to be a strong girl. This girl can skip training for a month and come in and power snatch 75 kg and power clean 103 kg without even warming up. Tamara has been amazing for my motivation, simply because I don’t want her to beat me in the gym. She talks a big game, she doesn’t care what people think of her, and she lifts the hell out of some barbells. I knew Tamara had my back when she said, “We are accepting applications to our club of bad bitches. But don't get it twisted, we invented platform swag and can't let just anyone join. Don't even think about applying unless you have a 200kg total. If you don't know what that is, turn around and take your weak ass game back to Curves.” Shortly after Tamara started coming to the gym, I stopped pretending that I was motivated and seriously became consistent in working hard to dig deep. Tamara gave me humor, and most importantly, strength.




Coaching them, to help me

In the summer of 2009 I knew I was ready to get on a program, and get on the path to compete again. I was finally feeling fabulous after dealing with injuries and pain for almost two years. Coaching these three amazing gals helped me find the things I was lacking: desire and belief, how to fight and to be without fear, and strength. I had found motivation through coaching these girls; I had given so much to them, and unknowingly, they gave even more to me. I poured my heart into their success and their improvement because all three of them were teaching me valuable lessons, irreplaceable tools, and they had given me something that I had never had—the motivation to actually want to be the best. To want to go beyond what I ever had before. To coach such amazing athletes has made me want to be equally amazing. I have never told them how much each of them meant, in very different ways, in jump starting my weightlifting career, becoming such astounding friends and mentors, and the key to hanging on to motivation for dear life. Through coaching them, I almost felt as if I had fallen short for my own coach. I wondered if I ever gave Coach B what these girls had given me, and for that I was deeply regretful and vowed to give him (and now Matt) everything I had, every single day. I had someone else to be motivated for.

Motivation in other forms

By the end of 2009, I had the motivation, but I needed the direction. I harassed Matt Foreman to do some programming for me since my coach was traveling all over the world and was as busy and popular as Britney Spears. I had a fabulous new training partner, Kara Yessie, who happened to move here, thankfully, right after I had opened Pandora’s box [to motivation]. I had three tough chicks to coach (and ultimately learn from), I had a fantastic new program that came with a coach, other than Coach Burgener (who I miss terribly, although I feel he thinks the break from me, and Jack Daniels, is like a much needed vacation), willing to put up with me, I was motivated, I wasn’t hurting, and for the first time in my life, I was putting everything I had in to every single training session and I was finally ready to come out and play with the big girls.

Fast-forward to 2010, and the road to Nationals… Aimee the athlete was hitting numbers in training that surpassed her lifetime competition PRs, and far exceeded anything she has ever done in the gym. She was consistently hitting above 95% the 6-7 weeks before Nationals, all her lifts were feeling easier and easier. However, Aimee the person hit a lot of nasty bumps in the road, and had a lot of tears, a lot of heartache, and a lot of punches all coming from different directions. Each punch that came, Aimee the athlete would draw from Jolie’s desire, Jocelyn’s fight on that pitching mound (When approaching a bar, I often thought… If Joc can deal with THAT, than I can certainly deal with THIS), and Tamara’s undeniable strength. She would look over at Kara, and see the support, sing a tune in her head, and approach the bar as if Aimee the person didn’t exist. The athlete had hung on to that motivation despite what the person was going through, and she excelled. Four days before Nationals, on June 8th, Aimee the person found out she was very sick and couldn’t travel. Aimee the athlete was crushed because she had a chance to make the world team, and was in the best shape in her life. Aimee the athlete felt herself slipping back in to that dark hole of where she had found herself in 2007 post-injury—the place where motivation doesn’t exist, where fear grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go.




A new, young form

This past weekend I was at School Age Nationals helping in the warm-up room with the cards. I am so glad I was there at that moment, and know now that I was supposed to be right there at exactly that time to bring me out of that hole. A young girl, Megan Poole, was competing as a 63 in the 16-17 year division. She was in the #2 spot fighting for another 63 girl’s #1 spot, in order to be the one athlete chosen to go to the Youth Olympics. She ended up not moving in to the #1 spot, but let me tell you why she touched me, why she is going to be better than that #1 girl, and why she reached in to the hole and pulled me out without even knowing it. This girl has the most amazing fight, the most incontestable competitiveness, and is absolutely the most precious thing to have ever touched a barbell.

Both girls opened with 95 kg in the clean & jerk, and both girls missed their first attempt. After her first miss, she walked back to the warm-up room to get ready for her second attempt. I was rooting for her and I didn’t even know her. Both girls then missed their second attempts, and Megan came back to her chair with everything written all over her face that I had felt many, many times in training and in competition: the fear, the determination, the doubt, the desire to win, the wanting to gain control, the hard work, the raw emotion, the begging yourself to make the lift. The tears in her eyes got to me because I knew what place she was in at that moment.

Both girls missed their third attempts, and Megan was shattered, and in tears, and broken. But to me, she was a fighter who put more on that platform with her misses than I had ever given with my makes. She left more on that platform than many lifters do in their whole careers. She has an enormous amount of mental power, which she possibly doesn’t even know exists—and is exactly what is going to bring her out on top in the end. She is my hero, a true champion to have what she has at such a young age. She has given me the new motivation to come back after missing Nationals, and fight even harder, train more fiercely, attack each lift even more. She will likely never forget that day, and neither will I. She is going to be great, and not even knowing her, I am so proud of her.

How does this help anyone or anything?

I am a person with real issues, but I can also still be an athlete. I have worked really hard to get to this place and I refuse to fall back to not-so-motivated-and-wimpy 90% Aimee. Motivation comes in many different forms, and it has taken me a long time to find it, draw from it, and run with it. Who knew coaching some girls, and getting a new training partner from Canada would be the key to my motivation? Who knew watching a young girl leave her broken heart on the platform would make me realize there are other chances, and to never walk off the platform with a regret- miss or make?

So while this seems like it is indeed a page out of my diary, my intent is to tell you that motivation is there, even when you feel you have none. Any coach is lucky to have an athlete who teaches you as much as you teach them, and I have three! I look back at all the years I have been the athlete, and hope that I have taught Coach Burgener and Matt something they can hold on to. I found it, finally, after years of searching, and I am hanging on and keeping it very close. If you are a coach, or an athlete, find it, keep it, and don’t let it go. And when that little guy hops on your shoulder to try to take away your motivation, keep in mind what my coach Matt says: “That fucker doesn’t know shit about weightlifting.”