Recently I’ve become concerned by the number of people who seem to have forgotten that Weightlifting is a sport. A real world-wide sport forming part of the Olympic Games. A competitive activity in which, with the right talent and commitment, you could one day prove that you are the best in the world. Take a moment to really consider what that means: You can devote the prime athletic years of your life to lifting a barbell and prove you are the best in your club, then in your town, then in your region, your country.  Eventually you can climb to the top of the heap of everyone who is weightlifting right now. That is no small thing. That right there is something worth taking seriously.

I’ve noticed that some of us lose sight of the serious competitive nature at the core of the sport and we prioritize some of the supplementary benefits of weightlifting over and above our core goals. I think this dilemma goes right to the heart of the current weightlifting scene. Some of us, coaches and athletes alike, may need a paradigm shift to help us reach our potential. My own weightlifting career (such as it is) began in CrossFit, where the culture ascribes a very high value to the social bonds formed by training together. These bonds in fact often form a significant part of what makes CrossFit so attractive. Along with those social bonds comes a sense of loyalty: loyalty to fellow athletes, loyalty to the coaching staff and even loyalty to a particular gym or brand.

Loyalty is important. As a coach, I know that fostering a sense of loyalty in lifters means you can afford to eat, pay taxes, run a car, etc. However, if we’re serious about the future of our sport, loyalty should never be valued over and above athletic progression and performance.

Remember, athletic progression and subsequent improvements in performance are the ultimate goal of a competitive sport. If you just want to lift weights to improve your general fitness, I’m not talking to you. I am talking to anyone who wants to achievea consistent level of advancement and anyone who competes or aspires to compete at any level.

I have noticed that athletes who are, or who have been part of the functional fitness movement perceive moving to a different club or training under a different coach as a kind of heresy. I get it. When I started out my first S&C coach helped me recover after a life-threatening bout of Rhabdomyolysis. I could not have had a better coach at that moment to help me rebuild my strength and more critically my shattered confidence. But therein lies the crux of my argument. At that specific time in my weightlifting career, he was the perfect coach for me. Two years later he no longer was. Let me make it clear: We didn’t have a falling out, he didn’t let me down, I never badmouth him. He’d just taught me what he could and after a year or two, I was ready for a different kind of coach.

With the growing number of athletes transitioning from an S&C and/or CrossFit training methodology into the sport of weightlifting, I believe many are coming to the realization that they need to move on, but due to a kind of blind loyalty they are staying put and guess what? It’s killing their performance and progression, ensuring that they’ll never achieve their potential. More troublingly, some coaches are complicit in this because their ego or their business interests discourage them from putting their athletes first.          

As a community, we need to debunk this myth that leaving your current training environment to go to another one that better suits your needs is somehow disloyal. Now, there are ways of making the break that are ill-mannered and underhand and believe me, these behaviors will actually make it hard to find a decent coach who will work with you in future, so it’s a good idea to do whatever you can to try to leave a club or gym on good terms. Any coach worth their salt will help you make the transition and may even initiate it when they see that they cannot help you in the next phase of your training.

Still not sure if you need to make a change? Let me help: If you feel the coaching you are getting is not regular or focused enough for you to be making headway into bad habits and develop a more consistent technique, if your numbers are stagnant and not reflective of the amount of time and energy you put in at the gym, if you find that your coach hardly ever coaches you anymore (which could be a sign they’ve taught you as much as they know), if the training program you’re following does not look like a structured Olympic Weightlifting program, or if the gym you train with doesn’t have the support you need to start competing. All of these are completely valid reasons for looking for a new coach and/or training facility.
How should you go about moving on? Do whatever you can to leave on good terms. Wherever you’re at now, the coach and gym you’re leaving helped you get there. They deserve your thanks and appreciation for their work. Decide for yourself the most diplomatic way to explain your reasons for leaving. Please don’t leave without saying anything and let them find out via photos on social media. Bear in mind that the weightlifting scene is a small world and your reputation, good or bad, will always precede you. It goes without saying that you shouldn’t leave debt behind and remember to return borrowed gear. It’s hard enough to make ends meet running a gym.

Personally, I learnt to prioritize my development as an athlete the hard way. I spent far too long training in an environment where I could no longer progress as an athlete (or coach) simply because I felt I owed it to others to stay there. I have no one to blame but myself for this. Looking back, I’ve realized that as a coach sometimes I will need to be the one to push an athlete out of the nest so they can achieve their potential. I urge everyone to remember that weightlifting is primarily a competitive sport and that in this context it is normal for an athlete to work with a multitude of coaches and training partners throughout their career. If you were to adopt this paradigm, consider the potential for progression that you might then be able to tap into.