Disclaimer and Guest Post

nFirst the disclaimer. If you have emailed me in the last 3 days. I promise I will get to that email… eventually. As this blog posts I am currently on the tail end of a 12 hour drive from Dallas to God’s Country of Northeast Georgia. With my transition from Outlaw I did not expect near the amount of volume of emails and comments. I am working on creating a process to handle it. I’ll have that figured out this week and will reply to those emails ASAP. I promise.
That being said below is an article from a friend and fellow training partner. James is dang good Master’s lifter who competed at the American Open AND also at the Masters Pan Ams. AKA he’s pretty good at slinging weights around. (I think it’s his massive biceps)
In case any of you did not pay attention to the results of the American Open OR did not read this blog post then you don’t know that I did not have the greatest meet of my life. In fact I went 0 for 9. Yes it’s possible… miss your last warmup snatch and your last two warmup CJ and you’ll know what that feels like.
That being said, remember the sport of weightlifting is not always nice. In fact, it’s most often very cruel. Below are James’ thoughts about that truth.
nThe Ugly Truth about Weightlifting:nI felt so bad for Spencer. I honestly hurt for him. Not only because he is my friend, how hard he worked, how important the meet was for him, but because I know how bad it hurts to bomb. I found out this year. Twice. Sometimes, I have to learn things the hard way. Leave me alone, I’m old! Yes, it hurts real bad. I sure wasn’t prepared for it. You can’t imagine how it feels until it happens to you. And don’t you worry, it will. Just a matter of time. Part of the game. Yes y’all , confessions of a fellow bomber here.
When you get into the sport of Weightlifting, no one really pulls you aside and warns you about this. So I’m going to scratch the surface here to put it on your radar if not already.
Jon North had the following quote which pretty much sums it up in my estimation as well.
“Accept the darkness, accept the hell, accept there are more bad days than good, and you will succeed in this sport of weightlifting.”
Bombing in a meet or even worse, a big meet is the epitome of that darkness. You want to talk about the loneliest car or plane ride home of hours of silence and stuck in your own head? Yeah, I don’t recommend it. There is no rewind button, just next time. You could have done everything right and nailed your warm ups, but then, you miss your first snatch. Something you just made or supposed to make 100% of the time. Panic starts to set in. Things start to spiral on you, nothing feels right, the pressure mounts and guess what, it happened to you. Welcome to the club. There is nothing anyone can say or do to make you feel better or change it.
So what do you do? You get your ass back in the gym. You use it for motivation to never ever feel all of those overwhelming negative emotions again. Its a pretty strong deterrent and motivator. Let me tell ya. Then, you might never figure out why you bombed exactly but you have to either do things better or different. Try to figure it out. Sign up for that next meet right away and then make your lifts. Its the only way to get over bombing. Trust me and don’t do it again now.
~ James Aftomis