Olympic Weightlifting
Three Hours a Week
I competed in Olympic weightlifting from 2010 to 2019 while running businesses and coaching full time. I never had the hours a full-time lifter has. In 2019 I won the Masters World Cup anyway.
On the results sheets
The Numbers
Nine years on the platform. Ten national qualifications. Here's what's on the results sheets.
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2019Masters World Cup
Masters World Cup champion
M35, 89 kilo class, San Diego. The clean and jerk was 20 kilos clear of second place.
Snatch 113 kgClean & Jerk 153 kgTotal 266 kg -
2013National Championships
Seventh at the National Championships
Snatch 125 kgClean & Jerk 160 kgTotal 285 kg -
2012American Open
Fifth at the American Open
94 kilo class.
Snatch 128 kgClean & Jerk 153 kgTotal 281 kg -
2010–19The full run
Ten national qualifications
Ten times qualified for national competition, with multiple top ten finishes, across nine years of competing.
153 kilos in 2012. 153 kilos in 2019. Seven years later, five kilos lighter, on three hours a week.
Why it worked
Why three hours worked
Not because three hours is enough. Because three hours forces you to decide what those hours are for.
The limit did the choosing
When you've got three hours, you don't get to do everything you'd like to do. You do the lifts that move the total and you skip the rest. Most people who train more than me aren't doing more of the important work. They're doing more of the optional work.
It was written before I walked in
I never showed up to the platform and decided on the spot. The session was on paper before I got there, so the hard part was already done. If it isn't written, it doesn't exist.
I kept showing up for nine years
Nothing I did in any single week was impressive. Doing it in the weeks I didn't feel like it, through a gym, a coffee company, a young family and every reason to skip, is the whole story.
California Strength
The Room
I trained at California Strength. First under Glenn Pendlay, then under Dave Spitz once Pendlay left for MDUSA. Spencer Moorman was a teammate. Jon North and Donny Shankle were part of that world.
I was in the gym when North and Shankle, the two best lifters on the team, walked out the door. I was still there when Wes Kitts came in. Kitts went on to win four Pan American championships and compete in two Olympics.
That's the part of it I think about most. The team didn't fall apart when its two stars left, because the next one was already in the room. Nothing on that platform depended on one person. I've spent the years since trying to build businesses that work the same way.
After the platform
What I did with it
The lifting stopped in 2019. The work around it didn't.
- Coached a lifter from scratch to a national stageStarted with someone who had never touched a barbell and took them all the way to competing nationally.
- Taught seminars out of an RVDrove across the country coaching weightlifting seminars, teaching nightly.
- The Lifting FixOne free video tip a week for over 52 straight weeks, then packaged it and sold it. The number is exact, and the streak is the point.
- Official Coffee of USA WeightliftingIn July 2019, Caffeine and Kilos, the company I co-founded, became the Official Coffee of USA Weightlifting. We've donated over $50,000 to USA Weightlifting over the years. The first thing we did was buy all new warm-up platforms for national championships, because that's the thing the athletes actually notice.
- Backed athletes on the way upSponsored Morgan King through an Olympic run in 2016, and supported multiple CrossFit Games athletes.
Your next step
Same plan. Different barbell.
If your business is the thing that's too heavy right now, let's find the one move that changes the total. Twenty minutes, just you and me.