July 16, 2016

weightlifting coach Juaquin Chavez of High Dessert Athletic Club

Today after training my weightlifting coach Juaquin Chavez of High Dessert Athletic Club told me he wanted me to skip the 2nd annual John Davis memerial weightlifting meet next weekend to get in more quality training time with him. My old triathlon coach Pete Alfino of Mile High Multi-sport used to ask me the same thing all the time, "don't race this weekend, train instead. You need the training more than the race." I'd ignore my former triathlon coach and race. Every single time. Joaquin's the best coach I've ever had in any sport. I think the world of Joaquin. Both as a coach and as a person. If Joaquin asks me to not lift in a meet, then I'm not lifting in a meet. I do what he says no questions asked. Period. The only regret I have is not having found him to train under his tutlage earlier. He opened up High Dessert Athletic Club way back in 1998. I could have been lifting with him since I was 23 years old instead of starting with him at 40. I can't even imagine how my life would have been different if I'd of started lifting with him 16 years ago. For one, I'd be a beast by now. Jennifer Buckner has been lifting with him since 1998 and she's one of the strongest master weightlifters in the nation! But, I'm here now. And I love it. It's hard to believe when I left Santa Fe I was considering giving up weightlifting and becoming a powerlifter. My fear was I wouldn't be able to find decent coaching.

I've been stuck at 310 pounds for a little over three weeks now. In the past I'd of freaked out about not losing any weight for three weeks. But I'm OK with it now. I'll continue doing what my  sports nutrition coach Barry Schroeder says and eventually we'll get through it. If not, that's ok too. I've gotten to the point that I'm comfortable with myself. I like myself as I am at any weight. I believe the new fancy term for that is fat acceptance. Accepting myself as i am sure makes trying to eat for health and weightlifting performance more enjoyable. Now it's a goal and a process I can enjoy rather than feeling manic and obsessed about getting to a bodyweight that will make others and ultimately myself like me more.

1 comment:

coach dion said...

With me being injured I can feel the wieght climbing on, but I know I can clean my diet and soon I'll be doing a bit of training again, so I would gues those couple of kg will fall off again... will I get back to racing weight, no, I know that would require a change in diet, and I'm not going to do that. So where does that leave you? I beat if you keep eating clean and keep training, you've got a couple of kg to lose and you will. So don't worries I bet you'll break 300 in time it will come when it comes.

Oh I love the new header!