The upcoming John Davis memorial olympic weightlifting meet

The olympic weightlifting meet that I've been training for over a year, the meet that I'm hoping to break the New Mexico weightlifting state record by over a hundred pounds at, has a tentative name and date. As long as the name and date is approved by USA weightlifting it will be called the John Davis memorial and it will be held at The Miller gym here in Santa Fe. I'm excited that the meet I may be able to set the 105k+ 40-44 age group NM weightlifting record will be named after my favorite athlete, John Davis. John Davis died in Albuquerque NM on July 13, 1984 and is buried here in Santa Fe. He died alone and relatively forgotten. Weightlifters are the only family he has. He died without a spouse, children, or any living family at the time of his death.

Here's a little history on John Davis: John Davis was the most dominant weightlifter in history. He took 2nd place at nationals and competed in the world championships at only 16 years old. At that world championship, Davis literally shocked the weightlifting world by winning the 82.5 kg category in his first appearance on an international weightlifting platform. What amazed the world even more was that Davis won his championship at the tender age of 17. This win occurred in an era when there were no junior championships and when weightlifting was dominated by athletes in their 20s and 30s. John had made weightlifting history by becoming the youngest athlete ever to have won a world championship. It was a distinction he was to enjoy for nearly 50 years.

 Davis won the Nationals again in 1942 and 1943, but was prevented from competing in 1944 and 1945 by his war service. In 1946 he was back again to win the Nationals and to go on to win the first post-war World Championships in Paris. The following year, Davis won the Nationals and Worlds again (those World Championships were held in Philadelphia that year--the first time the US had hosted the Championships).  In 1948, he won the Olympic Games, and in 1949 and 1950 the World Championships. In 1951 he made his highest lifetime total of 1,063 lbs. at the inaugural Pan American Games. That same year, at the 1951 Nationals, he made weightlifting history once again by becoming the first lifter to C&J 400 pounds under official conditions (Charles Rigoulot, the great French professional strongman, had done this some years earlier but on a specially designed bar that would not have satisfied the rules that were in effect in Davis' day). Continuing his fantastic string, Davis went on to win the 1952 Olympics.  In 1953, John injured his leg, which hampered his training significantly. Although he won the Nationals, Davis was defeated at the World Championships by Doug Hepburn. The Canadian strongman had ended the longest undefeated streak in World Weightlifting history--a record that remains to this day.  All told, when his victory string ended in 1953, Davis had won 6 consecutive World Championships and 2 consecutive Olympic Games. Since that time, only two other weightlifters have ever duplicated Davis' achievement--Tommy Kono and Vasili Alexseev (Naim Sulemanaglou won more World Championships than this legendary trio and one more Olympic Games, but his victories were not consecutive, and Naim's record was set up 43 years after Davis'). One can on ly imagine how many championships Davis might have won had the war years not cut 7 years out of the prime of his career. He was undefeated for straight 16 years.

THE BIG MEET!

2 more months until my next weightlifting meet. This next competition is the one I've been training for for the last 11 months. It's the one I've been training my heart, body, and mind for. It's the goal that I think of when I'm feeling tired and beat down and need motivation. This next meet is the one I think of when I'm struggling to get another repetition. I haven't been this excited about something since my first Ironman triathlon way back in 2006. Shane Miller, the meet director hasn't named the meet yet, but as soon as he does I'll let you know what it's named.

A new olympic weightlifting program

Yesterday my Olympic weightlifting coach built me a new weightlifting training plan. I love getting a new training plan. Since it's something new my body isn't used to I'm fatigued beyond belief for at least a couple weeks. Today after my workout, the first one of the new plan, I was so tired the only thing I did all day was sit in my lazy boy chair. The new workout regime is a 5 day workout program. I'm excited about this. It looks tough, it looks like something that will be extremely challenging and take me to the next level.

self doubt in olympic weightlifting

After Sunday's weightlifting competition I was happy I'd made gains even though I'd struggled during training the last 4 months. But I still harbored a lot of self doubt. I've been afraid I should be at a much higher level than I am after doing this consistently for 11 straight months. I got tired of that fear hovering over me and my training and decided to ask a couple of really amazing local lifters, Will O'Connel out of Zia CrossFit and Randy Steward from Miller weightlifting, what their totals were after about a year, so that I could get a base line to compare. I was relieved to see I'm right there with their numbers.

Randy 12 months: 80/108/188
Me after 11 months: 79/103/183

Will 19 months: 75/100/175

Another outstanding lifter, Erik Hickey, told me recently ,"the most important thing to train in here (weightlifting gym) is our own self doubt." I am exactly where I should be after a year. I'm not falling behind at all. Now for the first time in this sport I believe in myself, I can put the fear and self doubt aside and throw myself into my training with full confidence.

"the Jody" invitational weightlifting meet Santa Fe NM November 9, 2014

Today I competed in "the Jody" weightlifting competition at The Miller gym in Santa Fe NM. This was my third weightlifting competition. My previous one was in July. Since the weightlifting tournament in July I've been struggling. My technical lifts hadn't gone up at all. Today I felt sure I wasn't going to be able to lift as much as I had at the last meet, which was a 76k snatch, 100k clean and jerk, a 176k total. My coach Shane Miller gave me a great motivational talk before my third and final snatch attempt. He told me to attempt a 79k snatch. 79k was higher than anything I'd accomplished in training, and MUCH greater than I felt I could make today. But if there's one thing I've learned in almost a year of Olympic weightlifting is ALWAYS trust Shane Miller. Shane is ALWAYS right. I nailed the 79k snatch which was a PR! After that I felt strong and confident and went 3 for 3 on my clean and jerks setting a lifetime personal best of 103k!

My next competition will be in January. If all continues to progress as it has been under Shane's tutelage I'll break the105k+ 40-44 age group New Mexico state record by over 100lbs.

The upcoming "The Jody" weightlifting competition and creatine monohydrate

On my last post I stated I was getting weaker even though I was training hard. I started taking creatine monohydrate. Less than two weeks later I had added 2k onto my snatch and 9k onto my clean and jerk, setting a PR on both. Creatine is amazing. I love that stuff.

I started making gains again just in time, tomorrow is the "the Jody", weightlifting competition at The Miller gym here in Santa Fe NM. I was so busy today I didn't eat or drink well all day. Not the smartest thing to do the day before a weightlifting competition. I'll post how I do tomorrow here on my blog..