Someone old, Something new
Around 6 months ago, one of our members (and my good friend) Sonya said to me that they were interested in powerlifting as their training focus. My initial reaction was like, “that’s great, let’s find you a powerlifting coach!” Her response of “no, I want YOU to coach me” was heartwarming, yet filled me with terror. Besides the basics (as in, I am familiar with the lifts) I knew nothing about it. My initial thoughts were that I didn’t have the experience to support her and therefore wouldn’t be the best choice of coach. In addition, I was wondering where on earth I would find the time to do the work necessary to gain more skill here. My schedule has been described as “watching someone try and cram a sleeping bag back into its bag”, so the concept of adding anything more was slightly stressful.
However, after a chat with my mentor, I changed my mindset from “I can’t” to “How can I?” which was really the first step to getting over myself and taking on the challenge of stepping into unfamiliar territory. As you may or may not be aware, my experience in strength sports until this point has been in Olympic weightlifting, which has different lifts, different rules, and even a different barbell (the kind that cuts you). It’s like switching from soccer to rugby, if you like; similar equipment, but literally a whole different ball game. I feel fairly comfortable coaching, programming, and assisting in competitions in my safe zone, but had literally no idea how powerlifting worked besides trying to lift the heaviest thing you can 9 times (which seems like a lot of times.)
My Dad was telling me when I was home for the weekend that he’d taken up the violin at the ripe old age of 69. Dad has been a musician since before I was born, he’s very talented and knows a great deal about playing a range of instruments, but the violin is a headfuck, apparently. He was saying how weird it was to feel like you have all of this very similar experience, but find that a lot of it doesn’t apply to this new thing, which makes you feel even more shit about your abilities than you would if you knew zero. I could 100% relate. I think often the fear of being the beginner again holds us back from doing stuff we want to try, because not knowing what we’re doing makes us feel a bit silly and vulnerable. But, didn’t we once feel that way about everything that we now consider ourselves to be fairly accomplished at?
Given that I still often feel like an imposter in a sport I’ve been involved in since 2018, I felt absolutely ridiculous trying my hand at something new, but I put my big girl pants on and signed up for the Powerlifting Australia coaching course - comprising of an initial two day workshop as well as an additional 30 hours of work experience, which is basically just watching, ‘helping’ and asking stupid questions, of which I had many. After initially feeling like an awkward loser, I decided to give less fucks and embrace my role as the guy who knows nothing, asks all the questions, and find people who I felt aligned with the sort of coach I want to be in this new space. The thing with strength sports is there can be a lot of bravado and a lot of ‘who cares, try harder’ which is not my vibe as a trainer, so finding people who are more ‘how did that feel?’ than ‘again, but better’ was really important. I was fortunate enough to meet Sandra Alcorn along the way; a coach and accomplished athlete herself, who shared my view that ‘this is meant to be fun’ whilst also challenging people in a way that was encouraging and compassionate.
With Sandy as my Powerlifting Spirit Guide, I spent the weekend just gone volunteering at the Asia Pacific Championships at the Melbourne Fitness Expo. The Expo is an overwhelming sea of supplements, extreme tans, and (more interestingly) a showcase of various strength sports. On day one I had the absolute pleasure of helping out 14 year old Zac from NSW at his first competition, and was thrilled to see how well he did, despite both of us not 100% knowing what we were doing. Zac made all 9 lifts and achieved a 135kg squat, 75kg bench press, and 170kg deadlift. It was beautiful to watch Zac lift so well, and to see how proud he was of his efforts, running out to see his Mum (and almost missing his call) after each lift. The remainder of the weekend was spent spotting, loading, and generally just being in powerlifting environment, fuelled by many energy drinks and protein bars. It was exhausting and overwhelming at times, but for the most part it was a lot of fun and I’m so glad I ignored my initial reaction to Sonya’s request for me to be her powerlifting coach.
It was fun to be the new guy, to meet new people, experience other people’s successes, and most of all realise I enjoy the challenge of trying something new. After the weekend I have completed 22/30 hours towards my coaching accreditation, but I have a feeling this is the start of something exciting!
