Recognizing Common Problems Among Novice Lifters
I try to keep up on what sort of problems present themselves to novice lifters and thus end up trying to keep up on their comments on Social Media. I read things like
• I haven’t trained in six months, and I just made a 1 kg PR.
• I just broke my 5 rep squat PR, but my snatch remains the same.
• I clean & jerk at least twice a month, but my numbers never get better.
These are all the comments of individuals with no plan,s and it is obvious. I don’t know the background of these lifters, but it is apparent that they have a rather murky view of what it means to be an athlete.
How I Plan an Annual Weightlifting Calendar for My Team
When I was coaching my team, I did the planning for them. Let me provide an example.
Establishing the Competition Calendar
After each Nationals was concluded, I would lay out a calendar for the next year.
- The first thing to do was to list the dates of the various national events.
- For some individuals, I might schedule local meets as test events.
- Then I would work back from each event to determine the deadline for qualifying.
This was a training program for those athletes who hadn’t already posted a qualifying total.
Setting Mesocycles for Key Competitions
The next task was to determine the beginning and ending dates for each preparation mesocycle and each pre-competition mesocycle for each meaningful competition. A meaningful competition is one for which programming is undertaken with the goal of lifting personal records and is preceded by a pre-competition mesocycle.
My most advanced lifters would need two preparation mesocycles for each macrocycle and the less accomplished lifters would only need one.
