Several years ago when contemplating the thought of opening up my own facility, I selfishly knew that if I truly wanted to become a better lifter I needed to surround myself with other great lifters. Unfortunately at the time, the facility I was training in was a joke, and the other lifters there were either old guys wearing belts to do dumbbell curls or college guys with cut-offs and backwards hats doing chest five times a week. Opening up a facility to attract the serious lifters in the Memphis area seemed like the only way to make my goals happen. A year into owning the facility, I realized another step had to be taken: I needed to form a powerlifting team.
We’re coming into our second year as a team. We learned a lot and made a lot of progress our first year and we are continuing to grow and develop daily. We started with 13 members and currently have 23 team members, eight of which will do their first competition in April. We have five team members with elite totals and by the end of this year, I suspect we will have around 10 members who have hit elite. All but two of our lifters are raw, with myself and another lifter branching out into geared lifting.
As the leader of the team, I have many responsibilities and challenges along with the same responsibilities and challenges that I face as a lifter myself. I am used to being in a leadership role as a former strength coach and as a business owner, however this has been a learning experience because I’ve never been responsible for so many individual competitors success as a unit. I will share with you some of the lessons I have learned along the way and I encourage anyone looking to push their own training to either find a team or create one of your own.
1. Lead by example
I figured this one goes without really having to be said but felt like I should put it out there anyways. I think most people know that you have to be a lifter in order to command respect of the other lifters around you, but you also have to stick to the rules and values that your teams has set. For example, our team requires that you compete at least twice a year, so I can’t let myself slack on that. We also push for our lifters to show up even if they are hurt or aren’t lifting for whatever reason, to help their teammates through their workouts. I try my best to do that as well. I also try to maintain the character of the team throughout social media. I don’t want to be known as a team that runs their mouths and shit talks constantly, so I try my best to keep my posts in line with that philosophy. There are areas I am not the best in. I have a tendency to show up a few minutes late to training. Running the gym we train in can make it tough to walk away from work at times so this is something I try to improve on.
2. Be organized
Working with as many lifters as we have on our team with as many different experience levels, we really can’t afford to not be organized. Otherwise, it would be a total cluster during our training sessions. To stay organized, we have implemented a few different strategies. First, all the programming is done in advance and then sent to all of our lifters. We have an online file share that allows me to see everyone’s training logs and their progress. We also have a Facebook group page that allows us to share training videos for critique, training ideas, and team information. Finally, we try to spread our competitions out a bit so that not all of our lifters are lifting at one time. This allows the ones who are not lifting to help out and then we switch for the next meet. Finally, we have set training times and days as well as set requirements for the team. This keeps everyone up to date with what is going on, what is expected of them, and makes it easy for them to do what they need to do in training and the meet without any excess worries that might distract them from giving it their best.
3. Know when to guide and when to dictate
After the first year of being a team we had a team meeting to discuss the direction of the team. Some members were more interested in being competitive powerlifters while others were more interested in being recreational powerlifters. As the team leader, I could have said that we are a team for competitive powerlifting and anyone not on board needs to leave. However, I tried my best to hear everyone’s thoughts on the matter and guide them into making a decision and coming to an agreement as a team. In the end, everyone agreed with the decision and, although some people ended up leaving the team, everyone respected it because it was made as a group. Other times, my decisions have to be more executive in nature and I have to ensure that everyone gets on board with it. Still, I almost always try to give my reasoning so that they understanding my decision. I understand that they are the team and they are the ones sacrificing and putting themselves on the line and I help them understand that they represent me, my programming, and a company I worked really hard to build.
4. Create an environment of learning not just listening
One thing I have told a few of my lifters before is that I am not just a fact checker with crap they saw on YouTube or found on Google. This is a learning experience and sometimes they don’t get an “easy” answer to their questions. I want to create knowledgeable lifters and coaches (everyone is a coach AND a lifter on the team), not just people who follow directions extremely well. The Facebook page has helped us share and educate each other extremely well. We can go over topics and have a conversation without having to take time away from training or setup a time to meet as a group. It allows everyone equal opportunity to ask questions and give their input. This was hard for the newer guys to get used to because they expected to come in and be told exactly what to do. Instead, we teach them and educate them and help them come up with their own answers. This allows them to be able to answer those same questions when the next new guy or girl joins the team.