How To Coach Olympic Weightlifting & Make The World A Stronger Place – By Being YOU
What follows is a genuine (yet fun) look at myself with an objective lens – I really am going to explain how I suck! – with the goal of helping you understand how YOU can be a better coach/teacher.
This is the first part of a larger series on “How To Save American Weightlifting” by starting with a change in our perceptions of what the word “coach” means, and by De-villifying certain words like: “blogger”, “marketing”, and “internet”. My views on this are quite different than most other coaches in the field.
You can either spend your life complaining about the problems in the world, or do something about it. As you know, I’m a action-oriented kind of guy.
Today’s article is a background to the problem and some keys to understanding YOUR role as a coach in helping others. The second part will be the top 7 reasons I BLOW as a Weightlifting Coach 
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
Hi, my name is Nick Horton and I’m an Olympic Weightlifting coach.
That’s my job. It is my only source of income. I literally make my money by helping other people learn how to be better at the (totally obscure) sport of Olympic-style lifting.
Pretty cool, eh?
I am decently good at my job, I love it, and my clients seem by their own words to be very happy.
I’m not happy. OK… to be clear, I AM happy – ecstatically – but I am NOT satisfied.
Let me explain what I mean.
The New Breed Of Weightlifting Coach: Going Pro
Being a “professional” weightlifting coach is a very new concept.
It’s important to understand that in the history of American lifting, there have only been a handful of us who could say that. The vast majority of the best Olympic lifting coaches in our country’s history had a “day job”. They coached on the side, out of love, and it cost them more money to do it than they ever made back.
You should thank them constantly. Without their efforts, the sport would have died out completely.
Thankfully, those days are gone. I am one of the trail blazers of a new breed of Olympic lifting coach: professional, entrepreneurial, career coaches.
If you count (I do) all the CrossFit coaches in this country as being under the umbrella of weightlifting coaches, then we now have literally hundreds of thousands of professionals around the country. And while it’s true that the quality of this coaching can vary dramatically from abysmal to great (with the curve sadly leaning towards the former), it is still a FACT that they make their LIVING by coaching people how to do (among other things) the Olympic lifts.(1)
What a dramatic difference from the past!!!
The problem is that nearly every single one of the new breed of professionals is BY FAR less experienced than the old guard of Olympic lifting coaches that preceded them. That includes ME!
Compared to the newer coaches on the block, I’m a dinosaur. My experience stomps theirs into the ground – and hard. But compared to some of the coaches that have “been around the block”… I’m a neophyte, a beginner only just getting my feet wet.
That dichotomy sets up a weird set of problems that I think need addressing – ESPECIALLY given my status and popularity among the public at large.
Nick Horton Is “Internet Famous”
“Here’s what I think about your program: it’s fucking kick-ass” —Chris Youssefi, after gaining 100 pounds on his squat in less than a month following my 21-day squat program.
I am – by far – the most popular Olympic weightlifting blogger in the history of the world…
… of course, up until recently, I was the ONLY Olympic weightlifting blogger in the history of the world!
My programs (most notably my Squat Nemesis program) have helped hundreds of people – world-wide – add as much as 40, 60, even 100 pounds to their squats in less time that it takes to drink a martini. And that’s not just the male beginners. (the ultimate group that pads your numbers!)
My own woman did my program recently and added 70 pounds to her squat in 90 days. She was already a national-level weightlifter BEFORE she did Nemesis.
Still… my popularity in the fitness blogger community at large has gotten rather out of hand with my perception of myself.
For all of my accomplishments so far, I am not a “great” coach – yet. That IS my goal. But I am very far away from reaching it. (I like big goals!)
I am proud of how far I’ve come, but I’m only just getting started.
If I’m being dead-honest with myself:
- I’m a beginner.
- I constantly feel like I’m behind. And …
- I am always convinced that I’m in way over my head.
I’m not yet used to the fact that wherever we go, people will come up to me, nervous, wanting to talk with me – even get my autograph! (How wild is that, Mom?)
I have indeed become internet-famous.(2) I have readers and friends numbering in the 10′s of thousands who come from countries as far flung as Finland, New Zealand, Korea, Sweden, Canada, Ireland, and of course, all over the United States.
No one in the history of the earth has ever coached more people online to Olympic lift than I have – not by a lot. (NOTE: I’m not talking about selling eBooks, or random comments on a forum… I mean REAL hands-on coaching exchanged for money – entering into a client/coach relationship.)
It is a fact, that there are thousands of people across the world who are grateful to me for what I do. That is a wonderful feeling.
So… What’s the problem?
My online-popularity is both out of place with my OWN self-image AND how other Weightlifting Coaches see me.
I get a LOT of shit from other Olympic lifting coaches in America. (Not all … but more than you’d expect if you aren’t an “insider” in our community.)
Some of them are outright pissed off at me. The notion of this “upstart”, young, down-right-weird guy Nick Horton skyrocketing to popularity while they mire in obscurity – when they’ve been coaching for 30+ years – doesn’t sit well.
It doesn’t always sit well with me either!
This creates a big mess where it’s hard to distinguish between these three things:
- Reality
- The perception of others
- The perception of myself
It’s always best to dial it all back to reality, and make your moves based upon FACTS, rather than the ego-driven perceptions of those facts by others and yourself.
We’re going to do exactly that.
Nick Horton Is Not An Avatar
I like to joke that however tall I appear on your screen, that is not an illusion. (see what I did there? 
However, it turns out that I am not an avatar. I’m a real-live human being.
Unlike many other fitness bloggers, I actually DO own a real-live gym, in the real-live world, with real-live athletes that I am responsible for coaching IN PERSON.
Some variant of that has always been true – for my entire adult life. I’ve been practicing the art of coaching fitness-related activities for 17 years – everything from fatloss, bodybuilding, powerlifting, childrens fitness, to Olympic lifting.
I am now co-Owner of Asheville Strength in Asheville, NC with my girl, Tamara Reynolds. This is my SECOND gym, not my first attempt.
I am a veteran. I have been coaching longer than some of my athletes have been alive. And to top it off, I’ve been lifting (and competing!) in iron sports for 21 years!
Then… why do I still feel like a beginner? What’s my problem? Does Nick Horton have low self-esteem!?
The Expert Paradox
“The more I learn, the dumber I get” – Your Dad
MY Dad said something similar, “The more I talk to you, the dumber I get.”
Either way, the point stands that the further you go into a field, the more you learn, the deeper your knowledge about the REALITY of what it takes to get the job done – the more you will feel like a beginner.
Have you ever noticed that the people who get the most pissy about fitness topics are PRECISELY the people who have been at this for less than a few years?
There’s a reason for that.
The Expert Paradox goes something like this:
- The less you know, the more you THINK you know
- The more you know, the less you THINK you know.
Your dad was right!
I always feel like I’m just starting out – no matter what I’ve done in the past. This isn’t in some unhealthy low-self-esteem way. But rather, in a very real, honest, and objective sense… I know that I have miles and miles to go before I’m close to reaching my potential as a coach.
That’s a good thing. Being humble about what you DON’T know is the first step towards learning it.
Unfortunately, KNOWING is not the same as COACHING! No matter how much of a beginner you think you are – there are (literally) millions of people out there who you could be helping RIGHT NOW with what you DO know.
Paralysis By Analysis: How To Get Over Yourself… And Coach, Already!
“Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach gym.” – Woody Allen
There is a common saying in technical fields like mathematics, engineering, and sports like Oly lifting: Paralysis by analysis.
What it means is that you are so mired in what you think SHOULD be true, that you prevent yourself from actually DOING anything.
Coaches face this constantly – especially in Olympic weightlifting, where elitism and vitriol run high.
You second guess yourself, other coaches second guess you, and you feel overrun with what you think you “should” be doing in order to qualify as a “real” coach.
So instead of actually getting out there and coaching people, putting your ideas out there, and taking the risk of being wrong – in public – you wimp out, you “study more”, and you wait until that magical day when you are finally “good enough” to consider yourself a “coach”.
That’s some bullshit – and it serves no one.
There are lots of people out there who you could be helping RIGHT NOW, but you are holding back their progress through your aggrandizement of the word “coach”.
Why You Do NOT Want To Be An Expert – You Want To Be A Teacher
“As long as you have one athlete, you’re a coach.” – Tom Hirtz (one of America’s best Olympic weightlifting coaches, who has taught me more than he realizes.)
The problem with “expert” status – when coming from the kind of person who overly identifies as such – is that it is alienating, and non-relatable. We don’t just need the right information… we need the right information from someone who actually GETS where we’re coming from and can understand why we are feeling the way we are about it.
That’s the difference between a person who can write an accurate encyclopedia on a topic… and a person who can honestly TEACH others how to do something.
Teaching is not the same as doing. It’s nearly the opposite.
What it takes to teach someone how to do something that is hard, exciting, scary, and time-intensive is its own bag. Because of this, most athletes make horrible coaches, despite the fact that they know how to DO that thing very well.
My advice to all coaches – and to myself – is to take seriously that your greatest asset as a coach/teacher is NOT your familiarity with fitness and strength training material… but the REST of your life and your ability to bring that to bear in the context of what it is that you are teaching. (It can be weightlifting, math, cooking, music, art, horticulture… doesn’t matter!)
If you pay attention, I do that constantly – always talking about the areas I am (honestly) WAY more trained and qualified in: mathematics, music, Zen.
I’ve been doing this iron game thing for 21 years. And I’ve been coaching in some capacity or another for 17 years… BUT… that’s misleading.
The truth is that it was always my hobby and part time gig, not my hard-driving FOCUS the way something needs to be for it to qualify as a career path. That changed 3 years ago when I opened my own gym. But before that, I was always focused on a totally different career path.
So while I have been coaching competitive Olympic weightlifting specifically for 8 years… only the last 3 were as a professional who made his money exclusively through that. Before that I was in graduate school for math!
I have 7 HARD years of real schooling as a mathematician. I have a lifetime of hard practice and study as an artist. I have been practicing and studying Zen for nearly 20 years.
It is a FACT that my professional qualifications as a DOER are in those areas. I am NOT a great lifter – at all.
- My skills in mathematics swamp my skills in the gym.
- My talent and skills as a musician beat the shit out of my skills as an athlete.
- My level of understanding and applied knowledge of Zen and mental training wins out over my associated applications to the body.
(All of this – and more! – in the next article in this series on my suck-a-tude.)
Take what you DO know, and know well, and apply it everywhere. You’ll be shocked how much more effective you will become as a teacher.
Who you are – your whole life – is a wealth of powerful material that is loaded with teaching material, lessons, and action plans that apply DIRECTLY to your athletes progress in the gym.
You KNOW that shit like the back of your hand. You are a true expert. You just need to apply that to your love of the barbell.
You are needed. NOW. Accept this and get to work.
Next Time…
I will go over – in detail – the top 7 things I suck at, and the lessons embedded in those failures that YOU can take away that will make you a better coach, and a better lifter.
Now go lift something heavy, Nick Horton
footnotes
- I think of CrossFit like the little-league of Olympic weightlifting. Not in a derogatory way! It’s a place where you can get your start, test it out, see if you like it… before deciding to go all-in with a club like mine that specializes in it.
- I’ll explain some of how that happened – not an accident – in upcoming articles. Don’t worry. It is important as an example of how things need to change for American weightlifting to hit the mainstream – my other big goal.
The post Nick Horton SUCKS: Weightlifting Coach Review, part 1 appeared first on THE IRON SAMURAI.
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