The life of an Olympic weightlifter is a curious thing that most people who don't throw around hundreds of pounds don't know a whole lot about. As an Olympic lifter myself I would like to elaborate on a few things.
In any gym except Olympic lifting gyms or Crossfit gyms, people are often frightened by the amount of noise coming from an Olympic lifter's platform. Be it grunts or just dropping barbells from overhead, most people are unaccustomed to the noisy person on the platform. Just to clear it up, yes these rubber plates are meant to be dropped and no we are not hurting them or the platform.
Our hands always look gross. The barbells create calluses and then shred them. It is this never-ending cycle of hand abuse. Chalk constantly drys out hands making them look even worse. Get your finger caught between weights or jam a finger into the bar, bye bye cute nails.
Sets of ten of anything just plain old suck and might as well be labeled as cardio. By the time you hit rep seven, you've either got tunnel vision or are seeing stars. Be prepared for an Olympic lifter to rip off their belt and sit on the floor for a while after a heavy set of 10.
At any given time, I am sporting bruises in a few key places. Starting from the bottom, shins bump into the barbell on the daily. And when your coach asks you to get closer to the bar and "feel the steel" that usually means new shin bruises. Bruises around the hip bone area is super common. I know I'm not having a great practice until I nail myself in the pelvis with a snatch (crotch shots from snatching are also very common when your timing is a little off). The worst bruises occur at the collar bones. Those bad boys swell right up and turn beautiful shades of green and purple.
Another thing that often scares people in the weight room is when we bail out of a lift and end up on our butt. Bailing out of lifts can look really scary on the account that we unexpectedly drop a lot of weight and fall simultaneously. I want people to know that it is so normal to bail out of a lift and sort of fall down. If you don't bail out of a lift at least once a practice, you aren't pushing yourself enough. Because eventually the weights you are going to hit are the same weights you had to bail out of just a week ago.
One more thing about Olympic lifters in the gym is that we want you to come up to us at the gym and ask us what we're doing (in between sets, because no one likes to be interrupted).
Lastly Olympic lifters are some of the gutsiest people out there. We throw ourselves under hundreds of pounds and rely on practice and skill to catch the bar (otherwise it would smack you in the head). It takes a lot of guts to lift without fear of missing or hurting yourself. It's what makes the sport so exhilarating. Feeling the adrenaline rush before a big lift at a meet is like nothing else in the world.
