Join me, Leanne Knox, as I recount the early days of my journey with CrossFit and weightlifting, where a simple coaching session with my first coach, Walter in Mackay led to a lifelong quest for growth and resilience. As you tune in, you'll walk alongside me through the highs of teaching high jump to spirited young girls, to the lows of grappling with loss, and the powerful legacy that urges us to push forward. Key Takeaways:
The thrills of zero expectations or beginner's naivety when competing
The profound impact of mentors
The strength found in both iron and human spirit
The invaluable lessons that extend far beyond the platform
Weightlifting much like life, has taught me that it's all about seizing opportunities, embracing guidance, and building a foundation that lasts a lifetime. As we prepare to unlock mental strategies for success in future episodes, consider this a primer on the pivotal role of mentoring, community, and the art of asking for help. Whether you're an aspiring athlete, artist, parent, or just someone pursuing self-improvement, let this narrative be your ally in the pursuit of your goals. Here's to lifting more than just weights; let's lift each other up and chart a course toward our most ambitious dreams!
Join me, Leanne Knox, as I recount the early days of my journey with CrossFit and weightlifting, where a simple coaching session with my first coach, Walter in Mackay led to a lifelong quest for growth and resilience. As you tune in, you'll walk alongside me through the highs of teaching high jump to spirited young girls, to the lows of grappling with loss, and the powerful legacy that urges us to push forward. Key Takeaways:
The thrills of zero expectations or beginner's naivety when competing
The profound impact of mentors
The strength found in both iron and human spirit
The invaluable lessons that extend far beyond the platform
Weightlifting much like life, has taught me that it's all about seizing opportunities, embracing guidance, and building a foundation that lasts a lifetime. As we prepare to unlock mental strategies for success in future episodes, consider this a primer on the pivotal role of mentoring, community, and the art of asking for help. Whether you're an aspiring athlete, artist, parent, or just someone pursuing self-improvement, let this narrative be your ally in the pursuit of your goals. Here's to lifting more than just weights; let's lift each other up and chart a course toward our most ambitious dreams!
Welcome to Uplift you, creating strong bodies and mind. Get ready to power up your day with practical strength training tools, inspiring stories and build resilience of body and mind. It's time to uplift you, together with your host, leanne Knox. Hello there, and welcome back to episode two. Very quickly. I was thinking after episode one, this is almost like snatching and clean and jerking. For those of you that don't know, you get three attempts, so each attempt, if it is a good lift, they say good lift or they say successful lift. I'm on to my second attempt, so if you're still here listening, then my first attempt was certainly successful.
Speaker 1:
Thinking back to my first episode, I had done my gym journey. I'd escaped my shouse in the bush and I'd become what I considered to be cardio fit. I then discovered CrossFit and here I was ready to take on the CrossFit world with no real idea on how to lift a barbell. So I'm on my way down to Mackay to be coached by my first coach, walter from CrossFit Mackay. I had the gymnastics down pat, I had the cardio down pat and the other element that I really needed to explore was the weightlifting. So I arrive at Walter's CrossFit box and he brings out the barbell, the stick first, actually, because you can't run before you walk. And here I am with the stick, learning this weird movement where you're lifting something straight from the ground to up over your head in one movement and, after about 20 minutes using the stick, we get on to the barbell. It was the first time I'd ever held a barbell and it was very exciting. So this episode is really delving into the people that you surround yourself with in order to educate yourself and in order to find those skills that you may be lacking to reach your goals. My first coach was Walter. He was very patient, coached me for an hour and a half and I went home armed with all of this new knowledge on how to snatch. When I got home, I realized, in order to continue to put in the reps and get better at this snatching business, I would need a barbell.
Speaker 1:
Now, at this time, I was teaching PE at the local primary Catholic school and there were two lovely girls with just a fantastic family who wanted to learn how to do the Flosbury flop, which is a high jump technique, and I was a PE teacher, and their mum approached me and said Leanne, would you mind doing some private lessons with my girls after school to teach them the high jump technique. So, of course, after school, for a few weeks, I turned up with Billy and Charlie were their names and taught them how to do the high jump technique. They were very excited because by the end of however many weeks we worked together, they had the technique and this enabled them to go and do that at school. Athletic carnivals enabled them to go and do that at school athletic carnivals and I think they were the type of girls who just really enjoyed learning new physical skills. The reason I'm telling you this is because, at this particular time at my home, the only equipment that I had in order to train was a box which my husband had made me to do box jumps. I had a skipping rope, I had a kettlebell which I'd bought from the local sports store, but I did not have a barbell and there was still no CrossFit or barbell clubs in my local area CrossFit or barbell clubs in my local area. So at the end of teaching these lovely two young girls, their mum offered to pay me and I said no, I don't need any payment because it was an absolute pleasure to coach these two young girls. They were wonderful young ladies, so polite and so eager to learn and their mum said well, can I buy you something? Is there anything that you would really like? And at that point I thought this is my opportunity to get a barbell. So that barbell I drove four hours north to Dubai with the money from teaching Billy and Charlie, and just to pause right there.
Speaker 1:
I'd like to give you a bit of a background story about the Billy Kinder. So a few years after this, billy was a horse enthusiast. The whole family was horse enthusiast, the whole family was, and she was out riding one day on her own and it was a very sad accident where Billy fell off the horse and got dragged and very, very, very sad. But Billy passed away Now. Billy was an extraordinary girl. She loved writing. She loved writing stories, she loved writing poems. She um, she was such a kind, beautiful soul that a lot of her, her resources were kept and her favorite theme in her poems and stories and pictures were sunflowers and rainbows. So her mum decided to create a legacy for Billy which is called Be Kinder, named right after Billy, and a lot of her drawings and a lot of her poems are used in schools today in Australia on a day called Be Kinder Day in memory of Billie and the kind, amazing soul that Billie was.
Speaker 1:
If you'd like to know more about this, have a look in my show notes and you can find Billie's resources and purchase them. She even has a book, and the reason I'm telling you this is because I still own that very barbell. It's in my club with Sunday Weightlifting. It sits proudly on the wall and it was the first barbell that I used, right up until my first competition and many years after that. But that was the barbell that I trained on and I still have it and it symbolizes the beginning of my barbell journey and it also reminds me of that wonderful young girl, billie, who seized the moment and if she loves something, she did it and it reminds us. That can remind us also if you find something that you love, seize that moment, follow that, because you never know when you may get that opportunity again. So if you find something you love, go after it. Go after that passion, don't wait after it. Go after that passion, don't wait. So, going back to my first snatch attempt, I actually have a video. I went home Once I got the barbell. I was so excited. I went home, I went outside onto my grass because I thought if I'm going to snatch, I'm not snatching on the hard floor, I'll snatch on the grass because when I fall on my butt it won't hurt as much. So I actually still have the video 12 years ago of me doing my first snatch with my barbell that I'd bought.
Speaker 1:
And as soon as I had that barbell, and as soon as I had that barbell, the teacher in me, the coach in me, I thought I'm going to share this sport of CrossFit with my close friends. So two or three mornings a week we used to get together with four or five friends on the front deck, on my front deck of my house, and we would box jump and we would skip and we'd kettlebell swing and I'd teach people how to snatch and how to clean with this one 20 kilo barbell. So my first teacher was Walter. He taught me to snatch one day, he taught me to clean and jerk the other day and as the years went on we used to go down to his club and do our competitions down at CrossFit Mackay. So here I am, armed with one lesson and, at this stage, on my own, training on my own, except for the CrossFit type of training that I was doing in the morning. However, that training I took on the coaching role. I didn't train with them, I took on the coaching role and trained other people, so I was the coach.
Speaker 1:
Then one day I was dropping Ben off at the daycare center and I said to the lady who was checking him in I said this afternoon I'm going to go home and do some weightlifting. And her eyes widened and she looked at me and said what type of weightlifting do you do? And this is a loaded question for weightlifters. So all the people out there who do weightlifting or powerlifting or bodybuilding, you know what happens. When someone says weightlifting, they will either think usually of powerlifting, which is squat, bench dead, or they'll think of a bodybuilder. So when I tell people that I do weightlifting, a lot of people look at me and go but you're not very big, because they think weightlifting is bodybuilding.
Speaker 1:
So it was natural that this lady said to me what type of weightlifting do you do? And me fully expecting her to not know what I was talking about. I said I do Olympic weightlifting and this made her day. She was so excited and she said oh, my goodness, my partner sits on the couch. Each night he gets his iPad out and I know I'm going to lose him. She said the conversation is over when that iPad comes out, because he opens it up and he starts watching people Olympic weightlifting. His eyes glaze over and he goes into his own world. And she said you're the first person I've met in Airlie Beach that does Olympic weightlifting. So she naturally gave me his number and I contacted Tony. His name is Tony and we started training together up in the shed in my husband's car shed, much to his disgust, because I took his shed over to do weightlifting and Tony and I got together two times a week and did weightlifting.
Speaker 1:
So at this stage we had some steel plates, we had a barbell, we even had a squat rack. So we thought we were pretty fancy. We were up there and Tony had a little bit of experience in the clean and jerk. I'd been taught the snatch and the clean and jerk by Walter One lesson, mind you. And at this stage there wasn't a lot of resources on the internet, so it's not like we could just go and Google it and there were no coaches locally.
Speaker 1:
So we found a book, a good old fashioned book, and it was from Catalyst Athletics, written by a fantastic coach called Greg Everett from America, and that book became Tony and my Bible for the next 12 months. We used that book. We followed the programs Every time. We didn't know what a movement was. We would go to the glossary and look at what is a power clean and we'd read this is how to do a power clean. We'd follow the instructions. So 12 months of that wonderful resource from greg everett and we were ready. We decided we were ready to go to our first competition. So, going back to the coaches and the mentors, I'd had walter from mckay, an hour and a half south, one lesson on each lift. Then I'd had 12 months of reading out of greg everett's olympic weightlifting book, catalyst athletics. The link to that will also be in my show notes.
Speaker 1:
So we turn up to our first competition, which was eight hours north at a place called Cairns in far north Queensland, and up until now I had been using a 20 kilo bar. Now, for those of you that don't lift and I know there's a lot of people on here who haven't lifted Olympic weightlifting you're interested in strength of body and mind. You may not be so interested in Olympic weightlifting. You're interested in strength of body and mind you may not be so interested in Olympic weightlifting Girls apparently use 15 kilo bar. This is what I found out at the competition in the warm-up room. So Tony and I didn't really know what we were doing. We just thought we're going to go to a competition, we're going to see where we're at, we're going to test where we are at, we're going to see what the last 12 months of training has done for us and where our skill is at.
Speaker 1:
So I'm warming up in the back room and another Olympic weightlifter lady comes up to me and says are you using the 20 kilo bar? And I'm like, yes, is there a problem with the 20 kilo bar? And she says girls don't use the 20 kilo bar. I said, oh, why not? And she said girls use the 15 kilo bar. Now for those of you that don't know the difference the 15 kilo bar the main difference is it's a little bit shorter, but it has a smaller diameter for your smaller hands. So it's just a thinner bar so girls can grip the bar better. And I thought, okay, I'll change to the 15 kilo bar.
Speaker 1:
So I continue to warm up with the 15 kilo bar. And then she says to me so what are you opening at Now? Opening means you get three attempts at each lift. Your opener is the first amount that you're going to lift. So I said, oh, I'll just open it 45. And she looks at what I'm lifting and she says well, why are you lifting 50? And I said because I'm lifting all the lifts before I go out, because then I know what I'll be able to do when I go out. And for those of you who aren't lifters, I'm going to explain the significance of that.
Speaker 1:
The idea of competitions is, your first lift is something that you know you can do and you've done many times. Therefore, you are confident with that lift when you go out and do your first lift. Your second lift as a beginner weightlifter is normally something that you've done in training as well, and your third lift may be something that you haven't quite got to or you've only done once or twice. So here I am lifting my third lift for reps in the back room. So this lady said look, I'll help you. I'm willing to help you. I'll go and tell the announcer that you're going to open heavier. So I said fine, thank you. Yeah, that's very kind of you, because I really didn't know Tony and I didn't have a coach. We appreciated the help. So she went and changed my numbers and that was my first weightlifting competition with Tony and that competition is really burnt into my brain as the most enjoyable competition Out of all the world championships. I've been in all the state and national titles in both powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting.
Speaker 1:
That first competition was the best competition of my life and I can hear you thinking you mean your first competition is better than winning the world championships. And my answer to you is yes, and the reason is I had no expectations of what I could or couldn't do. Therefore I had little pressure during that competition. So, moving on and thinking about the mentors and the coaches that helped shape our skills, our knowledge ourselves, moving on from that, I went to my second competition down in Mackay with Walter at CrossFit Mackay and it happened that at that competition there was a visiting coach who was doing some coaching clinics and workshops and he watched the competition. His name was Miles Waddell and he was one of the Australian coaches and it was obviously the first time I'd met him or even heard of his name.
Speaker 1:
I'd finished my competition and Miles come up to me and said oh, you move well, do you have a coach? And I said, no, I don't have a coach, I've coached myself. And he said so what are your goals for Olympic weightlifting? And I said, no, I don't have a coach, I've coached myself. And he said so what are your goals for Olympic weightlifting? And I said I would really like one day to be able to snatch my own body weight. And Miles said I'd be happy to coach you. And I was taken aback and thought really you would coach me. I said you do realize I'm 40, because at this stage I'm 40. I started weightlifting when I was 40. In fact, I was probably 41 by then. And Miles stopped, looked at me and said you're 40? I said yep, I'm 40. And I said it's too late. You've already offered, you can't back out. And of course, we had a bit of a laugh and from that moment on I had my first coach.
Speaker 1:
Now, miles was a coach that lived in Brisbane, which was a thousand kilometers south, so he coached me online and because I'd taught myself, I had to backtrack. A lot of my technique needed fixing. I had no idea that I was doing small things wrong, so bending my arms early, lifting my feet up too much, and I remember those early days of working with Miles and it was a real challenge to me because I had to change a lot of the things that I'd been doing for 12 months and at the time it was hard, but looking back now, I am forever grateful for having a coach that could backtrack me back six months. I had to not move my feet in a lift which is an integral part of technique in lifting but for six months I had to keep my feet still because I was lifting my feet too high. And that guidance, that opportunity of having someone giving me feedback who could watch what I was doing rather than me thinking I was doing the right thing, however, I wasn't doing what I was thinking was gold, and that's where my technique really improved and I saw the value in having a coach from day one, and that is the reason why I love to be able to coach someone from scratch, someone who hasn't even touched a barbell, so that I give them the opportunity to get the best technique and the best chances of success right from day one and the best chances of success right from day one, rather than having to backtrack.
Speaker 1:
So my second coach was Miles, and Miles coached me for five years, leading right into becoming a state champion in Masters, a national champion in Masters, a national champion in Masters and a world champion in Masters. And going back to the story of me saying my first competition was my best competition because there was no pressure, as I continued down the path of competing, the pressure built, continued down the path of competing, the pressure built. Now, where is that pressure coming from? Is it coming from your coach? Is it coming from other lifters, or is it coming from you, from within? I quickly learned that all of the pressure that I was putting on myself was coming from within. And I also remember my first national titles, and it was senior national titles, not masters.
Speaker 1:
So here I was, down in Melbourne, a girl from the bush, up North Queensland, down in the big city of Melbourne, in the freezing cold, warming up in the warm-up room at senior national titles. And I remember staring at the exit sign, thinking I can run out that door right now and Miles will never catch me because I'm sure I can run faster than him. Um, yes, I had let so much pressure come in. That pressure talk that what if? All the what ifs, the fear of failure, the fear of not being good enough, the fact that I was competing against 20-year-olds and I was 40. All of that pressure language had entered my lifting world. So I got through my first nationals shaking like a leaf. Miles actually suggested I do 100 burpees to get rid of some of the adrenaline.
Speaker 1:
And it was in that moment that I realized this was more than technique. This was more than getting the physical skills of Olympic weightlifting. What you really need to go along with that are the mental skills. I went to a sports psychologist and worked with them for six months straight after that national titles, because I could see that although my technique was good enough at that stage of course it can always get better. My mind, technique needed a lot of work, and what I learned in those early days of sports psychology was one main message and that was the only thing you can control is your effort. So focus on your effort used to be my mantra as I was walking up to the bar. I'd chalk my hands up and go focus on your effort, stretch tall, punch yourself under the bar. And that was the sum total of working with a sports psychologist for six months. And yes, it did help. So I would say to you.
Speaker 1:
My third coach was that sports psychologist. And why did I approach that sports psychologist? And why did I approach that sports psychologist and why did I spend the money? Some of you may say you're a master's lifter and you're doing this for fun. And yes, I was doing it for fun. I wanted to be the best version of me and I could see that my mindset needed just as much attention as my physical training, my physical body.
Speaker 1:
So, moving right along, going on to from that first national titles in 2015, I went to my first world championships and I don't think I could have chosen a further place if I had tried. I ended up in Finland, in Finland, and it was my second trip ever out of Australia and it was right to the other side of the world. 30 hours of travel and here I am in Finland, the home of Santa Claus, at my first world championships. It was absolutely an amazing experience and when I was in Finland, I was warming up with one of the Australian Masters coaches and I remember her saying to me Leanne, you need to just a small cue like this. Leanne, you need to just a small cue like this. You need to keep your fingers loose on the bar in the jerk and I'd never heard that cue before. And then I realized in that moment that every person you come across can be your teacher. Every person that has your best interests at heart can teach you something new. So that really helped me in that moment and I went on to win the world championships an amazing experience and met some beautiful people and was inspired by 70 year old lifters who'd been to the Olympic Games 40 years prior and here they were still lifting for the love of lifting. And that connection and that community is still dear to my heart and if you'd listened to my first podcast, you would know that community and connection are one of my pillars and one of my values.
Speaker 1:
So there is one other very special coach that came into play during those years when I was going to the World Championships, and this was a strength coach who I stumbled across on Instagram and I loved his philosophy behind strength because it was all functional. He just happened to be a world champion powerlifter who had turned his hand into after powerlifting coaching into Olympic weightlifting coaching. So he was a man who was very similar to me. He loved Olympic weightlifting, he loved strength, he loved powerlifting and his name is Travis Mash, and for those of you who don't know Travis Mash, he is an absolutely fantastic strength coach who has many, many years of experience as both an athlete and a coach, and he's currently a USA team weightlifting coach. And the one thing that I loved about Travis was I started employing some of his programs. I bought some of his programs for my lifters that I was coaching, and Travis took the time to connect with me which I thought was amazing, being on the other side of the world and took an interest in one of my really good up and coming junior lifters, jasper, and he used to call us his Australian mash team. We were part of his community and that was a very powerful, powerful moment for me, and Travis, still to this day, is a very important part of my strength world.
Speaker 1:
In 2019, when I went to America, I took the time to go and meet Travis and his lifters and and just last year, travis came and visited us in the Whitsundays. So, going right back to my original problem at the start of this episode, I didn't know how to snatch. I didn't know how to clean and jerk. I wanted to learn both of those skills, not only for myself as an athlete, but for myself as a coach, because whatever I did, I wanted to coach other people in. It's the natural teacher within me. And what did I do? Because I didn't have that knowledge, I went and sought out teachers and mentors and today I've mentioned just a few of those early teachers and mentors. And today I've mentioned just a few of those early teachers and mentors. And here's an exciting thing, because I've connected with those people. Those people will be later guests on this show. Travis is coming on to this podcast, which I'm extremely excited about, so he can share his stories with you, his knowledge with you, and Miles, I have no doubt, would love to talk to you about his experiences in weightlifting as an Australian team coach, and a very successful one. So, recapping Number one whatever you're learning or want to learn, or whatever your passion is, my advice to you would be this remember your why.
Speaker 1:
Why were you attracted to that? What sort of learner are you? Do you learn best by doing? Do you learn best by reading? Do you learn best by watching and then doing? Because when you understand what sort of learner you are, you can then choose the right coach or mentor for you. Coach or mentor for you.
Speaker 1:
Secondly, find that person who values you as a person, because you're not just your lifts, you're not just the skills that you're trying to learn. You are a human being and a lot more goes into your performance or your ability to learn a new skill than just the physical side. Find someone who understands your likes, your dislikes, your learning style. Someone who asks you about your nutrition, someone who asks you about your relationships, someone who asks you about your sleep patterns, because all of that comes into your performance. And once you find these people, fully, fully engage with them, stay in the moment with them, trust the process, because when you put in the reps and you have that connection with your coach or with your teacher and persist in putting in the reps, then the end goal becomes so much clearer and fully accessible to achieve. If you get halfway through learning something and find out you start getting frustrated because your coach doesn't really understand that you don't like doing that. And why do they keep giving you this thing that you don't like doing? And and why do they keep giving you this thing that you don't like doing and you're not learning, understanding their cues, you're not understanding their language, then that's when you need to understand yourself or you get to understand yourself and move forward.
Speaker 1:
So, wrapping up episode two and looking back from my episode one, I started out, started out, mum, mum of six been at home, hadn't done any weightlifting.
Speaker 1:
I was 40 years old. I found I understood what I liked doing by trying new things. I persisted, I created the connections I found the people that I connected with. Trust your gut and I persisted again with these new teachers to realize my goals. And my goals at that time were to become a good weightlifter, to become a good coach, and I was always, always happy to ask for help along the way. Moving in to my next series, my next series is going to be my journey into power lifting, which is another barbell sport I took up at the end of my five-year olympic weightlifting journey and really unpacking the mindset behind becoming good at whatever you want to become good at, whether that's the barbell, whether that's learning a new musical instrument, becoming a good mother, learning to drive a car, whatever it is. We will unpack that mindset, give you actionable steps through my stories to inspire you. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.
