PSKC at USAW Certification

2012 Olympian Holly Mangold coaching at the USAW certification

Over the weekend the staff at PSKC at the great opportunity to attend a United States Association of Weightlifting (USAW) coaching certification. Not only did we learn a lot about coaching the Olympic lifts, but for me the highlight was the quality of the instructors we were learning from.

There were several nationally ranked lifters and even a 2012 Olympian (Holly Mangold) who were on site coaching and instructing. It was incredible to be critiqued by these folks as we were going through the progressions of the snatch, clean, and jerk. We also got a chance to watch them lift. These folks were strong and fast, it was also really neat to watch a big athlete like Holly throw around big weight (she can snatch over 250lbs)..


Equally impressive was to watch someone who was tiny (115lbs) like Chelsea Kyle lift. This is her hitting close to a 195lb clean and jerk...


We learned a ton and are anxious to provide the knowledge to you as well. Does this mean we are abandoning the kettlebells? ABSOLUTELY NOT. As a matter of fact, we're gonna be bringing back more kettlebell workouts and throwing them into the rotation.

Barbell and Olympic lifting has really became a growing interest of ours here in the last few months and that has been reflected in our selection of workouts. But kettlebells are our first love and always will be. So what we're gonna be doing for certain workouts will be giving you guys the option to pick what you wanna work on (the barbell or kettlebell lifts) for the strength/skill portions. Have no passion for the barbell stuff? Cool...you'll be rocking single or double kettlebells for the strength portion. Any lift you can do with a barbell you can do with a kettlebell or vice versa.

In the future, just like with 5/3/1 strength programming we'll be offering some additional times just to come in and work on your Olympic lifts. This of course will be in addition to the regular gym workouts. So you can choose to do the class or do the Olympic lifting class.

At the end of the day we want to be able to offer you guys the best service possible. We are a growing and more importantly evolving gym. It's through your ideas and feedback that will continue to make us better. So please speak up, let us know what you don't like and what you like. We know we can't please everyone...but ALWAYS remember this your club and we'll do our best to continue to offer the best damn service possible and be the best gym we can be!