This year’s Olympic Weightlifting Education was a continuation of the basics and practical application led by SSWSC Senior Performance Coach Jeff Thomsen.
The session focused on building a practical understanding of how Olympic Weightlifting movements and their progressions can be used within long-term athlete development and snow sport performance. My personal favorite part was seeing how each coach started to consider how they could implement or take key movements and truly apply them to their sessions and sport.
Rather than simply teaching the lifts, we explored the why, when, and how behind the use with athletes. Coaches worked through key movement progressions, coaching cues, common technical errors, and ways to appropriately scale movements based on an athlete’s age, training experience, and physical development.
One of our major Sports Performance goals is to create greater alignment between what happens in the gym and what coaches see and develop in their athletes on snow. Bringing five different snow sport disciplines (alpine, freeski, cross country, snowboard, freestyle) into the same learning environment created an opportunity to share perspectives and creative ideas.
We look forward to bringing the next Sports Performance Coaches education to our youth coach athletes in the Fall!
