Member Spotlight

The new year is in full swing at Crown! As we continue to grow, we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to start a new “Member Spotlight” series. Every month, we’ll highlight a member from our amazing gym with a short Q&A.

We have some awesome people at Crown and each of you guys certainly deserves to be celebrated. Thank you all for being part of this amazing community.

First up? Kendra Maclean!

 

What brought you to Boise?

I graduated BSU in 2011. Shortly thereafter, I moved to Salt Lake but Boise quickly called me back. You just can’t beat the accessibility to such a wide-range of outdoor activities.

 

What do you do (profession)?

I’m a Financial Advisor. Really, I help people define their financial goals and strategies to meet those goals. I know being and outdoor adventurer and financial advisor may seem pretty oppositional, but I really like having my week-day work and my weekend adventure lifestyle.

 

What brought you to Crown?

Really, Kris gets the credit. His passion for bettering each individual and legitimate makes this gym what it is. If he hasn’t heard from me in a few days, I’ll get a call, wondering if everything’s alright. Thanks, Coach.

 

How has Crown helped you outside the gym?

Honestly, Crown has been a great bridge for me to connect my professional and my social lives. If you’re going to get up at 5 a.m., you want people you love to be there. Crown enables me to start my work-day by enabling my free-time.

 

Who has the nicest head of hair at the gym?

Coach Conroy. Period. No question.

 

Do you think BJ would ever want to try functional fitness/weightlifting ?

If BJ believed ANYTHING would help him fetch a tennis ball…he’d do it. Seriously.

 

Short term/long term goals in fitness and health?

First thing that come to mind is preparing to Kilimanjaro this summer. It won’t be a technical hike, but it’s certain to be the most mentally challenging climb in my life. To me, it’s equally about training my mind AND my body, which, I do every day here.

USA Weightlifting Community Development Training Site Offerings

Last October, Crown was one of 76 nationwide clubs applying for a for a USA Weightlifting Community Development Training Site. This distinction links USAW’s National Presence to the local level.

These sites institute USA weightlifting’s program to help grow the sport of weightlifting at a grassroots level. After a final review by the USA committee at the national office, we are proud to announce that Crown was selected as one of only 24 locations in the United States to hold this title.

What this means.

By providing quality coaching and equipment to those interested in the sport, Crown’s partnership with USAW creates an active outreach program that is designed to attract a myriad of talent. We aim to expose our local and regional community to the sport of weightlifting, as well as to promote a sustainable wellness model.

Crown Performance’s Outreach Programs:

The Community Outreach Program at Crown Barbell with consist of 3 Categories, each with 2 strands

Category 1: School Outreach. In this category the Community Site can contact or be contacted by local schools, both public and private about two pathway opportunities. The Weightlifting Pathway and the Sports Performance Pathway. The Weightlifting Pathway is about the opportunities provided by participating in the sport of weightlifting, while the Sports Performance Pathway is the proper usage of the weightlifting movements to assist an athlete in their chosen sport. The Sport Performance Pathway will be connected to the USAW’s Transition Program that assists athletes in other sports, who wish to stay competitive in finding their way into weightlifting when their sports career comes to end, for whatever reason.

Category 2: Athletic Organizations. In this category the Community Site can contact or be contacted by the various Sports Organizations in the area that support athletic activities and present them with the same two pathways.

Category 3: Individuals In this category interested individuals may participate in either a scheduled Open Training Session or as a Drop In to Crown Barbell.

The outreach session, itself, will be in line with the Try Weightlifting for a Day format.

Once schools, organizations or individuals have accepted and scheduled a date a ‘half-day’ of training will occur. This training day will include both lecture and practical training sessions broken up into time frames of 30 to 45 minutes to maximize participant engagement.  The USA Weightlifting Top/Down Teaching Progressions for the Snatch, Clean and Jerk will be presented. Upon completion of the training day participants will receive a follow up contact to discuss moving forward with their training opportunities.

Use our contact offering to get more information about this program

 

Why Train the Weightlifting Movements?

Why Train the Weightlifting Movements?

Note: Back in 1999 at the OTC in Colorado Springs NSCA founder Boyd Eply led a study group to give the rationale for using the weightlifting movements (Snatch, Clean, Jerk) in the training programs for athletes in other sports. These statements are as true now as they were then. In January of 2016 at the NSCA National Convention USA Weightlifting Director of Education shared these same statements in his presentation to the NSCA membership

As College Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (CSCCa) co-founder Pat O’Shea stated in his well-read book, Quantum Strength and Power Training “Power is the name of the game.”
If you are an athlete trying to improve performance the best approach, without a doubt, is to incorporate the use of the Snatch, Clean, Jerk, along with Pulls, Squats and presses into your training.

The goal of any training program should be 4 fold

  1. Improve performance
  2. Increase work capacity
  3. Refine technique
  4. Reduce and even eliminate injury.

No one gave the reasons for the above mentioned approach better than Boyd Eply and below is an abridged version of his original concepts

Reasoning, Application, and Movement

1. Ground Based Activities

Sport skills are initiated by applying force, to the ground, with the feet. The more force applied the faster an athlete will run, or throw and the more effective they will be in their sport. All training programs should include exercises that apply force, with the feet, to the ground. (Boyd Eply, 1999)
“Sport is played on your feet. You want to train on your feet.”

2. Multiple Joint Actions

Most sports involve multiple joint actions timed in proper neuromuscular patterns. Isolating single joint actions may improve an athletes appearance but athletes need to concentrate on activities involving sequential multiple joint actions to improve performance.

3. Three Dimensional (3D) Movements

Sport Skills involve movement in three planes of space, simultaneously. Only Free Weight Movements allow for this Forward-backward, Up and down and Side to side movement. This makes transfer skills of strength and power easier to merge with sports skills. Machine training limits the development of sport skills.

4. Train Explosively

Training explosively, with free weights, allows more fast twitch fibers to be recruited, and in return, improves athlete performance. Proper training with explosive lifts allows the athlete to generate more force.

Of Course you can also contact us here at the USA Weightlifting Community Development Site at Crown Performance at this link. https://gardencityfit.com/

Be sure to open the USAW Community Development Training Site on the Menu tab and if we are close enough to you drop in and check us out. Even if your far away contact us and we will assist you remotely.

USA Weightlifting Community Training Site; Why be a Weightlifter?

Weightlifting Outreach

For 2019, USA Weightlifting is making a concerted effort to reach out to athletes of every discipline. Our goal is to expose individuals that are curious about weightlifting to sound coaching and proper training protocols.

“Why become a Weightlifter?”

The answers to this question are plentiful and here are the obvious ones;

⦁ It’s an individual sport. You can, easily, make it fit your lifestyle and you don’t need a small army of others to make it work.

 

⦁ It’s a FULL PARTICIPATION SPORT. All weightlifters are “First String Starters”. No one “rides the bench” in weightlifting. Each and every participant gets three attempts in the Snatch and three attempts in the Clean and Jerk.

 

⦁ There is a place for EVERYONE. “Do you have a gender?” Weightlifting has competitions for both males and females. “Do you have an age?” Weightlifting has age categories for Youth ( U-11, U-13, 14-15 and 15-17 ) Junior (18-20) U-25 ( 18-15) Open (21+) and Masters 35+ every 5 years) “Do you have a bodyweight?” There a 10 weight classes for each gender.

 

⦁ Competitions are set up as Local, Regional, National and International. While Regional and above competitions have qualifying standards most local competitions are open to all members of USAW.

 

⦁ Weightlifting is a year round sport. While there is both a National and International Calendar of events, local competitions are happening somewhere almost every weekend.

 

⦁ You’ll receive One on One Coaching. As an individual sport weightlifters work closely with a coach dedicated to assisiting them in attaining their goals. Most of the training takes place on a dedicated platform that only holds one athlete at a time so you get undivided attention when training.

 

⦁ Weightlifting Clubs are great communities and being a member of one allows for a great sense of belonging.

 

 

The IDAHO LOCAL WEIGHTLIFTING COMMITTEE is the governing body for our sport in Idaho and their web page is https://www.idaholwc.org/
Of Course you can also contact us here at the USA Weightlifting Community Development Site at Crown Barbell at this link. https://gardencityfit.com/
Be sure to open the USAW Community Site on the Menu tab and if we are close enough to you drop in and check us out.