Story Time

Just here to share a story and maybe it can shed some light on past and future training habits. Yes, this story is about weightlifting. Surprise.

A couple years ago. I was at the CrossFit games. (Surprise, I know)

One of the “side” events they had was a Lift off where many famous lifters were going to build to a heavy 1 in numerous lifts. A kind of supertotal if you will. The lifts included everything.

Clean
Snatch
Back Squat
Jerk
Deadlift
Bench Press.

So yeah, this took a while. There were many famous lifters/athletes such as Morgan King (Olympian), Kristin Pope, Elijah Muhammed, Adrian Conway along with others. The person this story is about though is Wes Kitts. A little back story on Wes, first he is one of my favorite lifters. He lifts out of Cal strength. Snatches 180kg/396, Clean and Jerks 223kg/490, and Back squats 300kg/660 just to give you an idea of what’s going on here.

During this lift off I was able to get some front row seats and watch the Champ go to work. There were maybe about 15-20 total lifters and it was pretty close quarters in the lifting area. Luckily I got a seat right next to Wes’ Squat rack. He shared a bar with a couple other guys: Adrian Conway and Elijah Muhammed. Now Wes is the strongest guy in a 10 mile radius (In America Technically), so he is definitely stronger than his lifting partners.

But before I dive into the meat and potatoes of the story, let’s review some things. Wes is a professional Weightlifter. National Champ, Pan Am Champ, Olympic Hopeful (Now an olympic team member). His two lifting partners Adrian Conway and Elijah Muhammed are CrossFitters.

As they started lifting, they eventually made it to the snatch. They started warming up and in fairness all three athletes did their specific barbell warm up. After that Elijah goes to put the reds on the bar for the next set, jumping straight from the bar to 155lbs. Wes stops him and goes “Hey can you put the yellows on first” Then Elijah asks Wes “ You don’t want to hit 155?” Wes goes, “nah I am going to do 115 first, then I will jump to 155”. Now you would think Elijah Muhhamed would’ve been like “well damn, if Wes isn’t going right to 155 then maybe I shouldn’t either”. That’s not what happened. Wes did his jumps: 45- 115-155 and proceeded to POWER SNATCH more than Elijah Muhhamed full snatched. This is no slight to Elijah Muhhamed, no one expects him to lift more than Wes. In fairness he is one of the better lifters in CrossFit.

However, moral of this story is…you are never too strong to warm up. No one is above it. It doesn’t make you weak to do a set between the bar and 135. Show some respect to the weight and warm up first.

IF WES KITTS DOESN’T GO BAR-TO-135, YOU SHOULDN’T EITHER.

Sincerely,

Coach Selby

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