Weightlifting is hard. Yes, there’s many other activities/sports that are objectively harder in some ways. And while I strongly believe that certain lessons learned in the gym can be broadly applied outside of the gym, a “bad” day of taking a weight from the floor to overhead will undoubtedly not compare to the challenges life will ultimately throw at you. …
You haven’t PR’d your Snatch in many months (or maybe years). You see them a few times a month in a group fitness class or maybe you randomly tackle them on your own. Each time you do, it feels like you’re back to square one. You can’t have it all, and so much of training is about priorities. You’ll get …
Our Barbell members come to us from different backgrounds, for different reasons, with different expectations. For us, it’s important to be able to work with athletes of all kinds. Absolute beginners just getting their feet wet, long-term committed enthusiasts, and high level athletes. It’s a big reason athletes like Parker choose to train with us. “I appreciate that we as …
RVA Barbell, an Olympic Weightlifting program in Richmond, VA, is designed to help trainees improve their power, strength, and technical proficiency with the ultimate goal of lifting heavier weight in the Snatch, Clean & Jerk, and Squat. Each 90 minute+, limited class size session will have you performing Olympic lifts, assistance movements, as well as strength building and auxiliary exercises …
When you hear “Olympic weightlifting”, it’s pretty easy to immediately think about the “sport” aspect of it. Big weights going overhead, competitions, maybe the occasional bar slam if you’re getting a bit wild. But so many folks start weightlifting not with the immediate goal of lifting the most weight they possibly can (though that’s a pretty awesome side effect), but …
In a way, RVA Barbell began in 2008. We started RVA Performance Training (then CrossFit RVA) Richmond, VA in 2007, but I was immediately enamored by the Olympic lifts (Snatches and Clean & Jerks). Good information was hard to come by, and it was tough to even find videos of people performing the lifts well. I think that was part …
I find it a helpful exercise to think about what I would do differently if I could start again from scratch with my gym in Richmond, VA. Obviously life doesn’t work that way. So many lessons have to be learned (and re-learned several times) through experience. I would focus on the process, not the outcome Early in my training and …
One of the biggest things that makes the Performance program at RVA Performance Training a little different is that there’s always a PLAN. We look at the year as a whole, and carve out 8-12 week cycles. Each cycle builds on the next. Within those cycles, we create a broad outline of what we want to work on, and how …
“It’s Just Exercise” Core values so often feel like stuffy corporate-speak. Vague and meaningless words and phrases meant to give a faint impression of an organization with a little meaning behind it. Years ago, when we were putting together ours, I wanted our core values to be both reflective of who we are, and how we will proceed in the …
Imagine for a moment, it’s a couple of years down the road. Most of us have some image of what we’d like to “work on” in our lives. Frustrations, both big and small. We feel like there MUST be an answer to some of those challenges. And inevitably, we can picture a life where those challenges are in some way …
