Pursuit is sports feature series highlighting Athletes, Coaches and Staff from North Bay and the surrounding area.
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The Norsemen and Valkyries Weightlifting Club at the YMCA in North Bay is looking for new recruits.
"We have an after-school program for school-aged kids where our youngest is eight, and so I'd say our oldest is 18 and we’re looking for more people, of all ages, who want to come out and try this sport,” says Head Coach of Programming Logan Baker.
“This is for anybody looking to get started in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting or to do strength training for their sport. Additionally, we have an introduction to a barbell training stream as well, which is just for people looking to exercise using barbells. So, we have some people who don't play any sports, they don't have any interest in competing, but they still come to the program as a form of exercise to learn the right way to lift.”
Baker is a graduate of Canadore College’s Sports and Conditioning program and says he started with the club in grade nine after he moved to North Bay from New Liskeard.
“I ended up starting as a coach in 2012 and I really started seeing that as a potential career for me, because I really enjoyed the chance to give people a positive space to improve themselves and help them pursue their goals whether it be in terms of Olympic Weightlifting or strength and conditioning for hockey or other sports. It was enjoyable, and I decided to make a career out of it.”
Working alongside long-time coach Larry Sheppard, Baker says there is no pressure to sign up for competitions if you join the club.
“We have an open gym during the day and after the after-school program where anybody can come and train. They just need to have an Ontario Weightlifting Association membership and the YMCA membership. Then I'm available during the daytime for coaching services for other people who might want to have some guidance services,” he says.
“It's one of the most effective training modalities for developing strength and speed and power which is a huge component of athletic performance. Training in Olympic Weightlifting can make a big impact on athletic performance, and we use it with all the athletes that we trained.”
Olympic weightlifting is comprised of two disciplines.
“There's a power snatch exercise and the push jerk. Those are the two competitive movements and what we do is we start out with fundamental movements, and we just build on them and then, in due time, we learn all the positions and how to move correctly,” says Baker.
“As you get more comfortable you start to do the full movements that we would do in the competitive setting and one important thing is that it can seem a little daunting, but we meet everyone where they're at and so you come in and figure out where you are, and we just work from there. There is no expectation of anybody to be a certain skill level before they get here.”
Right now, the club has a handful of kids who didn't take to team sports but still wanted to find something active to be a part of.
Baker says, “We really do a good job of retaining a lot of those kids because they're working at their own pace and there there's no pressure to perform. There's no competitive aspect, they're just coming a couple of times a week, exercising and learning how to do things better like how to move properly and getting a chance to exercise without any kind of external expectation you might find within a competitive sports environment.”
He adds, “Right now we have a good young junior team, but we only have one male lifter. We have a bunch of great female competitors and in the past, it's always been the complete opposite. But we're really looking for some young people who are interested, the gender doesn't matter at all. We love to have some fresh people in the club who are interested in in the sport and in the idea of just coming to a place where they can learn at their own pace and when the time is right, they will have an opportunity to do a competition.”
Baker says the competitive season starts in October and ends in May and locally there are two competitions in North Bay every year.
“One is in April, it's called the Northern Open and then in October we host the Ray Hamilton Classic, and those two meets are open to anybody. You don't have to qualify or anything like that as you progress further in the sport. If you're competing at a provincial level or national level that season runs from October to May but there are also competitions going on year-round and if you're just interested in doing your first competition or competing a few times a year, there's a litany of different open competitions hosted different places.”
