Raising the Bar for Girls: What USA Weightlifting Coaches Are Getting Right

Recently, I had the privilege of joining USA Weightlifting coaches from across the country to talk about Coaching HER®. It was a short session, but it was the kind of room every coach educator hopes for: curious, engaged, and full of people already doing the work.

USA Weightlifting isn’t just talking about supporting girls and women in sport. As a Coaching HER® Organizational Champion, they’ve made the full library of Coaching HER® micro-courses available free to their members through their Learning Academy, so coaches, parents, and leaders all have the tools to build environments where girls feel they belong.

That commitment is part of something bigger. Through their Women’s Coaching Collective, USAW is investing in the women who coach the sport. That includes networking and competition-shadowing opportunities at Nationals that pair developing coaches with senior and international coaches. It also includes a partnership with WeCOACH that offers free memberships to youth, high school, and collegiate women coaches, along with scholarships and support services. And they run Women’s Coach Development Weekends, where new women coaches can earn their Level 1 and Level 2 certifications in one weekend, taught by some of the sport’s most experienced women coaches. When girls see women coaching, they see a future for themselves in the sport.

Meeting Girls Where They Are

What struck me most was the creativity in the room. Programs across the country are thinking outside the box to make weightlifting a place girls want to start and/or be:

• Less formal spaces and competitions that lower the pressure and raise the fun
• Girls-only training and events where girls can try, fail, and grow without an audience
• Technique competitions at younger ages that reward skill and learning, not just the number on the bar
• Spaces and competitions that don’t require the singlet, removing a barrier that keeps too many girls from ever stepping on the platform

None of these ideas lowers the standard. They widen the doorway.

Ask Her. Then Listen.

The theme we kept returning to was simple: ask girls what they want. Not what we assume they want, and not what worked for us. Some of the best program ideas come straight from the athletes when we give them a real voice and then act on what they tell us. Listening is a coaching skill, and it may be the most important one we have for keeping girls in sport.

Sharing What Works

Maybe the most exciting part is that these coaches are starting to share with each other what is working. One club’s experiment becomes another club’s starting point. That’s how change spreads across a sport, one coach and one conversation at a time.

Thank you, USA Weightlifting, for being a Coaching HER® Champion and for showing what it looks like to be HER reason to stay in sport.

USAW coaches, parents, and leaders can access the free Coaching HER® micro-courses through the USAW Learning Academy. Learn more about the Women’s Coaching Collective at usaweightlifting.org/womens-coaching-collective.