How to build an Olympic weightlifting platform

This article first appeared at Straight to the Bar.

Ready for some pounding!

This is an easy design for an eight-foot square platform that will stand up to your heavy training for a long time to come. Protect your floor, your weights, and your knees by lifting at home on a proper training platform.

You’ll Need

• Four sheets of 3/4-inch CDX plywood
• One sheet of AB or AC plywood
• One 8’ x 4’ horse stall (rubber) mat
• About five tubes of industrial-strength adhesive
• Calking gun
• 1 ¼” wood screws
• Drill
• Reciprocating saw

Optional/optimal

• Square
• Chalk/string straight line drawing tool

Construction

1. Lay two sheets of CDX plywood lengthwise side by side in the direction you will face to lift.
   
2. Spread adhesive.
   
3. Lay two sheets of CDX plywood crosswise on top of bottom sheets.
   
4. Screw sheets together 2” from edges, 16” apart, around perimeter and along insides edges of top sheets.
   
5. Measure and mark for center plywood sheet, running parallel with bottom sheets. (My camera crapped out on me for the next few steps. Grrrr!)
6. Glue on higher-grade plywood sheet with better side facing up.
   
7. Screw top sheet along 4’ edges ONLY.
   
8. Cut stall mat in half lengthwise. How to: Lay two boards parallel with gap between them. Lay mat over boards. Draw chalk line down the center. Use reciprocating saw to cut mat into two 8’ x 2’ strips.
9. 
   
10. Spread adhesive and lay down mat strips along both sides of top plywood.

Sources

My husband and I built my home platform this way, based on a design by Jim Schmitz, as explained in an article on Ironmind by Randy Strossen. We varied only on the adhesive and the mat. I’m contributing my version for some added detail, the technical writing format, and the suggestion of the horse stall mats - Thanks to Tom Hirtz for that idea.

my first live meet

Whoo-hooo!!! What a rush. Made all my attempts and finished first in my division (out of two :0) )


Spring Classic 2009 from The Mighty Kat on Vimeo.

Fossil, Oregon unites to get in shape, lose fat

Read or listen to full story on NPR

excerpt

Eighty people are involved. That's close to 20 percent of Fossil's population of 450. And so far, they've collectively lost more than 600 pounds...

"We started out the first week or two with my husband buying 500 pounds of sand, and people brought water bottles," Boettner explains. "We filled them up with sand … and depending on the size of the water bottles, you had either a 2- or a 3- or a 4-pound weight."

Boettner also notes that the group has no stationary bikes, treadmills, elliptical machines or stair-climbers.

"When we climb stairs, they're actual stairs and we climb them," she says, laughing. "We do it the old-fashioned way."

space stuff

USAW coaching course in Portland area

ETA: Course completed

A USAW Sports Performance Coaching Course will be held the weekend of April 25th, 2009 at the Portland Oregon Weightlifting/Franco Athletic & Sports Training facility in Sherwood, Oregon, if you're looking to get certified or just educated. Registration and details

I completed the Jim Schmitz Olympic Weightlifting program

I should get a certificate. It's been ten months - I started the program in April 2008 and finished at the end of February 2009. What a great program! I recommend it to anyone who's serious about this kind of training.

Read my full review at Mighty Fit Review.