Olympic weightlifter Quinn Everett and his coach, Isaac Smith, having big, audacious goals for the future – to represent Canada in weightlifting at the Olympics. And they’re firming up the foundation for success that they feel strongly will get there there one milestone at a time. We talk about the mindset Quinn and Isaac each have, how their careers intersected and where the road ahead may take them.
Show Notes
For this episode I am joined by two very special guests. Quinn Everett is the current reigning 2-time Canadian Senior Mens Super Heavyweight Olympic Weightlifting Champion. He transitioned to weightlifting from a successful career as high level football player in University and in the Canadian Football League. Isaac Smith is Quinn’s coach. Isaac is himself a national level competitor and provincial record holder in his weight class as a weightlifter. He’s a Catalyst Athletics Level 2 Certified Weightlifting coach, and certified by the National Coaching Certification Program. He’s past president of the Nova Scotia Weightlifting Association, an organization he helped bring to the province and lay the foundation for organized weightlifting programs in Nova Scotia. All that is to say, both of these guys are heavyweights in their respective and now shared disciplines.
I’ve had the pleasure of training along side these guys for years now. Isaac has coached me many times and helped lead the Catalyst Athletics level 1 seminar I attended in preparation for my own certification as a weightlifting coach at Osprey Athletics. He’s a gifted coach with an exacting eye and a unique style of progressing an athlete’s development. Quinn is a gifted athlete with an uncommon combination of power, speed and technique that serves him extremely well as he continues to build his skill as a weightlifter in support of an Olympic ambition. They’re also very generous with their time, despite being extremely busy working together on making Quinn’s goals achievable. I’ve had conversations with them both on an off for the better part of a year about having them on the podcast to chat but I’ve always been careful to make sure that I try to catch them when they’re not gearing up for the next competition – which I discovered is a rare window of opportunity in their schedules. But thanks to COVID-19 – and unbelievably I can point to at least this as something good to come out of all this – like all of our schedules, Quinn and Isaac’s training plans have been disrupted and that afforded me an excellent opportunity to get them both on the line from their respective homes to talk about what’s next for them both. Because even with the inconveniences that come with self-isolation, their goal setting and their planning to achieve those goals hasn’t taken a break.
I chat with the champ and his coach about the milestones they’ve laid out on the road to Quinn’s desire to represent Canada at the Olympics in weightlifting.
Quinn and Isaac are great guys – I feel pretty lucky to train in the same facility. They’re very approachable, extremely enthusiastic about what they do, and, as you can tell from our chat, they’re very focused on what comes next. Goal setting is an important theme that we returned to often as we chatted. Each had clear visions for what they would like to accomplish and luckily, their paths crossed and they’re now both able to make great strides toward their respective and collective goals as a team. It’s the unique synergy that coaches and athletes hope to achieve because that synergy helps them make each other better.
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