USOTC hosts special weightlifting camp

MARQUETTE — The U.S. Olympic Training Site at Northern Michigan University is one of only three in the nation that have a weightlifting program and this week, it was the location for a special weightlifting camp.

The camp held four sessions each day for the past week for students interested in how to perfect their craft and the experience has turned out to be invaluable to the participants.

“It gives us an opportunity to bring in high school kids, junior high kids from all across the country to come and tour the training program here for a week and also take a tour of the university and see if that’s something they’d be interested in the future and it brings a lot of people to Marquette that wouldn’t be here otherwise,” Newgard said.

One of those students is McKenzie Meyers from Minnesota and she says the training concentrates mostly on one thing.

“A lot of focus on technique. It’s not really about heavy weight here. It’s about getting down your form and then once you get that, you can go up to heavy weight. Anybody can put weight on the bar but if you’re not doing the right technique, it’s not worth it,” Meyers said.

“When they come here, we just want to look at their technique, get them on film do repetition after repetition just to perfect those little things that they could take back with their own training programs and work on for years to come,” said Newgard.

The final day for the camp is tomorrow and there are four sessions you can attend if you are interested, at 9 am, 10:30, 1pm and 2:30. The training site is located inside the Superior Dome.