Derrick Johnson Olympic Lifting Seminar

During this seminar each athlete will be lifting, with an opportunity to put some real weight on the bar! Derrick will also cover injury prevention, mobility and stability work. There will be a Q&A at the end with an opportunity to get your questions answered. Derrick got his start fifteen years ago in competitive style Olympic weightlifting at Lift for Life Gym, an after school program for underprivileged youth in the inner city of St. Louis. Derrick would go on to win multiple national championships throughout all age divisions, 6 American open titles, and make many international teams representing the United States. Derrick would later start coaching at Lift for Life Gym where he would coach hundreds of kids throughout the St. Louis area. He began coaching Olympic weightlifting when he was 19 years old at Lift for Life Gym and he was named the head coach at the age of 23. He would go on to produce national champion weightlifters, and coach weightlifters to international teams representing the United States. At the age of 24, Derrick created and was named the head coach of the Olympic weightlifting team at Lindenwood University, which is the only program in the Unites States that gives scholarships to weightlifters all around the world. In its first year of 2010, his team finished in 2nd place at the National Collegiate Championships. In 2010 Derrick began training fighters at the H.I.T. Squad (UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes’ gym) to help them become better athletes and more powerful explosive fighters . Some of these fighters would go on to fight for the UFC, StrikeForce, and Bellator fighting promotions, and a few would go on to appear on Spike TV’s reality show TUF (The Ultimate Fighter). Derrick has given Olympic weightlifting seminar throughout the St.Louis region including a clinic at St.Louis University (NCAA Division I) to go along with working with their men and women’s basketball team. Derrick was awarded the 2010 Developmental Coach of the Year for USA Weightlifting by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), and in 2011 Johnson put together the strongest team in American as they went on to win the men’s American Open team title. Derrick is the youngest coach to be named head coach of an international competition for USA Weightlifting, and is the first African American to be named as a head coach on an international trip for USA Weightlifting. In 2011 Derrick would become the first coach ever from the United States to coach three weightlifters on the 2011 senior world team from three different countries (United States, Brazil, Canada). In 2012 Johnson coached Fernando Reis, a member of the Brazilian national team to the Olympics in weightlifting in London, and was the only coach to produce multiple gold medalists at the senior national championships in that same year. Derrick has the goal of making the 2016 Olympics and a lifter and coaching more athletes to that level. August 10th 10am – 3pm. Cost is: $150 Tidal Wave/Mainland Members $175 for Non Members https://gymsingalveston.com/prices-for-crossfit-galveston-membership/]]>