Jourdan Delacruz: Weightlifting’s Next Wave (Podcast)

 …I just don’t know how anyone else is training.

I haven’t been around really [laughs] any other athlete so, it’s keeping me on my toes. It’s like, yes, you’re on the Olympic team but, it hasn’t been set in stone. Definitely not comfortable.

Welcome to the “BarBend Podcast,” where we talk to the smartest athletes, coaches and minds from around the world of strength. I’m your host, David Thomas Tao. This podcast is presented by barbend.com.

Today I’m talking to American weightlifter, Jourdan Delacruz. At just 22 years old, Jourdan’s resume in the sport is already impressive. 2019 Pan-American Champion in the 55-kilogram category, 2020 IWF World Cup Champion in the 49-kilogram category, and multi-time American record holder.

While the roster for the Tokyo Olympic Games hasn’t been finalized, Jourdan has put herself in a great position to qualify. Jourdan joins us to talk training, changing bodyweight categories, and how weight lifters can build camaraderie and encourage newer athletes in the sport.

Also, I want to take a second to say we’re incredibly thankful that you listen to this podcast. If you haven’t already, be sure to leave a rating and review of the BarBend Podcast in your app of choice.

I’d also recommend subscribing to the BarBend Newsletter to stay up to date on all things strength. Just go to barbend.com/newsletter to start becoming the smartest person in your gym today. Now let’s get to it.

Jourdan, thanks so much for joining us today. I have to start off with this. How’s training been going lately during the global pandemic?

 [laughs] That’s a good question. I like that, you’re starting one. [laughs]

 I start with easy the question. Just to see how are you dealing with the global pandemic?

Yeah, how are you feeling during this pandemic? [laughs] The training has been doing good, especially in the last month or so. I’m definitely more into a better groove than I was earlier this year. It’s been pretty good. We still don’t have any major competitions on the calendar or at least set stone in the calendar. They are so far so good.

Would you compete virtually? We saw what the Pan Am Federation did with their virtual competition. Now when we’re recording this, USA weightlifting is taking the AO Series 3 online. Is competing virtually something you’d consider in the near future?

If I needed to. I’ve helped some teammates do some virtual competitions, and I think it’s super weird.

This is strange. Of course, if I needed to, if there was a part of qualifying, yeah, for sure.

What have your teammates said about it, about their experience? What have you observed about the virtual competition so far? I haven’t actually been involved in a virtual weightlifting competition. I haven’t done color commentary on one yet. I haven’t competed in one yet. I’m just curious what your perspective is on it.

The couple that happened, they’ve been run pretty smoothly. Harrison is actually competing in the Uzbekistan one.

Harrison Maurus.

Yeah. It’s definitely a little strange because you’re lifting by yourself. It’s got a little bit more fast pace. The people will tell you to put the bar down. I don’t know. It’s a little bit strange.

You don’t need to compete on one in the calendar right now, but you are someone who generally, under normal circumstances, competes fairly regularly. I would say I’ve seen you compete more often, at least at national level and international level meets, than a lot of other elite athletes. What is your ideal number of times that you like to peak for in a given year?

What I’m used to, just in the last couple years, is yes, I competed every six weeks. I would say my longest cycle would be a 12-week cycle. I do like to keep it that way. I do like competing a little bit more regularly, maybe not so much internationally.

That’s just exhausting, traveling everywhere all the time. I definitely like competing more often than not. This period is definitely a little bit foreign to me.

Are you competing around your competition body weight? Competing every six weeks is a lot in the world of weightlifting, especially at your level. Are you dropping weight every time or are you leading up to competition? Are you competing right around 55? Are you training right around 55, I should ask?

I’m at 49 now.

Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive me that you cut down. One competition where you really shined was earlier this year the Roma Cup — the IWF Roma Cup. You had a fantastic, stellar performance.

It was one of the last big international meets before everything shut down, especially, right before Italy went into full lockdown. Tell us a little bit about your experiences of that meet and did you have any inclination as COVID was becoming more of a global problem at the time that…Did it ever strike you like, “Hey, this might be the last time I compete internationally for a while”?

Oh gosh, no. No idea, no. [laughs] I really didn’t even know what the coronavirus was. I honestly hadn’t even heard about it that much. I was in Italy, probably, a week or two before the major outbreak, earlier in March. The fact that I hadn’t even heard of it, either I just don’t listen to the news enough, or…

…it just wasn’t that prevalent in the United States at the time. It’s funny because right after that meet, most of us got sick. I was on and off fever. We weren’t really sure what it was. My teammate called me “Corona” the entire time. [laughs] Looking back, I’m like, “Uh, I get it now.” [laughs]

Did you get an antibody test? Do you know if that’s what you actually had at the time?

No, I haven’t done the antibody test. I have gotten tested but I haven’t gotten that yet.

It could’ve been COVID-19 or it could’ve been something else that was just going around the team. We don’t really know right now.

It could’ve been anything. I don’t know if anyone else got tested for it. It was weird because we got it very quickly. It was very aggressive. It was on and off fevers. I didn’t have any respiratory issues. I don’t know if anyone else did. But we definitely got sick, no matter what it was.

How long did it take you to get back to training at full capacity after that?

I was sick for couple of weeks after that. Then, I…let’s see, what happened? Oh, I went to a wedding. I really didn’t start getting back into training until probably, three weeks later.

Got you. We’re well into March at that point, when you’re back into training at full speed?

Yes.

A littler later in March, after the Rome competition obviously, competition at the Arnold was quite interesting this year without spectators. People didn’t know if they were to call the event off. It was in the weeks following, that things really started to hit home. Then obviously, in the months after that, we find that the Olympics are being postponed. Pretty much all international events are being canceled for the rest of the year.

Everyone reacted to that quite differently. Do you remember your first reaction when you had heard about the Olympic postponement?

When we first heard that they were toiling with the idea of postponing it, I think, I was just in denial about it. I was like, “There’s no way they’re canceling it. They haven’t canceled it since World War II. There’s no way they can do that.” That whole process took a very long time as well. We would get little bits and pieces of information. Weeks would go by, we still hadn’t heard anything. We’re training, yet, we don’t know if this is even happening.

Columbia, which was a Silver event — It was supposed to be held in March — That had gotten canceled. So, we’re seeing all these meets just dropping. Then, they finally announce, “Yeah, we’re gonna postpone the Olympics.” By that point, I had already been so upset, so stressed out, a lot of just being sad, I guess. To sum that up, it was just a really sad news to hear.

Now obviously, the official Olympic team won’t be announced until 2021, which is a little bit awkward, especially, given that athletes like yourself had already put in a ton of work on qualification. The hope is that those athletes who had earned their spots will be able to maintain that.

That seems to be the case, even though there might be some additional competitions to make up for what was canceled and postponed. This year, you’re a very likely member of that Olympic team.

What, if anything, has that done to change your training and mindset for the next year since we’re less than a year out from Tokyo 2020, as they’re still calling it, even though it’s in 2021?

It’s a strange mindset to be in because, yes, I wasn’t in a good spot after that meet in January. I was in a good spot before they decided to postpone the Olympics, but they’re keeping the qualifications open.

I’ve been asked, “Are you comfortable? Are you just coasting right now?” My answer is, “Absolutely not, I still have to keep fighting for my spot, even though I’m in a good position — seemingly good position.”

I just don’t know how anyone else is training. I haven’t been around really any [laughs] other athletes, so it’s keeping me on my toes. It’s like, yes, you’re on the Olympic team, but it hasn’t been set in stone, so definitely not comfortable.

I can’t even imagine the hard work that goes into this sport, and then having that put on delay. It’s not like anything is being taken away from anyone, but at the same time it’s not official until it’s official. That’s certainly something that I think is weighing on a lot of athletes.

When it comes to your training, you basically have an additional year now, as does everyone. You don’t, like you said, you don’t know what everyone else is doing. Are there any particular weaknesses you’re tackling? You said you’re working on a pretty hard squat cycle right now. Anything that’s really a priority in your training between now and whenever international competition opens back up?

Because of just how rigorous the qualification process was to get to the 2020 Olympics, I had to compete a lot. Cutting down to the 49 also required me to compete a lot in that weight class. Something that we were given the opportunity to do is just get some volume in.

I was on six-week competition cycles for over a year, so it isn’t exciting, it’s a little draining. I wasn’t planning on spending my August like this, doing all these squats, but it is a good opportunity to just start going back to the fundamentals, go back to the foundation, and start building that overall raw strength. Then later on, we’ll go back to refining technique and getting those heavier weights overhead.

What would you be doing in August, if the Olympics had occurred? Or maybe what do you plan on doing, assuming you make the Olympic team next year? Do you have like a post Olympics’ celebration or vacation or relaxation period planned?

It’s nothing spectacular. It’s just taking time away from the gym, traveling not with my weightlifting bag.

Going to see family, I haven’t seen them in so long. I mean, I had a lot of plans. At the same time, I also wasn’t planning on retiring after this quad. I think things would have been a lot worse, and just more difficult if I had planned to retire after this year.

You’re just 22 years old, so even in the world of weightlifting, that’s pretty young. I mean, you’re pretty set on going for another Olympic quad after this one?

Yeah, I would like to do ’24. I’ve been lifting for five or six years so by that time it’ll be my 10 year, I guess.

That seems like a long time in the course of, you’re very young lifting for just five or six years. It might seem like a large portion of your life but many in the USA weightlifting system have been lifting since they were a lot younger than that. Some started 11, 12, 13-years-old.

I look at Harrison Maurus, I look at C.J. Cummings and I see their lifting pedigrees going back to, even before they were teenagers. Your rise in the sport was, I don’t want to say fast, because I think that undermines the work that you’ve put in and the time you have put in, but certainly a fairly quick rise from beginner to elite in the sport.

Do you credit anything in particular, your maybe athletic background before weightlifting, or anything with that early level of success that you built?

I think I’d have to credit the opportunity I was given to be a resident at the Olympic Training Center. I was one of the last groups to be there before they closed the program. Being around professional athletes, being around athletes whose job is to train, and their bodies are their job, and their goal is to go to the Olympics.

That not only instilled so much discipline, and drive, and dedication in me. It almost felt like it gave me a purpose because even though sometimes I didn’t feel like I fit in, I knew this was my niche, this was what I wanted to do. I didn’t know how I could do it. I would say that’s what got me started at such a young age to just commit fully to the sport.

You said you didn’t always feel like you fit in, was there like…Who were the popular kids at the Olympic Training Center when you were there? I’m curious.

You had Morghan King there, Jenny Arthur. You had all the 2016 Olympians. You had Norayr Vardanyan, Alex Lee, Donovan Ford, Colin Burns. Those were, and still they’re just such big figures in weightlifting, especially modern-day weightlifting.

I trained with the best of the best at such a young age. Gosh, I didn’t realize at the time, but people thought of them as weightlifting gods [laughs] .

You were just there along for the ride?

Yeah, essentially.

 What about now? Now you’re one of the best not only in the United States but in the world. Do people at your gym — they might be newer lifters, younger lifters — look to you now with those wide eyes?

Yeah, I think it’s such a cool lineage because I got to train with Morghan King. Now we’ve got younger girls training with me and we’re all around the same body weight. Just watching those numbers increase over the years and watching the talent, it’s been such a cool experience to be a part of the growth of weightlifting in America.

Yeah, I love it when I see little me’s around. I’m like, “You’re going to be really good one day and you’re going to make my job really hard.” [laughs]

Has anyone come up to you at a competition, and asked for an autograph for you to sign their weightlifting shoes or anything like that?

Yeah, that’s weird to me

Some people are like, “Can I get your autograph?” I’m like, “What? Me?” [laughs]

What do they ask you to sign? Is it like shoes, or a belt, or something like that?

 I’ve been asked to sign shoes. For some reason, they’ve got pictures of me, so then I’ll just sign it. Sometimes, they’re the session cards.

That’s cool. That makes some sense.

 I thought that was cool. They’re really sweet.

If you go to a Broadway show — I live in New York, so I am biased here — you wait for the actors afterwards. You get them to sign the “Playbill” for the Broadway show, so session card’s that equivalent in weightlifting.

Yeah. [laughs]

In regard to your weight class, the 49-kilo weight class has been highly, highly competitive. I say 49 now, but that equivalent weight class even before the body weight restructuring a few years ago, it’s been pretty highly competitive.

You mentioned Morghan King as someone who is at the top of that weight class, represented the US. In 2016, that equivalent weight class obviously wasn’t 49 then. Alyssa Ritchey, who fairly recently retired and was really one of the most accomplished USA weightlifting athletes on the international level for a number of years.

Right now, it’s you. You’ve really taken up the mantle of that weight class in the United States. Is there anyone, maybe a younger lifter, maybe someone newer to the sport you have your eye on and you think, “Wow. They can really be my competition here in a couple of years”?

Actually, I was just talking to a teammate about this but, maybe this is related to corona. I don’t know much of the youth in junior lifters. I don’t recognize names anymore.

I think because the Olympics has taken all of my focus. I don’t really know who’s on the Junior World Team anymore or the Youth World Team, which is sad because I’m on 22. I should still remember. [laughs] I’m sure there’s always going to be someone. There will be. That’s a fact.

What about on the international level? Who are you really excited to potentially compete against in your weight class in Tokyo?

I’ve got all the Asians. [laughs] I’ve got Asians, and then there’s an Ecuadorian. I need to double check, but there’s a South American country girl that we’re pretty close with. I haven’t competed internationally as a 49, maybe only twice. I don’t really know the competition in that weight class yet. I’m pretty familiar with the girls in the 55 or 53s, but not so much the 49s.

What was your transition to that weight category? I think of me at my size dropping six kilo’s, it’s not that intimidating. When you’re dropping from 55 to 49, that’s a really significant cut. What was your approach to that? How long did it take for you to move down to that weight class?

 I never was a fully full 55. I mean, I hit 55 a couple of times in the [indecipherable 21:14] . I was taking creatine. I was eating a ton. [laughs] Naturally I sat at 53.5 to 54. It was a really easy cut. It’s almost like my body was better off, at a smaller weight.

I felt like I was faster. I felt my athletic performance got better. It was a simple cut. I still have to do a water load, and a calorie restrictions when we get closer, but nothing dramatic.

Do you think that if you were to compete in another quad you would want to stay in that weight class, or would you want to explore a different weight class potentially moving back up?

I would like to stay as a 49, if 49 weight-class is going to be here for the next quad. At the same time girls’ bodies would just change over the years. If it’s hard for me to stay at this weight then obviously I’ll make adjustments, if I’m still cruising along as I am now then I’ll stay.

For 2021, whenever international competition opens back up, whenever we see you on stage next, do you have any particular numbers in mind for the snatch and clean and jerk that you would like to be hitting consistently in competition next year?

I’d like to see in the 200s…

For your total?

Yes. I hit 195 in Rome, going six for six. I feel I still had room in both the snatch and clean and jerk. Honestly I felt like, when we were training for Pan Ams I could have put 200 on the bar. I would like to see next year in the 200s, 205, 207.

Which lift do you think you have the most growth in, potentially?

I would say clean and jerk. When I first cut down to 49, my legs were just still getting used to being smaller. I still think that strength is there. I still think we can push it, but I just have to get used to being at this smaller body weight. [laughs]

Did you have any technique changes at a smaller body weight? I know some athletes will maybe modify — if they move down or up a weight class — maybe modify their starting position, or something like that. Did anything like that change for you?

No, I kept everything pretty normal. Starting position, catch, everything was basically the same. Obviously, I’m constantly trying to improve my technique, but in terms of changing any foundational stuff, no.

What do you think will be the biggest challenge for you in gearing up for the Olympic Games next year, if you make the team?

 I think the uncertainty of it all. I’m in a good position, but I still need to compete, and if those competitions are happening by the end of this year, or next year. I hate to say it, but whether the Olympics is still happening or not. All the uncertainty mentally, that’ll be my biggest challenge.

This is a bit of a softball question. I asked who the popular kids were at the Olympic Training Center when that was still a program for USA Weightlifting.

Who do you still look up to in weightlifting? It could be American weightlifting, it could be international, but is there anyone you still see as like, “I really want to reach their level,” or you look to them for advice, anything like that when it comes to performance?

 I love watching Rebeka Koha and Lidia Valentin because they move so flawlessly. I love watching their lifts. To be honest, the group of weightlifters that we’ve got on the roster for the Olympics, everyone there inspires me to keep going.

We’re all going through this together. We’re all going through the struggles that coronavirus brought on to us. They’re a huge part of my motivation.

Jourdan, what’s the best place for people to keep up-to-date with your training, competitions, whenever they restart, where is the best place for people to follow you?

Probably Instagram. It’s jourdannn_14.

Jourdannn_14. Perfect.

…yeah.

[laughs] I get that with people who are like, “Wait, what is my handle again? Let me think about it,” because it’s just so automatic.

I’ll go ahead and we’ll make sure that’s in the show notes, so people can follow along with your journey through weightlifting. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Yeah, of course.