Nineteen-year-old Junior American Weightlifter Mattie Rogers is a woman on a mission. After hitting the Junior American Record Snatch of 91 kg (200 lbs) and matching her best training PR of 110 kg (242 lbs.) at Junior Nationals last month, she is remaining focused now on the upcoming Junior Pan American Games in Columbia at the beginning of May. 

 

“I'm really, really training hard for that one, so I hope to see some bigger numbers there,” Rogers said.

 

“Junior Pan Ams is my main focus! I want it to be my best meet yet and potentially qualify me for Senior Worlds this year,” Rogers said.

 

And while the Pan Ams is Rogers’ priority, she has concurrently been participating in the 2015 CrossFit Open—and holding her own, currently ranked 54^th in the SouthEast Region, marching into the fourth week of competition.

 

“ I'm still CrossFitting fitting, but barely, ha ha,” Roagers said. “The Open WODs are really the only WODs I do at the moment. It's a little rough seeing as I haven't really "trained" for CrossFit in quite a while, but at the same time, it's cool to see (I can still hold my own). I definitely don't expect to rank well this year at all, but I enjoy killing myself trying to WOD every week,” Rogers said.  

 

Not only does the Junior Weightlifter wear other hats—like CrossFit—but also ‘coach.’ Last weekend, Rogers was also seen at the Alamonte Open in a different light—the sidelines.

 

 

“Last weekend was the first of hopefully an annual weightlifting meet. Danny (Camargo) and I had been working on that meet for quite a while and I did whatever was necessary to make sure it was running smoothly,” Rogers said—including coaching her own coach (Camargo) up to qualify for Master’s Nationals. “Since I just competed in Junior Nationals last month, I wanted to take the time to just train through this one. I'm on a pretty intense training cycle for my next meet, so competing just didn't fit in with it for me,” Rogers said.

 

Currently, Rogers admits her life revolves around weightlifting (“which is AWESOME!”).

 

After coaching weightlifting in the mornings, she completes her first, of two, training sessions for the day, followed by work at the gym and for her distance classes, before hitting a second training session in the afternoon with her team. After that it's either more coaching or more homework depending on the day.

 

“I'm usually at the gym or A gym from before 9 am to about 7-8 pm. And I love it!! All my school is online this semester just because of all the traveling. My biggest goals right now are to GET STRONGGGGG. I want to get a lot stronger so I can hit the big numbers I need to hit in my upcoming meets,” Rogers said.

 

Watch out for Rogers in the coming months.

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