Torwod History

I was invited into the National Olympic Weightlifting Team at the age of 16. At that time, I had a “fresh” title of “national champion” in my weight class among juniors under 20 years old. My experience in the national team started with the preparations for the European Championships.

My coach at that time was not a member of the coaching staff of the team and for our first training camp, I came alone. In the national team, I was assigned to one of the team’s coaches, whose first task was to design training plans for our group and to monitor their implementation. As an athlete, I was in pursuit of the best results, so it was my goal to create a training program to get the maximum performance from my body.

Therefore, we often stayed with the coach after the training sessions to discuss the basic principles and unorthodox patterns in weightlifting. Frankly speaking, in most cases it was a dispute between an athlete and an experienced mentor, but in any dispute, the truth is born.

My first major event on the national team was in a very prestigious international competition. For me, everything was new and unknown, which was a great time for “absorbing” new information.

Every day, we stayed in the training facility after our training sessions to watch how athletes from other countries worked out. Now I understand that this was the best thing that could have happened to me on the way to becoming a professional athlete. After our first competition the coach of the national team allowed me to make small adjustments to my training plan. But for that, I had to make a very detailed report on all of the groups of exercises and calculate all the load parameters at the end of every single week.

The main condition… a positive result in all competitions. In case I failed and the results decreased, I would forfeit all of my privileges and return to the general training plan. This way I had an incentive, but also a responsibility for my results. And one must not forget that every athlete in the country is striving to be a part of the national team and would gladly say “thank you” if you gave up your spot.

I kept the weekly statistics in my journal and to be honest, the counting process “killed me”. It took from 3 to 5 hours every week and after six months of plan designs in a notebook and calculations on a calculator, I started looking for options to simplify the process. I liked planning, analytics, and working with numbers and that’s why I bought my first computer. It helped me to create a training weekly template and thereby, automate the entire process of calculating the load.

After spending a week on compiling a table with all the formulas and output results for different categories of exercises, I had a database in which all I had to do was enter my training attempts and the statistics for the week, month, and years were filled automatically. I gave this template to five or six athletes from the team on one condition – they would give me access to their statistics.

During the preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games, I collected a huge amount of data on the team and my personal preparations. I had plans of different coaches and the results of their athletes performances at the competitions. After the Beijing Summer Olympic Games, I set out to analyze my training program and the programs of these athletes in order to determine the principles of planning in modern Olympic weightlifting.

This practice has given me great experience, helped me understand the patterns of mistakes and successful actions. After the 2008 Olympics, when starting preparations for a new 4-year cycle, I was already working on the national team with my personal coach. But, I created my own plan, as I clearly understood that it was the only chance to test my achievements on myself.

After the 2012 Olympic Games, I started working in the Ukrainian Olympic Weightlifting Federation, as I had a desire to share my experience with other athletes. It was also the time that functional training really started to take off which provoked a keen interest in Olympic Weightlifting. I realized that at this moment, I was at the right place at the right time – this inspired me even more.

The only thing I didn’t know was how to properly convey my knowledge. Therefore, I started experimenting with different forms and formats such as PDF, Google Docs, and Excel. In practice, it turned out that for most athletes these formats were not always available and were sometimes confusing. Because of this, I started thinking about creating a universal online app that would be accessible for anyone, anywhere in the world.

After my first seminars in the US, I saw that similar apps already existed and from that moment I started actively learning about this market. I tried over a dozen different training platforms, but they were not suitable for my needs. Their function and purpose was for power training in game sports, but not for Olympic weightlifting.

Once I received a request for personal training from a guy who introduced himself as “Big Max”. He wanted to go through an Olympic weightlifting training cycle to improve his skills in functional training. As we got to know each other, it turned out that he was an advanced programmer and, after trying olympic weightlifting, he noticed that there were no suitable apps for functional training athletes and coaches who were engaged in Olympic weightlifting.

As an athlete, he wanted to get a program that was scientifically-based and proven through experience, and at the same time, accessible for the general public. From that moment, we started developing our own app based on my personal experience as an athlete and using the programming skills of BigMax. This was the beginning of the TORWOD.

After a couple of months, professionals and like-minded people including athletes and trainers started joining our team. We had many discussions and a multitude of different opinions. But in the end, all of this was worth it as it helped us choose the most optimal approach to our online training method. We worked on the structure of our training plans, different forms of visualization and statistical data, which will be most understandable and accessible to for all users. As a result, we created a product that is convenient to use on both PC and mobile devices.

We believe that mindful actions multiply the efficiency of the process and consequently, the result. Thus, an important emphasis was placed on explaining the essence, goals and objectives of each program. For the launch of our training platform, we’ve prepared two programs: “OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFTING” Level PRO and ELITE. But due to a huge demand from our initial testers, work is already underway to create other training programs both for the very beginner athletes, as well as an exclusive one-on-one training program for the very elite professionals.

What Is Special About Torwod

Adaptation Period

After a break in the training process (Example: vacation, business trip, etc.), the program will offer you a gradual return to the previous level of the training load, adjusting automatically to the user’s individual needs, based on his training and life schedule.

Video Lab

A large information resource, implemented as a demonstration video, lasting up to 60 seconds. The main task is to show the correct form of a particular exercise or move at different angles with the use of detailed animation.

Video, Audio And Text Notes

A function which allows you to write and save a note under any of the exercises in any of the above ways. Available in version 1.01

Editing The Program

The ability to make personal adjustments to the training program as it is performed with more accurate analytics for the day/week.

Review

The option which allows you at any time to return to one of the completed lessons with complete data.

Uniqueness Of The Product

The author’s program “OLYMPIC WOD” is developed on the basis of his personal experience, as well as many years of competitions with the Ukrainian national team. There is an option to choose the optimal level of complexity, whereby the load will match your goals and objectives.

Understanding The Training Protocol

Understanding what you are doing increases your effectiveness. The assigned tasks of micro and meso cycles, which the entire program consists of, are scheduled and available for review.

Thorough Warm-up

A series of exercises lasting 10-15 minutes, which will prepare you for training, with an emphasis on the moves that will be in that day’s program. Full video instructions will be included.

Preparation For Competition

The “OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFTING” Program has been developed without the athlete’s territorial binding, which allows athletes from different countries to use it easily. For the purpose of preparation for local competitions, you can use the special 8-week or 12-week “COMPETITION” modules that will take you to the peak of sports training in the specified time. 

https://torwod.com

I am happy to welcome you to our platform!

Aleksey Torokhtiy

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