Athlete Profile: Lesbia Cruz- Guatemalan National Team

 Lesbia Cruz is the top female weightlifter in Guatemala.  She competes as a 63Kg lifter and has been featured in Central American Magazines. She is training at Risto Sports High Performance Training Center for 3 weeks in  preparation for the Simon Bolivar Cup.  She also wants to continue her training with Coach Ivan Rojas for the Pan Am Games and the World Championships. Lesbia indicates that her goal for the Simon Bolivar Cup is not to win -- it is to break the National record of Guatemala.

Lesbia Training at the Risto Sports Training Center in her Risto's

Of course, I had some time to sit down with Lesbia and train along side her.  Lesbia lifts full time for the Guatemalan National Team--lifting is her job. Lesbia has a 4 year old son who is staying with her family while she trains at Risto Sports.  Aside from lifting, she is also earning her Bachelors Degree in sports science.


Right now, Lesbia is in a strength/build-up mesocycle and is doing a lot of strength work.  After completing classical lifts and squats, several work outs per week, she does upper body work such as presses (even some benching) and a ton of abdominals. She also does interesting exercises for her upper back and shoulders that involves revolving a 15kg plate around her upperback and shoulders.

In terms of Olympic lifting, her exercises are again strength focused.  She completes both back and front squats.    She does not squat every work out or even everyday.  Part of this is because she has a surplus of leg strength, as her back squat exceeds the 127.3% of her Olympic total--she easily back squats 3 sets of 3 with 130kg (~300lbs).  She does heavy pulls on days when her snatches and clean and jerks are light.   Speaking of light, she has one "heavy" full snatch and clean and jerk day per week.  The other workouts she alternates between power snatch, hang snatch, full snatch, and muscle snatch.  She clean and jerks fewer times per week than snatching.  She does most full clean and jerk or power clean and press.   As she gets closer to her upcoming competitions, she will start a new mesocycle more focused on the classical lifts.

Lesbia is the only Guatemalan qualified for the Pan Am Games, so it is a huge honor for her to compete this August.  I'm sure she'll do well!  It is a  great pleasure to train alongside a great person and athlete.

You can see Lesbia lift as a guest lifter at the 2011 Bay State Games in Boston, MA.  Of course, you can also see her at the Risto Sports High Performance Training Center, where we "Train like an Olympian".

Lesbia with LG at the Risto Sports High Performance training Center