When you’re in doubt about a course of action in your exercise routine, just follow the advice given by one of the (undisputed) greatest coaches of all time, Old Jingle:
“Jump with the Nose!”
Bob Takano responds to questions on Yahoo Answers.
Yesterday I happened upon a query on Yahoo in which someone named Pasquale asked how to become an olympic weightlifting coach. These were his/her specific questions:
How to become an olympic weightlifting coach?
Do you have to go to school (college)?
If so what colleges offer them (if any)
Do you have to get a certification? If so how?
extremely curious!!!! want to know how to become one.!.!.!
Now aside from the overuse of exclamation points, this person asks some basic questions that Bob was delighted he even knew to ask.
It was interesting to me became it wasn’t very long ago that no one even knew that weightlifters were coached. On some social occasions I’d end up in a group of non weightlifters, and I’d really try not to bring up my weightlifting activities because it would end up in frustrating conversations. Someone, however, would know that I was a coach and introduce me to strangers as a weightlifting coach. I would usually get one of two things (or both) said to me.
“How much do you bench?” (This one is losing popularity)
OR
“You don’t look like a weightlifting coach.”
Sadly, I’ve gotten the same far too often. But, Youtube has made serious strides in making our sport accessible to the public.
Coach Takano continues.
One person (wsguy198) responded, “My guess is to become an Olympic weightlifter first. Just a hunch”
Now wsguy198 was probably being a wise guy, but he was right. Pasquale knows nothing about the coaching education program or the protocol for classifying coaches by proficiency levels developed by USA Weightlifting, the national governing body for the sport. He would know about these things if he were a member of the organization and had competed in sanctioned competitions.
Dan John has said that if you want to coach something, you had better know how to do it. (Or, something to that effect.) You don’t have to be great at it. There are always genetic limitations. And people who are serious about coaching tend to have personality traits that are the exact opposite of the personality traits most needed in a top-level athlete, and that often holds back their ultimate progress.
But, none of that changes the fact that a coach had better be able to practice what they preach. We all have had an out of shape P.E. teacher who couldn’t jog a lap if his life depended on it. Hardly inspiring.
Learn the lifts, compete, and suffer the way your athletes are being asked to suffer. They don’t need to look up to you as the greatest weightlifter who has ever lived. But, they do want to know that you understand their pain from experience. You may never be a national champion, but you’ll know what it’s like to stand on the platform in front of 3 judges with red-button trigger-fingers.
To the Pasquales of the world, there were weightlifting coaches before there ever was an organization to annoint them or recognize them. For thousands of years humans have immersed themselves in activities that they were passionate about and committed to and developed enough mastery and expertise to be considered experts, and teachers and mentors.
Indeed. I coached for a year before I ever got certified. By the time I went through the certification process, it was a simple formality. I had been competing for a few years, coaching for 1, and was fully comfortable with moving a new beginner and preparing them for their first contest.
USA Weightlifting has levels of certification, the first one being for club coaches who are involved in training primarily beginners and intermediate weightlifters. As you move through, and your athletes improve, you become eligible for higher level certifications.
What I find strange, though, was the idea of using the certification process (primarily) as a “learning” process. That is, a lot of the people going through the weekend long seminar that you must go through to get certified, were totally knew to the lifts!! Crazy.
I saw it as a test. And like all tests, I’m far more comfortable taking it when the information has become trivial to me. You can only learn so much in a single weekend.
Over the last number of years, as coach of the PDX Weightlifting club, I’ve learned a lot about things that work with both beginners and intermediates, and things that don’t work. In training intermediates, I’ve had to go through a number of years of writing yearly periodized programs to find out what has and hasn’t worked in both the short term and the long term.
For beginners, I’m now confident that I can teach ANYONE (without a physical disability) to do a passable power clean and power snatch in under 1 hour. Period. Sure, they’ll need lots of work to become truly efficient. But, the foundations are laid quickly, and they can begin the work without a plethora of bad habits.
But, this is only possible because I have spent a number years at it. And I’m new, relatively speaking. I’ve got a long way to go to become a national level coach. That will, itself, take even more years and more work.
So, I must say to Pasquale that there is a path to becoming a weightlifting coach. It begins by becoming a weightlifter and accepting the addiction to the sport that will carry you through the drudgery involved in developing any kind of mastery of any endeavor. The early stages of the development will involve some formal education or courses or clinics, but above all it involves a great deal of coaching and entering your athletes in competition to see how they perform against others. There is no other metric of any significance. But first you must become involved with the sport.
Bob Takano has been around a while. Times have changed, and for weightlifting, I’d say they have changed for the better. But, some things haven’t. You’ve got to actually do something to know how to do something.
Coach Takano answered most of the above questions, but didn’t do so in a very explicit way. So, I will:
1. See my outline below for a path to that goal. But, basically, start by competing, then trick your spouse into competing so you can coach them.
2. No. There are no higher-ed requirements officially. But, I would certainly recommend that you get a degree in something “science-ish”. I have a degree in Mathematics, and am getting a masters in Math with a focus in mathematical biology. It may sound like it isn’t relevant, but it is. Science and math training makes you smarter the way that strength training makes you stronger. The more attuned to complexity you are, the better a coach you will become. Olympic weightlifting isn’t rocket science, but it is biology and chemistry and physics.
3. If you want a specific exercise science degree, there are tons of schools that offer them. Here in Oregon, Oregon State University has a program. And Portland State has a Masters in Public Health with an physical exercise focus. Your state probably has many similar programs. But, when in doubt, just pick a science that you like, and learn whatever you can. I promise you can find a way to make it improve your coaching.
4. Yes. At some point you do need to be certified. You can’t run an official USAW registered club if you don’t have a certification through USAW.
If I was going to outline a linear path for you if you’d like to coach a weightlifting club, I’d say do the following:
Gruber J, Tang SY, and Halliwell B came out with a study in 2007 showing that Resveratrol, the substance in red wine that is thought to be the major cause of the “French Paradox”, excerts it’s life extending effects at a cost to early life reproductive capacity in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. This didn’t affect didn’t exert itself at later stages of life.
Don’t think this is necessarily bad. If it’s also true in humans, then resveratrol may help extend life, and reduce teenage pregnancy!
Calorie restriction works in much the same way, but is hard to implement with athletes who need large amounts of food just to survive.
I think any of us who’ve been in the Iron Game for a while have been called at least a few of these names.
I especially like
Leslie, Chris, and I just (well … Saturday) got back from the Iron Mind Weightlifting meet at Iron Works Gym in Creswell, OR.
It was hard going getting there. It was crazy icy between Salem and Eugene. I think we counted 6 semi trucks stalled, jack knifed, or otherwise out of order on the side of the road. Sadly, there were a few other accidents we saw that looked pretty bad. One guys pickup truck was demolished, with the passenger side roof crunched down completely.
We didn’t think it was going to be that nasty when we left home, but we were clearly wrong. At any rate, we got there safe (albeit in about nearly double the time it would normally take us).
To top it off, the pancake place we normally eat at was closed. No pancakes! Chris and I decided this would be our test case to see how dependent upon pancakes we are before a meet. Read on and find out.
Leslie needs no pancakes after weigh in (if this case study has any relevance). Not only did she win first place in the 63’s, but she broke personal bests in both lifts! To top it off, she wasn’t even “supposed” to be in the 63’s. She’d been wanting to diet down to them, but has been so busy with school that she was hanging out pretty comfortably in the 69’s. She was shocked when she got on the scale, and it read 63 on the nose.
Chris did well, too, hitting an 80k, and a 105k for a 185 total. He feels he could have done better, but I think he did good, considering the lack of pancakes!
He was head to head with Sam McLean in the 94’s all the way, and had to make his last clean and jerk to win it. I’ve never seen him jerk a 105 in the gym, yet. But, he stepped onto the platform, cleaned it like it was a sack of pillows, and blasted it over head for 3 white lights. Killed it, and won his weight class.
He’s continually getting stronger and more technically proficient, and I see him hitting 90 and 115 at the State meet in June. Maybe he doesn’t need pancakes either.
I missed everything but my openers. I need my pancakes. In fact, I was opening at 105 in the clean and jerk. But, in the warm up room I missed 100k not once, but twice! Somehow I made the 105k on the platform which gave me a 180 total (5k less than last contest). Am I a carb-o-holic? Without pancakes, I’m a half a man.
It was a fun meet. Too bad the weather didn’t allow more of the usual suspects of Oregon weightlifting to make it. But, we had a good time.
For all results, click here.
Prince is gonna love this!
I love sweet potato pie. I can eat a whole one by myself. But, I’ve never had the pleasure of a purple sweet potato pie! I’m going to have to try this recipe from AsianceMagazine.com
I can’t tell you what the calorie count is (is does have a full stick of butter), so you’ll have to do a lot of heavy squats to make up for it.
I have a long history with sweet potatoes (you can find more about my love of them here). And with a purple pie, it’s bound to continue.
And here’s the video that proves it.
The TV show “The Biggest Loser” has been on for quite a while now. It is extremely popular, and is touted by many to be an example of triumph over adversity. But, there are a number of vocal opponents, especially in my industry–the fitness industry.
Among the charges against the Biggest Loser are that it sets up unrealistic expectations, uses unhealthy methods, is all hype and no substance, and is in fact perpetrating a fraud.
Of course, they are totally correct on most counts (except fraud, that’s going too far). But, that isn’t the point. What is?
In short, I don’t think you are so dumb that you need we trainers to monitor your television habits lest you fall into a pit of self loathing. I think you are smart enough to tell the difference between a TV show and real life.
Entertainment is entertainment. The Biggest Loser is first and foremost an entertainment reality TV program that does a very successful job of selling advertising. But, it is about a subject that hits home for every American (and increasingly, the rest of the world). I don’t believe it’s my place to call someone stupid for liking to watch (or God forbid, feeling inspired by) The Biggest Loser. I don’t think it is my place to tell the contestants that they don’t have a right to do the show, simply because it might be unhealthy.
Is the UFC good for us, or the contestants? How about the WWE? No matter how you look at it, getting kicked in the teeth is not healthy. It is the choice of the contestants themselves to go onto the show in the first place. It’s been 8 years that the show has been on. They’ve likely watched every season before they got on themselves. They know what they are getting into, they are adults, and who are we to tell them they can’t.
Again, we aren’t asking the guys at the WWE to quit doing what they are doing because it’s bad for their health. We just want to watch Triple H slam a metal chair over the head of The Undertaker. What’s wrong with that?
The detractors of the show feel like they are doing the “average overweight person who is desperately looking for a weight-loss secret” a favor. As though, somehow, a fat person is also less intelligent than their thin counterparts, more susceptible to TV hype.
I trust people enough to be able to watch TV without falling off the deep end. It’s just TV for God’s sake.
Instead of that kind of silliness, I’m just going to lay out what I think are the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of The Biggest Loser from the perspective of fitness coach. You can decide for yourself whether you want to continue watching it.
And just for fun, I’m going to do it in reverse order.
Certainly not ugly
The ugly of The Biggest Loser is worse than the bad. There are real health dangers involved for the contestants themselves. During the first few months at the ranch, these very obese people go through workouts, and have workloads, that are absolutely insane.
Most athletes don’t even train for 6 to 8 hours a day. Those that do built up to it for years in advance. It is very dangerous to throw the contestants into a workout program like this out of the blue.
The show has already had a few disasters and hospitalizations. There is real risk that someone is going drop dead eventually. I know the show says that they have doctors monitoring them at all times, keeping track of what they eat, etc. And I’m sure they do (given the risk of a law suit), but the producers need to watch out.
Diet is another issue. Many weeks, the contestants are reported to be getting under 1000 calories a day. Given their daily workloads, they are likely burning anywhere from 2000 to 5000 calories. Do the math. That is scary.
Of course, one sure fire way to lose weight is to create a calorie deficit. And whenever you are training a severely overweight person, this is a must. But, a deficit of 500 to 1000 calories is more than enough to accomplish that goal.
If you up someones workload to the level that they are doing on the show, then you up their need for glycogen, protein, and all sorts of micro-nutrients that are impossible to get enough of on such a low calorie diet.
When you overwork someone, and artificially keep their calories so low, you actually impede their progress, and (ironically) cause them to be less likely to lose fat. Instead, they’ll start to break down, lose muscle, become stressed out (via massive levels of cortisol)–all progress stalls.
Top athletes train like maniacs, but they also eat like maniacs. Remember all the news stories on Michael Phelps diet? He eats upwards of 12,000 calories a day so that he can train for the same number of hours as the contestants on The Biggest Loser. See the problem?
As a coach, I almost never see genuine overtraining in anyone other than my competitive athletes. But, these contestants are getting hammered. They are nearly all massively overtrained by the 3rd or 4th week. Some crawl out of it, others get booted (voted) off the show.
And then there’s the weigh in. Competitors have been known to use any means necessary to drop every last pound for the weekly weigh in. They’ll dehydrate, workout with heavy sweats on, not drink water for 24 hours, etc. Not healthy. Potentially life threatening. But, again, it is their own choice.
They chose to go on the show and they chose to dehydrate to make themselves more competitive. High school wrestlers do it all the time to make weight. I don’t condone it unless you are under the supervision of someone who knows what they are doing, but it is hardly anything new.
Of course, all this craziness makes for great TV. The farther down the hole these people go, the more emotional they become, and then we get the crying sessions, the yelling, the storming out of the gym, etc. But, it is dangerous. Make no bones about it.
Yoga is never enough
The Bad isn’t as bad as the Ugly. These objections aren’t life threatening, but they aren’t good. The primary problem in this category is the idea that The Biggest Loser gives people at home, who hope to lose a lot of weight themselves, an unrealistic picture of how to do it.
It is certainly unrealistic. Who has time to do 6 or 8 hours a day of working out? Who’s got the self control to do all that exercise, and then only eat 800 calories?! I’d be at Crispy Cream every day (those of you who know me, know how true that is).
Losing more than 1 pound of fat per week is unrealistic for most. Some people can do it. And when you are 200 pounds overweight, then it is in fact likely that you will lose more than a pound of fat per week. But, it is never easy. It is brutally hard.
A great friend of mine, who is only 30 or 40 pounds overweight, recently sat down to talk to me about losing weight. I suggested that to start she simply start by doing 20 minutes a day, every day, of something physical. Nothing too complicated. Get up in the morning, do a few sets of wall push ups, and some jumping jacks, for example. If you can do just 20 minutes of light exercise every day for a month, you can build in the habit, and we can build on that.
Funny thing was, even that seemed like too much. The prospect of doing something everyday was daunting, and it didn’t matter that it wasn’t even supposed to be hard. She’s a hard worker in every area of her life. But, she’s not yet built the habit of daily exercise, and that is a tough habit to build.
The people on The Biggest Loser are going well beyond 20 minutes a day, or even 1 or 2 hours a day. There is nothing easy about their diets and exercise routines. They can lose 100 pounds or more in a season because they are dedicating every waking hour to that pursuit. And they have a large staff cooking their meals for them, trainers pushing them in the gym, and no access to cheat foods.
At home, you don’t have any of that. Instead, it is all on your shoulders. Sure, you can hire someone like me to write you routines and push you in the gym. You can hire a nutritionist to make you a diet plan. But, I am not going to go to your house at 5am to wake you up and drag you into the gym (sorry, you can’t pay me enough).
Unless you’re rich, you aren’t going to be able to hire someone to cook all your meals. And there is no way you can avoid the temptations of the modern world with a Star Bucks on every corner, fast food coming out our ears, and supermarkets where the junk is cheaper than the good stuff.
At home, it is all up to you. That is hard. Much harder than what the contestants on The Biggest Loser have to face.
A second problem is that extreme weight loss almost never works long term in the real world. People who lose fat fast tend to gain it all back at a rate that is higher than those who lose the same amount of weight, but did it slower. I’m convinced this is because when you do it slower, you build in something that is more important that the numbers on the scale–consistency. Losing weight fast robs you of the time it takes to build habits. If you are going to keep the fat off, you HAVE TO change your habits forever.
Changing your habits is not a matter of will power. If it was, we’d all be able to do it all the time. Changing your habits is about time. The longer you plug away at something, the more ingrained the process becomes in your neural pathways. Baseball pitchers can do what they do only because they have done it for so long. When you first started learning to ride a bike, you fell off–a lot. But, after plugging away at it, you made it a habit. Now it ain’t nothing.
On the show, they don’t have time to build in a habit of exercise and healthy eating that will last a lifetime. They take people out of their real lives and put them into fantasy land for a few months of high-action television. And when these people get home, they have no way to integrate what they were doing in fantasy land into their real lives.
If you want to lose weight and keep it off forever, you have to start out by building in the routines, and make both exercise and diet a major part of your day to day life. You know, your real life. The one with kids, a job, bills, and no time. Once you do that, you’re on the road to seeing a level of progress that is even more impressive than what happens on The Biggest Loser.
The last problem is the in-your-face advertising. This season’s sugar-free gum ads are just wacky. Every time Bob Harper pushes some gum on one of his trainees, I burst into laughter. It’s become a farce. But, in today’s world, how shocking is that, really?
Looking Good Now
Alright, no more bashing the show. Now I’m going to tell you what I think is good about it.
There are two things that The Biggest Loser makes abundantly clear, that so many clients I’ve had didn’t believe (in their heart of hearts) until they saw the show. The first is that losing extreme amounts of fat (over 200 pounds) is actually possible. The second is that it is not going to be easy.
For nearly 2 decades Americans have been blaming obesity on genetics. Sure, we knew fast food was bad for you, and that we should workout more, but in the end, our parents were fat, and that is why we were fat. We were a country in denial.
The Biggest Loser has brought obesity to center stage and made it the most popular subject on television. It shows some of the heaviest people in the country doing what we as a nation previously thought wasn’t possible. They lost the weight. They really did it. 8 seasons in a row, this program has taken mega-fat people and brought them down to size. You can disagree with their methods, hate the hype, and I’m sure you could certainly do without the over-the-top advertising. But, there is no denying that these people lost a LOT of weight.
Secondly, the show does a great job showing the contestants in a lot of pain. That may sound bad, but as a trainer, I think that it’s a good thing. If you want results, the results you are dreaming of right now (I know you have dreams about changing your body–because we all do), then you have to work your ass off. Period.
Now, obviously, I would want you to work into it slowly, get up to speed for a few months, and meet some benchmarks that I’ve set into place before we get too crazy. But, hard work has to be on the horizon if you are going to get anywhere.
The contestants on The Biggest Loser are suffering. They’re crying. They’re whining. And, in the end, they are succeeding. This is a good message. Sometimes things that are worth doing are very hard, but if you fight through it, you can come out on top, and you’ll be a better person for it.
So, there you have it. Coach Nick’s version of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of The Biggest Loser. Sure, the show has it’s problems, but the contestants are doing it of their own accord, and we have no right to stop them. The show is hyped up like crazy, and it portrays an unrealistic way of losing weight for the average person at home. But, in the end, it is only an entertainment TV show, one that shows real people in struggling situations, losing an amount of fat that too many people fear is impossible to lose.
On the balance, I’m for it. Besides, it’s just fun to watch.
Here’s a video of Rezazadeh doing a 280k (or 600+ pound) front squat.
My man Greg Oden just suffered yet another knee injury. Doesn’t look good. He was out the 2007-2008 season because of micro fracture surgery on his right knee. This time he’s injured is left knee.
I think so far Oden has really been proving himself this season. It’s crappy to see him get hammered like this.
EDIT: It sounds like it’s a fractured left patella. He’s scheduled to have surgery (I think) tomorrow, which will take him out for the season.
EDIT 2: Blazers Win! Brandon Roy makes a last minute shot, and they win it 90 to 88. At least there is something good about this game. But, man …
