Check out this great interview with Shane Hamman that Mark Rippetoe did (click here).  They cover a bunch of info in about 1 hour including Shane’s early powerlifting career where he dunked 1008 pounds in the squat.  His Olympic career. The state of American Weightlifting.  And what we can do about it.

What I enjoyed the most was their discussion on the importance of strength training for Olympic weightlifters (as opposed to a fanatic focus on technique).  Shane mentioned that the guys who beat him at the 2004 Olympics were much stronger than him (that’s saying something!) and as a consequence could pull things out that he couldn’t. He also mentions that the same was true for the lighter weight classes.  That is, our guys weren’t as strong as their competition.

Why this is relevant is that much of the American “style” is directed at technique work at all cost and speed development.  Both of which are clearly important. But, heavy deadlifts and heavy squats done throughout the year is rare.

One of the things I did differently this year with my athletes that I will certainly do again was a modified version of the Smolov Squat cycle.  They all nearly killed me for making them do it!  But, holy heavens, it did wonders for their overall strength levels which is paying dividends now 5 months later.

I think this type of training (a clear focus on strength development along with power and technique) is particularly useful for older and masters lifters who are always going to be behind the curve in their technique.  The more strength you have, the more you can pull out a not-so-perfect clean or snatch.

Of course, technique is majorly important.  Don’t take this the wrong way.  But, if you let strength levels hover in the background, and don’t pull heavy shit off the ground, then you’re selling yourself short.

Jason Ferruggia has a new post about what kind of coach he is, and what kind of coach he isn’t.  He’s basically helping to define his own niche for anyone who doesn’t know what it is.

The fitness industry is just like any other industry – it’s a field of specialists who know what they are good at and what they aren’t good at, and then everybody else.  If you look for a trainer and they tell you “I do everything: bodybuilding training, fat loss, functional training, strength training, gymnastics, tennis training, yodeling, etc” … find a new trainer.

If you have a specific problem, go to the guy (or girl!) who specializes in fixing that exact problem.   Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying your coach needs to be so tightly defined that he’s only got ONE focus.  But, anything more than 3 (maybe four), and we’ve got a problem.

One of Jason’s major points about himself is that he is not a “motivator”.

Here’s a quote from Jason:

If you want to sit around and eat donuts all day why would that possibly bother me? And why would I want to motivate you? I’m not Jenny Craig or Matt Foley the motivational speaker who lives in a van down by the river. What you do is your choice. Sure I will make fun of you, laugh at you and encourage others to do the same; but it’s your life, not mine.

If you are too stupid to realize that regular exercise and a healthy diet is a necessary part of life I’m not going to waste my time telling you. Get on some prescription drugs, order a sausage pizza and watch another episode of Friends.

OK, he’s WAY more intense than I am.  As you know, I’m a ridiculously mellow dude.  I meditate, I read books about Zen, I love ABBA and Romantic comedies, have seen every episode of Sex and the City (twice), and have a habit of laughing at all of my own jokes.  But, I am also NOT a motivational speaker.

Someone asked me recently what the name of my strength training company was, and I replied, “PDX Weightlifting.”

“Oh,” they said, “I think that would turn off a lot of people.”

I replied, “Yep.  And that’s the point.”

You see, I’m not a yeller.  I’m not like Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser.  I’m not here to call you up on the phone, get you off the couch, convince you that it’s time to workout, force you to work hard, and then nitpick you every step of the way.  There are trainers who do that for a living.  They’re great at it.  You need to be DEAD HONEST with yourself.  If you NEED a trainer to be your external motivator, then you need to hire one of these guys (actually, they’re usually girls).

I ain’t that guy.  I’m almost the opposite.  I’m way too relaxed.  In the gym, I’ll make sure you’re doing everything correctly, I’ll watch your lifts, I’ll discuss any and all topics you want to about your goals and progress.  But, I’ll also be cracking (bad) jokes and being very silly.  I do a great job of keeping the atmosphere exciting and fun.  That’s my personality.  And I expect everyone in my programs to stay positive and have fun while they workout, regardless of how hard it is.  NO whining – period. I have no tolerance for whining.   If you start wimping out, that’s you’re own problem.  And I’ll focus my energy of the folks who are working hard with a great attitude.

I won’t force you to do something you don’t want to.  If you say, “I can’t do it”, I’ll agree with you.  If you say, “it hurts”, I’ll tell you to stop or modify till it doesn’t hurt.  This is because when a truly motivated personal tells me this, it’s probably true! And I’m not going to make you do something that will result in injury.

Unfortunately, unmotivated people say these things as knee-jerk reactions to anything hard and as a result never push themselves hard enough to make any progress.

One of my favorite clients of all time is my client and friend Beth.  She’s been working out with me for a few years now, and in all of that time, I don’t think I have EVER heard her say the phrase “I can’t”.  This woman’s an animal.  She’s more than tripled her strength levels, gone from “skinny fat” to seriously lean, and looks and feels great.  (She regularly tells me about moving couches and other heavy shit up stairs by herself!)  All I do is show her the most efficient path toward her goals.  But, she’s the one who does all the work.  And boy, does she!

When my people tell me “it’s hard” or “what the HELL are you having me do?!”, or “I’m going to kill you for making me do this”,  they’re saying this as a badge of honor.  They do whatever I ask of them, and they work their butts off.  They may be cursing my name in the process … make no mistake!  But, they do it.

If you have no personal motivation, you have no business doing business with me because you WILL NOT get the results you want.  I’m a “lead the horse to water” coach.  You hire me when you want over a decades worth of knowledge, program design skills, solid real-world advice, a fun atmosphere, serious weight-training, and serious results.

Tony Robbins eating Peter Griffin!

If you need more motivation, buy some books by Tony Robbins.  And hey, once you’ve figured out your sh%t and decide you are ready to see the best results of your life and have a blast doing it, contact me and I’ll kick your butt with a big smile on my face.

I found this passage pretty funny from Jason’s post:

People ask me all kinds of questions when they find out what I do for a living.

“How do I lose this?” (grabbing a handful of a 48 inch waist)

“I don’t know.”

“How long should I do the stair climber for?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t give up carbs but I want to get lean. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I only have twenty minutes to train, twice a week. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know you’re into all that heavy lifting but I can’t do that. What can I do instead?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m a girl and I don’t want to get too bulky so how should I lift?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do I get motivated to go to the gym?”

“I don’t know.”

By training, I am a competitive Olympic Weightlifting Coach.  THAT is what I do.  I train athletes and people who seriously want to train with an athletic intensity on weightlifting-based programs.  Every program I create is built through the lens of a weightlifting coach.

If you are someone who wants to be able to answer YES to that question box on your job application that says “can you lift 100 pounds?”, and then laugh that that sounds light, I’m your guy.

This can include lots of different people from lots of different backgrounds who have totally different end goals: obviously, competitive weightlifters; athletes in any “power sport” like baseball, football, golf; and fitness folks who want to be in the best shape of their lives and lose 20, 40, or more pounds of fat.  The commonality is clear.  All my people lift weights – hard.  That’s the glue.

If you come to me wanting to lose 20+ pounds of fat, I’m not going to take it easy on you just because you aren’t in a competitive power-sport.  I’m going to hammer you just like I would anyone else on heavy weightlifting exercises and make you ridiculously strong.  As you’re losing that 20 pounds of fat, you’ll keep all your muscle, you’ll in fact gain muscle, become “toned”, learn a bunch of cool exercises like the clean and snatch, front squats, deadlifts, etc.  And you’ll start being able to perform in a way you never have before in all of your life.

The great physicist Richard Feynman once said that he approached every problem with only 6 tools.  Whenever a problem came up, he looked in his tiny little tool box, and tried all 6 of those tools on it.  If that didn’t work, he switched to a new problem.

I’ve found that there are things that I can coach at a high level given the tools that I have and things I can’t.  These are the ONLY things I do – 1) Competitive weightlifting; 2) power-sport training; 3) extreme fitness training.    3 things.  That’s it.  I’m great at these things.  But, if you want to become the most kick-ass marathon runner of all time … you’ll need to find someone else.  That just isn’t what I do.

This particular quote sounds very much like my own way of approaching coaching (hey, that rhymed!):

Often times people will tell me that they want to train with me and that I if they hire me or come to my gym I really need to push them. No, I don’t. You need to push yourself. You’re hiring me for my program design skills which are based on 16 years of experience. I am not a cheerleader. Any nitwit can yell at someone like a drill sergeant. Just because a workout is hard doesn’t mean it’s effective. Just because a coach yells loudly it doesn’t mean he’s smart.

If you can’t find it within yourself and are not driven to excel, there is nothing I can do for you.

I’ll give hard working, motivated, intelligent people everything I have. But for everyone else I have no time or patience. I know this offends many people. But it’s just me being honest.

I feel very lucky.  I have a great set of people to work with.  They all come in, work hard, joke around, have fun, and get into great shape.  Not a bad job.

Bob Takano has a new article up at his blog in which he mentions a talk he gave to a bunch of parents of volleyball athletes about the importance of determining whether your son’s or daughter’s strength coach is qualified to do what it is your child needs done.  Good strength coaching is becoming a serious factor for parents who are hoping that their kid will get a sports scholarship when they go off to college. And if your athlete is on the verge you need to take the choice of strength-performance coaches seriously.

Here’s a quote:

I spent some time discussing the range of abilities presented by people calling themselves personal trainers and how widely those abilities and backgrounds could vary.  I told them to ask questions about prior experience working with athletes, the success levels of those athletes, injury rates of their athletes and what factors would be improved besides vertical jump.  I provided them with an arsenal of questions to help them determine the competency of any strength and conditioning coach or personal trainer they might encounter including whether or not they were certified.

The truth is, it isn’t always easy to find a serious strength coach who has the knowledge of the unique demands that a competitive athlete faces.  These include massive time demands (school, work, practice, girl/boy friend, smokin’ weed with their buddies … but you aren’t supposed to know about that one!), serious risks of over-training due to the overload their already getting from their sport-specific coach, and risks of sport-related injury that could kill their chances at a scholarship.

If you walk into any “normal” big-box gym you’ll be hounded by a slew of “trainers” who look about the same age as your kid!  They’re all excited and jovial, no doubt, but they rarely are going to have a clue what they’re doing (certified or not). Not good.  But, where would you find a qualified coach, and what does “qualified” even mean?

To follow Bob’s lead (again … and yet again I’m using the “5 tips” format! … oh, heavens), I’ve got my own small list of things I’d want to know about a potential coach for my kid (assuming I had a kid).

1. Did you find the trainer in one of those large commercial gyms?  If so, we may have a problem. Not only are the trainers at these places usually grossly under experienced, the gyms themselves are understocked with what I would consider necessary equipment:  platforms, bumper plates, chalk, etc.  If the gym you’re taking your young athlete into doesn’t have at least those three things prominently displayed, then you’re unlikely to find the coach you’re kid needs either.  Sports performance training is a completely different animal then so-called bodybuilding training.  The trainer should know the difference.
2. What certifications does the coach have?  If it’s ACE, turn and RUN.  Trust me on this one. I would only be comfortable with one (or both) of the following:  1) USA Weightlifting’s Sports Performance Coach certification (or equivalently, USA Weightlifting’s Olympic Club Coach certification) OR 2) NSCA’s Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach certification.  That is, the coaches business card should have “NAME, USAW” or “NAME, CSCS” on it.  Oh, and a college education wouldn’t hurt.
3. Was the trainer an athlete?  If they weren’t, that isn’t necessarily a deal breaker, but it could be a sign.  There is not much like personal experience to teach someone what NOT to do.  If the trainer feels they could have been a “champion” if only they’d had the right coaching, then maybe they’ve developed some idea of what “the right coaching” is.  The strength coach Mark Rippetoe once said, “The best coaches were mediocre athletes.”  They know what it’s like to struggle, to suffer, and to be defeated.  Combine those things with a positive attitude and an inquisitive mind, and you’ve got yourself a good coach … which lead me to:
4. Make sure the performance coach is a “thinker”.  OK, this can be hard to gauge in a quick meeting.  But, designing programs (not just routines) for an athlete requires taking into account a large number of variables, all of which interact back with one another.
5. Is the strength coach a “yeller”?  I know that we all have memories of our high school coaches yelling and screaming at us. And in the movies it’s certainly more fun to have a guy like Mickey from Rocky – red faced, spit spewing from their mouths, veins popping out off their forehead. But, the reality is that most great strength coaches can get their point across without needing to yell.  This is particularly important if your kid is a daughter.  Girls rarely respond well to aggressive screaming.  You know that line, “you’ll catch more flies with honey …”

I could come up with a lot more, but this will have to do for now.  The underlying point is to keep your eyes open and ask a lot of questions.  Anyone who is worth it will more than happy to answer any questions you have.

Robert Taylor discusses the importance of actually using basketball as a part of a basketball players conditioning.   I know that may sound obvious, but the fact is, we weightlifting coaches are rather weightroom centric. 

Unfortunately, the way sports performance is approached today, strength coaches almost never have any contact with sport coaches.  Be sure to ask your athletes for a detailed description of their sport specific weekly load so that your strength programs are properly in line with that and don’t over train them.

This is one of the great benefits Olympic Weightlifting coaches have when coaching their own guys than when we are coaching other athletes.   With Oly lifters, all conditioning and strength work is done “in house”.  It’s as though the football coach also did all the strength coaching. 

And don’t get me started on how hard it is to design good programs for “recreational” athletes like rec-league softball players, roller derby, rugby, and golf.  At least in school-based team sports environments they are supervised by a coach who keeps their workload in check.  For the recreational athlete, there is no such supervision.    And far too often the athletes don’t know how to stop themselves from overworking.

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:

Answers

1. How to become an olympic weightlifting coach?
2. Do you have to go to school (college)?
3. If so what colleges offer them (if any)
4. Do you have to get a certification? If so how?

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:

5 Tips for the Weightlifting Coach

1. Start competing as a weightlifter (fully accepting that you’re going to get your butt kicked)
2. Try to become as technically proficient as you can be, and take careful notes of how HARD that is, and what things you found to be the hardest.  You have to understand what your athletes are going through. 
3. Start coaching the instant you can find a Guinna pig to coach.  There is a long tradition in weightlifting of early coaches tricking their spouses into competing.  Mike Burgener famously has coached all of his kids.  Friends and family are a great resource for your early experiments into what might work, and what doesn’t.  Learn by teaching.
4. Read everything you can get your hands on, not just about Oly lifting, but about strength and conditioning in general, and biology, chemistry, and physics.  Olympic Lifters are athletes, not just weightlifters.
5. Get certified once you’ve actually learned something.  That way the certification is meaningful. 

10,000 hours.  Or roughly 10 years.  That’s about how long it takes to become an elite level athlete in nearly every sport.

Gwen Sisto posted a great piece on exactly this issue on his blog Gwen Weightlifting.  He makes the following points:

Even more importantly, factual case studies show that one only needs a minimal level of talent to become, say, Olympic Champion. What makes one greater than competitors is the amount of additional work and practice you have had. In sports, music, business, or academia, their are thousands, millions of talented people; the difference between mediocre, good, and great is the great people had unique opportunities that allowed them to put in the 10,000 hours to be the best.

…

Per Popov’s comments in Bulgaria — all you need to be a good lifter is (1) the ability to do a full squat, (2) rack a bar in a clean, (3) ability to do an overhead squat— the rest is a function of who has the opportunity and desire to put in the 10000 hours or roughly ten years of hard training.

…

Consistent, hard training is paramount above all other factors– age, perceived talent, etc.

These comments jive exactly with not only my philosophy of weightlifting, but with my philosophy of life.

Lots of coaches in all sports are obsessed with finding the next young star.  Youth is key, they think.  After 20, it’s too late.

That’s just bullshit.

I think the United States Weightlifting community needs to focus on building an “older” population of elite lifters.  Let’s be honest, Olympic Weightlifting is a pain in the ass (literally!).  It takes months just to be able to do full cleans and full snatches without falling over.  It takes years to be lifting anything substantial.  And it is repetitive as hell (MORE snatches, clean and jerks, and front squats).

Does any of that sound like the kind of thing a teenager is going to get into?  I don’t think so.  They want quick, now, hurry up! … what was I doing?

Once a person gets into their 20’s  they’re starting to mellow out.  They’re learning the power of consistency.  And they don’t mind putting in long hours, and long years, toward a goal post that keeps moving on them.

If you are 25, and you begin Olympic Weightlifting today, then when you’re 35, you’ll be remarkable.  You may or may not be ready for the Olympics, but regardless, you’ll be outstanding.  Take a look at Melanie Roach.  She’s 34 and has 3 kids, and she made it to the Olympics.

If you’re 35 today, you’ll likely be just as strong at 45 as most competitive lifters in their 20’s.  You’ll probably still qualify for the Open Nationals.  And you’ll have the body of a Greek God.

If you’re 45 today or older, then in 10 years you can be competing at the Masters World Championships.  You’ll be stronger, faster, and better conditioned than most high school football players.  And unlike you’re peers, you’ll feel strong and vibrant because you will actually be strong and vibrant.

When I’m 65, I plan on having a 500 pound back squat.  I think that’s a low ball figure. Why, cause I’ve got 35 years to train for it.

Time, it’s on your side.

Thanks to Barry Kinsella at Weightlifting Epiphanies for this 3 part interview with the great American weightlifting coach Jim Schmitz.

Part 1

Part 2, technique

Part 3, programming and competitions