Big dudes, big weights

Mike Burgener has said, “I don’t believe in over training, just under recovery.”  And he is not alone.  We Olympic lifting coaches have all said similar things over the years (myself included).  But, these types of statements are highly misleading and tend to give off the wrong impression.  A better statement would be,

“Train as hard as you can, as often as you can, and spend the rest of your time working your ass off on recovery.”

Managing your fatigue is the key to your success in this sport.  Generally, your ability to come in as often as possible to practice the snatch, the clean, and the jerk will determine your success. 

Terminology

I’ve talked about this before, but I think it’s valuable to go over it again.  In strength and conditioning circles, we use a couple of variables to manage the fatigue of our athletes.  The most important of which are Volume, Intensity, and Frequency.

Volume is simply the number you get when you multiply sets times reps when you’re doing an exercise, in a workout, or even in a week, etc.  So, if you are doing snatches for 5 sets of 3 reps, your volume on the snatch today is … 5 x 3 = 15. (See, that math degree counts for something!). NOTE that we use the “times” symbol, “x”, to denote sets “times” reps when we write up our programs for a reason.

Now, if you want to have a total squat volume of 30 for the day, you can do 10 sets of 3 (10 x 3), or 3 x 10.  As you can see, while volume is important to keep in mind, it doesn’t tell you the whole story.  We need to know something about how hard things are for you.

Intensity is the amount of “work” you are putting in.  If you can do 20 chin ups as a max, but only do 10 in a set, that is NOT intense.  If you do 17, 18, more … then it is.  It is a subjective variable.  And it is good to keep it that way. 

There is another term, Load, that describes the Volume x weight used.  Load was designed to be more “accurate” at describing the intensity of workouts.  But, I find it problematic.  For instance, some athletes with a lot of slow twitch muscle fibers in their legs will find doing 8 reps at 90% of maximum in the squat taxing as hell, but doable.  Other, more fast-twitch, athletes will barely be able to do 3 reps at 90% without nearly falling over.  If they have the same 1 rep max, then the LOAD will appear different for both, in fact, higher for the first athlete, even though they found it relatively the same in terms of intensity.

NOTE:  If I’m a “Bulgarian” in any way, it’s in my belief that we should always go off of how an athlete feels for the day, not what we think the numbers are telling us.  (For this reason, I avoid percentages in the routines I write as much as I can.  If I write 5 sets of 2 reps, I mean hard and heavy for 2 reps on each set – I don’t know if that’s 80% of your 1 rep max, more, less … just lift hard)

Frequency is what it sounds like.  It’s the number of times you come in to do something.  So, if athlete #1 does 20 snatches all in one workout, but athlete #2 does 20 snatches spread out over 2 workouts in the same day, then #2 has a higher frequency, even though they are both doing the same volume for the day.  The bonus of a higher frequency – when volume is held constant – is that you can usually work harder in each session than you could have if you did it all at once. 

3 Easy Steps

As promised (and after my standard round-about way of getting here), these are the 3 easy steps you can take to start training like an Olympic weightlifter today!  (This is NOT for beginners.  You must have a decent level of technical proficiency and overall athletic capacity before this makes any sense.  And it helps greatly to have a coach or good training partner to watch you and keep you from overdoing it.)

1. Keep your Frequency and your Intensity HIGH, and your Volume LOW.  This can be accomplished in a myriad of ways.  One of my favorites is a classic “Bulgarian” variation.  Like to hear it?  Here it go:  Do 1 to 3 heavy workouts per week (depending on age, recovery capacity, etc) and as many light workouts as you can.  Stick with singles ONLY on the classic lifts; and singles, doubles, and the occasional triple on squats.  On your heavy days, go to a true max for the day on all three lifts (snatch, clean and jerk, and front squat), and do some back off sets (1 to 4) at 85% or even 90% of that max if you can handle it.  The light days, do technique work with nothing heavier than 80% of the previous days max, do some prehab stuff, chins/push ups/dips, etc.  Keep it mellow.  It’s about practice.  Do the Oly lifts at least 5 days a week, if you can. 
2. Stick with the classical lifts and their variations to avoid eccentrics and nervous system burnout.  The eccentric portion of the lift is the “down” part.  It’s the part that tends to cause the most fatigue and soreness.  If you only do the “up” part, and then drop the weight (as is done with snatches and clean and jerks) then you avoid a whole lot of soreness and CNS fatique, and are able to train more often.  I like 70%+ of your work to be on the Olympic lifts themselves (or very close variations like power snatches, hang cleans, etc).  Now, obviously you can’t avoid the “down” portion of a front squat!  But, by sticking to low reps, you will keep yourself fresher.
3. Avoid the power lifts most of the time.  Deadlifts and back squats are great.  But, they become quite problematic for the Oly lifter.  Squats done in the method of the powerlifter – wide stance, bent over – are very taxing on the low back which is a prime stabilizer in the oly lifts.  Deadlifts are just brutal!  They take so much out of you that you can end up spending an entire week trying to recover.  This is BAD.  I strongly believe that you need to be lifting singles on the Olympic lifts in the 80%+ range OFTEN if you are going to be able to lift at 100% in a contest.  It’s as much psychological as physiological, but either way, if you can’t keep in the groove of lifting heavy snatches and jerks because you are too zonked from your deadlift workout, you are not doing yourself a favor. Technical proficiency and confidence with heavy weights are far more important than your brute strength in this sport. 

NOTE:  I’m experimenting with ways to incorporate deads into a Bulgarian-like program more aggressively, because deads ARE so good at making you brute-strong.  I’d like to be able to do them more often (they’re fun! Check me out doing 17 reps in 1 minute with 315 pounds at a local strongman show).  But, I’m not in a position to make any conclusions yet.  Stay tuned!

Disclaimer! 

The fact is, this is only ONE way to approach training like a weightlifter.  There are plenty of high volume approaches out there (the Russians and Chinese national teams are famous for such craziness).  But, when the volume goes up, something else has to come down, or you are heading toward burn-out street!  These high volume programs tend to keep intensity low to medium – they run like gymnastics programs. 

Gymnasts aren’t doing 1 rep maxes on the pummel horse!  They instead do a ton of attempts all throughout the day (high volume, high frequency).  But, any single attempt isn’t all that taxing. (For them, of course. It would kill most of us!)

I personally have found it easier to manage athletes fatigue with the above lower volume approach (especially when heading into contests).  But, there are plenty of highly successful systems that use lots and lots and lots of volume.  Just keep in mind the idea of balance, and that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

The big Russian is likely to be on the team for Russia at the 2010 World Weightlifting Championships, according to Iron Mind.

Here he was this year at the Europeans:

My friend, and fellow Portland Oly lifter, Mighty Kat blogs about her time at the Tommy Kono Open and includes the 10 things she learned while there.  I particularly like the first:

1. Having tape at a meet is like having cigarettes around smokers. People will come out of the woodwork to bum some.

Very true!

Here’s a vid of her and some others lifting.  Congratulations, Kat!

Sugden Barbell has put up some great video of a seminar in Glasgow done by none other than Misha Koklyaev.  This dude ain’t messin’ around.

I like this quote:

"Weightlifting is an art. A weightlifter shoots the bullseye of a target 100′s meters away. A power lifter brings out this huge cannon…"

Now the vids.  Notice this guys smile at the end of every lift.  He’s clearly having a great time.  Gotta love that.

Behind the neck jerk

No hands back squat … yes, that’s right, no hands!

190k Snatch

400 kilo x 3 deadlift (I can barely do a 400 pound deadlift for 3!)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The front squat is a superior exercise to the back squat.  I don’t mean that you should never back squat.  If you’re one of those individuals who doesn’t feel back pain while doing them, can do them with an erect torso, and doesn’t wimp out by cutting your depth short, then go ahead and back squat ALSO.  But, the front squat should be your bread and butter.

Over at EliteFTS they give 5 reasons why you should front squat:

• Front squats are more quad dominant, bodybuilders like this that are paranoid about getting their butts too big.
• Front squats are easier on your back because your torso is more erect and obviously less weight is being handled.
• If you go forward on a front squat you lose the weight, so it’s impossible to lean forward too excessively.
• Front squats are also a good tool to teach someone to back squat with an erect torso.
• Front squats offer great transference to jerks, push presses and Olympic lifts. More core stabilization is required.

The idea that front squats are more quad dominant is slightly misleading.  The average Olympic lifter has a bigger butt than the average powerlifter who does tons of the (supposedly more ass-dominant back squat). I’ll tell you why.

When you only go to parallel, the front squat is quad dominant.  But when you go to rock-bottom, you have no choice but to use your butt.  A deep front squat stretches the glutes massively and while under tension, they then have to work hard in this stretched state to get you back up again.  The result: lots of muscle growth.

The second reason is the Oly lifters often bounce out of the bottom position, this type of stretch reflex has been speculated to also result in muscle gain.  (Yes, I just said that if  you want big muscles DON’T lift slow, lift fast.)  Even if you don’t bounce out of the bottom, the work your butt has to do to decelerate the bar will aid you in muscle growth down there in your nether-regions.

Check out this video of (strongman) Travis Ortmayer doing some very heavy back squats (with solid form).  Note that even with his very good form, the back squat forces certain anatomical realities.  Namely, that your back is your weak-link.

Now in contrast, check out Vencelas Dabaya, from France, doing some front squats.  In the bottom position, your glutes become a prime mover.

Of course, in theory you could back squat exactly the same as you front squat with only a slight forward lean to make up for the bar being on your back.  But, in reality this almost never happens.  And as a result, the glutes get taken down a notch as major players.

So if you front squat only to parallel, then you’ll keep your glutes out of the picture.  But, if you want a butt to be proud of, keep going down. (Assuming you can do so without rounding your back, of course!)

Ok, seriously, after watching this vid, I’ve GOT to go to the gym   I’ve always been a big fan of David Rigert.  Like Tommy Kono, he was the complete package:  He was strong, he had great technique, he was a showman, and he looked the part. 

The theme song here is over the top in ALL the right ways … oh ya!

From the Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo:

The heart of a virtuous person has settled down and he does not rush about at things.  A person of little merit is not at peace but walks about making trouble and is in conflict with all.

A key to success in Olympic weightlifting is your ability to “chill out”.  I don’t mean you can’t get pumped up before a big lift.  I do mean that in most of your training, you need to be extremely methodical and analytical.  But, the trouble is that the human mind is generally incapable of being methodical and analytical when it is emotional.

In a sport like Powerlifting, shear aggression can save the day (it’s why it’s a better indicator of brute strength than Olympic lifting is).  But, in Olympic lifting that can often just mess you up.  You need to lift with a totally clear mind. 

Adrenaline is fine, and being aggressive with the amount of force you put into the bar (at the right times!) is also great.  However, you have to walk a fine line.  Too much “hype” and you will drop the very carefully crafted technique you’ve been working so hard on and the bar will fly everywhere but up!

A good weightlifter has settled down and does not rush about things.

[Note: the picture above is of Naim Suleymanoglu, one of the greatest weightlifters who’s ever lived playing chess – all that patience he learned while weightlifting is paying off!]

Check out these new vids from the Iron Mind Youtube channel of Jaber Saeed Salem (or Yani Marchokov, depending on your “persuasion”) and one of my favorite lifters Marc Huster

And Marc Huster:

Psych! (does anyone say that anymore?)

Over on Tony Gentilcore’s blog, Bret Contreras does a guest post in response to a personal trainers comments about squatting.  It’s rather extensive, but here’s the conclusion:

Good job! You just discouraged every woman who read your blogpost from performing squats and you probably planted fear in their brains regarding strength training in general. Had you possessed ample knowledge, you’d have known better and wouldn’t have uttered such a ridiculous statement. I’d be curious to know what alternatives you recommend as I could probably pick those suggestions apart as well. At any rate, you have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.

Furthermore, proper squatting (especially front squatting) strengthens the erector spinae which also prevents “negative posturing” incurred from sitting (kyphosis). I sit for many hours per day reading and writing and I keep waiting for these negative postural adaptations to kick in, but they never do. You know why? Because I squat, deadlift, and hip thrust super-heavy 2-3 times per week. This stimulus is so powerful that the 90 minutes or so I spend on heavy lower body work overrides the stimulus received from 60 hours per week of sitting.

Amen.