It’s sad how much mudslinging goes on on the interwebs.  No matter how nice you try to be, there will always be some douche bag who starts acting-a-fool on you.  I have very little tolerance for rude behavior.  And even less when it isn’t done in person.  Sadly, much of what passes for “discussion” on the web (forums, blogs, etc) is really just a bunch of cock-grabbing, egotistical, macho crap.  In the Strength and Conditioning community, it’s often worse.

Bret’s got a post on the topic here.

However, this blog isn’t about facing and handling opposition; it’s about how we conduct ourselves as professionals in the industry. Now, I’ve never been the type to swim with the current. I don’t “swim upstream” for the sake of creating controversy; I like to think that I think of shit that other people don’t. Furthermore, I’ve never been very “professional” in some regards. I have an eyebrow piercing, sometimes I rock a fohawk, I tatooed my initials on my arm, I’m certainly not the best-dressed trainer in town, I swear quite often and post pictures of scantily-clad women in my blogs, and I train out of my garage for Pete’s sake. Come to think of it…by some standards I’m one of the most “unprofessional” trainers in the industry.

However, I still have some strong ethical standards. There are simply some lines that I don’t cross. There are two movie quotes that come to mind.

First one is from From Dusk til Dawn, George Clooney’s character: “I may be a bastard, but I’m not a fucking bastard.”

On my blog, I automatically delete comments if they are blatantly rude.  I have a zero tolerance policy.  I practice Zen meditation for god’s sake.  I’m not interested in a pissing fight with some dude I don’t even know.

But, honest debate is very important.  Being able to discuss a topic, disagree, and hash out the details with a person who lives nowhere near you is one of the BEST things about the web.  However, just like with road rage, when you don’t see the person face-to-face it is far too easy to get “all worked up” and take things too far.

Some Cases

1. Some of you may remember the stupidness of Lyle and Ripp’s online battle about the bodyfat percentages of one of Ripp’s clients (simply Google “Lyle vs. Rippetoe’”).  Yes, that was the argument.  Ripp claimed that his guy Zach was a lower bodyfat percentage than Lyle thought he was.  Ripp was simply proud of a kid who went from skinny and weak, to bigger and stronger.  He certainly fudged the percentages a bit, but what ever.  Lyle flew off the handle and canceled a podcast interview he was going to do with him, blah, blah …

2. Before this, Lyle and Glenn Pendlay had it out over a video Glenn put up of a lifter of his doing front squats.  The kids knees buckled in on every rep. Lyle flipped out and basically said that Glenn was a horrible coach, how could he allow this to happen, monkeys were falling from the sky, and hell was freezing over.  Glenn’s response was that he’d been working with this kid on it for a while, the knees were actually better than they’d been, etc.  Lyle – who clearly doesn’t coach people enough in the real world – couldn’t take it and it ended their relationship.

I’m not saying there isn’t something funny about watching grown men and women act like little bitches in public.  But, come on!  (Lyle has a LONG history of burning bridges – sadly.)  These guys could have simply disagreed, moved on, and still had a solid (and productive) working relationship.  Instead, they are no longer speaking to one another.  Stupid.

[Granted, using Lyle McDonald as a case study is rather biased.  He’s infamous for being a little … over the top.  But, it makes the point that this stuff happens.]

3. Another case is when Mike Boyle called an end to all squatting.  He believes that traditional back and front squats on two legs are overrated for most athletes, and are too prone to causing injury.  I disagree with him (well, I agree about back squats), many coaches do.  But, that wasn’t enough.  He started getting hate email, he was “called out” in horribly non-professional ways, he was accused of being an idiot, accused of saying it just to sell his books, etc.

In other words, instead of getting into substantive arguments about the merits of what he was saying, he was attacked personally.  Stupid.  Mike used to be a Powerlifter for heaven’s sake.  He certainly knows a thing or two about squatting.  It’s one thing to disagree on the points of an argument.  It’s another to be a punk ass.

This kind of behavior is so common it causes a lot of coaches to be rather hesitant to express their real views.  It isn’t for a lack of conviction in the views themselves but rather a lack of wiliness to get involved in childish behavior.  Who can blame them?

The internet brings out the worst in people in more ways than we’d like.  But, it can also be a great tool for communication and information dissemination.  We just have to mitigate the darker sides of our nature.

Keeping it real, in my book, means keeping it civil.

7 Of My Own Controversial Views

So, on that note, and just for fun, here are a few of my own potentially controversial views.

1. The Bench Press is bad for you (or at least for most people).  Unless you are a powerlifter, you probably don’t need to ever do it.  My rule is, if you can’t do 20 beautiful clapping push ups, you have no business getting near a bench press.
2. Anyone can learn to do the FULL Olympic lifts – and athletes should do them.  None of this cutting it short crap that most coaches do (relying only on hang and/or power-versions) – to me, that’s like doing quarter squats.  Doing them from only the hang position causes bad learning habits that translate to a poor transfer of the skills you’re using them for in the first place.  Doing the full lifts is where (I believe) most of the “magical” qualities Oly lifters have come from – the same qualities people are after when incorporating Oly lifting into their routines: vertical jump, quickness, explosive power, transferable strength, etc.
3. Any athlete can learn to do a “passable” FULL Snatch and Clean and Jerk in about 1 to 3 months.  Look … these lifts are hard, but they ain’t THAT hard.  Sure, the general-fat-public might be totally incapable of even doing bodyweight squat.  But, I have never seen an athlete – defined here as someone with a history of serious physical activity – who can’t learn to do a snatch and clean and jerk in short order, and without it taking up all their time.  NOTE: By “passable” I mean legal in a sanctioned USAW contest, and safe for the athlete.
4. Most Coaches are sooo God-awful at teaching the Olympic lifts that point #2 should probably be ignored!  eg. Stop humping the bar!!!  You should NEVER smack the bar with your hips to get more force on the bar. It is not only artificial, it throws the bar forward, and prevents you from doing a true vertical jump – it is also dangerous!  Bad, bad, bad.
5. Most Strength Coaches are too hard on CrossFit.  Yes, CrossFit has its problems – not the least of which is the creator Greg Glassman.  For instance, it often gets rank beginners to do tough exercises with too much intensity long before they are ready, which dramatically increases their risk of injury.  They are fond of high rep Oly lifts (though not as much as is made out), and that is just insane.  But, in the end, it is something that is physically demanding, extremely good conditioning work for folks who are physically able to keep up, people love it, and it has made Olympic lifting FAR FAR more popular than it ever would have been without it.  Adults should be allowed to engage in activities that are higher risk.  That is their right.  And if they get hurt, well, too bad.  They chose to do it.  We should get off of CrossFit’s back.  (I’d rather complain about Yoga … but that might get me killed.)
6. Olympic Weightlifters need to do (a lot) more upper body work.  Olympic weightlifters avoid doing anything at all that might be construed as bodybuilding.  They tend to hate bodybuilding and the entire culture that goes with it.  This is a childish stance that has to go.  While the top elite (Bulgarian, usually) lifters rarely if ever do dedicated upper body work (though the Chinese do a lot of it), never forget that they are YOUNG and on DRUGS.  It’s been said before, and I think it is true, that generally lower body injuries are caused by something you did, and upper body injuries are caused by something you DIDN’T do.  The biggest injury complaints among lifters in our sport are wrist, elbow, and shoulder.  If Oly lifters simply added in a bunch of chin ups at the end of their workouts, their joint pain would drop down dramatically … don’t hold your breath, though.
7. The sport of Olympic weightlifting is elitist and is largely run by people who are driving it into the ground.  If they don’t find ways to open it up to a wide recreational public, the sport will die in the US.  I’m on a mission to make our sport truly accessible to the crowd out there of people who are adults looking for a cool recreation sport to get involved with that makes them feel strong and athletic.  This crowd is HUGE.  It is untapped largely in Olympic weightlifting.  And it needs to be exploited.  We can literally quadruple our numbers if we simply get rid of the BS elitism crap, stop focusing only on young people (we do this because they are the only ones who have a chance at winning nationals or getting to the Olympics), and actively market to people over the age of 25 – you know, people with jobs and money who can afford a coach and a membership to USA Weightlifting!  If you get the numbers up of people having fun … the young ones will follow.

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:

Well, if it wasn’t enough that those of us in Portland already suffer from a superiority complex based on our early adoption of biking, going “green” in nearly every way possible, high per capita college degree holding, and abundunt strip clubs (what?) …

It turns out we also read more than everyone else in the nation. 

Multnomah County
has the highest collection turnover rate per capita — meaning its
books, CDs, DVDs and other materials are checked out at twice the rate
of the national average.

Seriously, Portland is a weirdo place. I can’t tell you how many coffee shop barristas I know who have masters degrees, but decided that they wanted a more mellow life.  One of the coffee shops I frequent regularly is owned by a guy who will sit with me and talk about Foucault, neuroscience, and Quantum game theory (my masters-degree focus).

People here are freakishly well read.  Now I know why: all that “liberal” access to libraries – Oh My!

As my friend, Tony, once said, “In every city, the strippers say
they are ‘working their way through college’.  In Portland, it’s
true.”

I’m finally getting around to writing this, a few weeks after the fact.  But, the Portland Highland Games 2010 was a success and a ton of fun.  Three of our crew competed: Myself, Chris, and Roy.  Chris and I were in the C class (Remember, a C gets a degree) and Roy was in the Novice class.

We spent a fair amount of time practicing the weight for distance and the open stone prior to going in this year.  Roy built a make-shift weight for distance out of pipes and plates.  And it served us well.  Though we did break one of them!  And he had to make a second one.

While I know my own spin technique leaves much to be desired, I did get quite a lot of complements from the more experienced competitors.  So, it turns out that practice does help … who knew?

We’re all quite new at this sport.  We assumed (wrongly) when we first started that our Olympic lifting would carry over far.  Wrong.  While we are often among the strongest guys at our level, our technique is so far behind that we can’t utilize our strength and power correctly.  We get killed by guys far less athletic than us.

This is actually good news.  Just like the Olympic lifts, once we learn the technique and get better and better at that, our power will transfer and the weights will start going a lot farther.

Here are some vids.  (The pic above is me with the 56 pound weight for distance.  Let me tell you now, 56 pounds spins you more than you spin it – see my wipe-out below.)

28 Pound Weight for Distance

56 Pound Weight for Distance

Hard, this is very hard!

Open Stone

Caber … Well, Not so much!

And here are a few pics of Roy (sadly, I ain’t got no vids):

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.

We all know that NFL players don’t take steroids, right?  Sure …

In a mind-blowingly insane defense, Brain Cushing is now claiming that the reason that he tested positive for HCG (a drug designed to kick-start your bodies natural testosterone levels after you have been on the juice for a while) is because – get this – he was overtrained.

I’m not saying that it is completely impossible, but is it likely?  That’s the important question. 

Let’s look at some facts.  Here’s a picture of The Fridge (remember that guy?), who played for the “Da Bears” back in the day:

Fridge was considered a total monster back then – unique.  He was the biggest thing to have ever walked the earth … well, those days are gone.  It used to be that lineman were big tubs of lard. 

Here’s Cushing:

OK, OK … so Cushing is a linebacker and the Fridge was a defensive lineman.  I know, modern defensive lineman are still fatter than Cushing by a good 50 to 80 pounds.

But all of today’s defensive lineman are huge, not unique, not like The Fridge.  20 years ago, about 40 players in the NFL weighed in at 300 or more pounds.  Today about 340 players do! 

Yes, the biggest of them are still fat.  But, they are not carrying anything like the levels of bodyfat we used to see. 

Did the human genome change in 20 years?  Not likely.

Found this video over at 70’s Big.  It adds to the point I was making in my Clean and Jerk for the Shot Put article.

Hat Tip: Ryland

Bret Contreras, inventor of a glute-bridge variation he calls the “hip thrust”, and author of an exceptional book on glute strengthening, has finally made a video explaining his flagship exercise (see below).

After reading his book a little while ago I started having some of my lifters try doing a bodyweight version for higher reps to simply get the form down. 

I assumed that given that most of these lifters are serious competitive Olympic weightlifters (with ever growing butts!), that the body weight version would be very easy, and once they got their form down, we’d be moving up in weight rather quickly … I was wrong.

Yes, some of them are ready to add weight, but a surprising number still find the simple 2 legged body weight version VERY hard.  (It doesn’t help that I have them do it after doing the Oly lifts and our “normal” strength moves like Front Squats and RDL’s.)

I’ve found that doing it one-legged is a great way to add resistance without adding resistance (sort of speak).  But, once even that is getting too easy – and you’ve mastered proper form! – then it’s time to move up to Bret’s full version.

Take a look at this:

Check out this article on the physics of the shot put.  (The original paper can be found on the Arxiv, if you want to see the actual math – I promise it’s fun!)

For more than 30 years, sports scientists have puzzled over why the optimum angle of release for a shot put is not 45 degrees.

One of the stranger Olympic sports is the shot put, an event in which an athlete throws a grapefruit-sized sphere of metal as far as possible, using a strange throwing motion specified by the rules.

Now here’s a curious puzzle of biomechanics: at what angle should the shot be released to maximize the distance of throw?

I’ll just overlook the “one of the stranger Olympic sports” comment, for now. 

The Basic Physics

The article does bring up some interesting ideas that a shot putter (or “rock putter” for all you Highland lads and lassies out there) may want to pay attention to. 

The first is one everyone who engages in the sport already knows:  the height of the thrower matters.  I’m only 5’6’’ and am at a distinct disadvantage vs my lifter Chris who is over 6 feet.  If we each applied identical force, at an identical angle, his would go farther simply because it started higher.  (Think of the extreme case of a guy throwing from the ground or from the top of a 30 story building.)

But, that isn’t all.  Additional arm length also matters.  There are likely a few reasons for this.  The first is simply that a longer arm increases the time the weight is under force before released.

The second reason is that the point at which you let go of the weight is the real height of release – not the shoulder.  If we have two people with identical shoulder heights, identical technique, and identical ability to put force on the implement, but with the first having an arm that is 2 inches longer; then the first person will be releasing the weight at a different height than the second.  The longer armed thrower will release just a touch higher – and therefore throw it farther.  All it takes is half an inch to win.

However, it turns out that the real height is determined by the angle of release and the velocity squared.  The velocity is basically the force you put onto it during your driving phase right before release.  That is, it’s all the work you did.  Since this parameter is squared, then you’re getting more “bang for your buck”. 

This is probably the reason the shot put technique has evolved the way it has over time – with shorter athletes preferring the spin technique which increases the time under tension, adds centrifugal force, and gives you a longer amount of time to accelerate.  They are compensating for a lack of release height by increasing velocity on the weight.

[By “shorter” athlete I mean under 6’ 5’’.  Seriously, these folks are monsters.]

The down side of increasing the force on the implement is that it tends to lower the angle of release. But, again, since you have velocity being squared, it’s a worthwhile trade off – especially if you don’t have the natural height.

Lack of Experience Showing

Now … this is where things in the article get ugly, and silly. 

Finally, Lenz and Rappl say it has long been known that world records in bench-pressing are significantly higher than for the clean and jerk. This implies that athletes have greater power at their disposal when the angle of release is 0 degrees compared to other angles. This effect also means that a smaller angle of release could send the shot further.

The bold is mine.  That implication is false.  This isn’t to say that a lower angle of release doesn’t provide more power.  But, if true, their “implication” isn’t the reason.

It’s paragraphs like this that cause so many coaches and athletes to outright dismiss research and theory all together.  It shows an obvious lack of understanding of the very basics of shot put technique, bench technique, and what is happening in a clean and jerk.  And that is a shame, as there is a lot coaches and athletes can learn from well-designed research.  Practice and Science should be complementary.  Imagine if doctors just ignored science … it’d be the middle ages all over again (leeches!).

You DON’T drive with your arms and upper body in the shot put as your primary generator of force!  It’s a leg exercise.  Your upper body is in a purely supportive role.  Yes, upper body strength and power is very important, but not nearly as important as leg power.  Not even close.  

This is the reason throwers have long known that if you had to pick between only doing bench, or only doing clean and jerks, you’d pick the clean and jerks.  Why?  Because the bench is an upper body exercise while the clean and jerk is fundamentally a leg exercise that (just like the shot) uses the upper body only in a supportive role.  More over, like the shot, the clean and jerk is an explosive exercise that builds and develops power, where the bench is a slower pure strength move.  (Every coach knows the difference between strength and power.  Sports scientists should too.)

The reason bench press numbers are so far above that of clean and jerks isn’t because of the “angle”.  It’s because of bench shirts and a drastically lowered range of motion via arching. 

Those 1000 pound benches you see are ALL shirted. 

Raw (no shirt) bench presses are about 700 pounds.  Top clean and jerks are about 250 kilo’s or 550 pounds. 

But, again, the bench technique used in contests has a massive arch in it which dramatically reduces the range of motion.  How much?  Well, one of my own lifters holds world records in the bench press and has a range of motion in that exercise of less than 2 inches … yes, 2 inches! 

I’m not against that.  That’s the sport.  That’s the technique.  And that’s fine. 

But, let’s not pretend that the numbers seen in competitive bench presses are related – in any way – to the way one goes about throwing a shot. 

And by the way, by adding in an arch like that to the bench you decrease the angle to as far as –45 degrees from the shoulder (less than zero degrees)! Imagine throwing the shot with a negative angle! 

But, fundamentally, the technique of the two exercises with regard to angle is beside the point.  What is important is that benching is an upper body exercise – and shot put isn’t.

When you shot put, you are driving at maximum speed with your legs, ending in a full triple extension of the hips, knees, and ankles (especially for shot putters who use the “glide” style – see videos below).  Your upper body is held tight so that you don’t absorb any of the force generated by your legs and it is instead transferred into the weight, and your arm is used only at the last moment (just like a jerk) at the very top of the movement to give it a little extra push. 

Think of pushing a car.  You can’t possibly push-start a car by only pressing with your arms.  In fact, most people will keep their arms stationary and drive hard with their legs to get the car going.  Only once the car is up to speed do the arms start to move – giving that little extra “nudge”. 

The jerk is the same.  You drive with your legs like you would in a powerful vertical jump, and only at the top, when the arms are already 1/2 to 3/4 extended do you drive with the arms.

If the authors had ever done these three exercises – bench, shot put, and clean and jerk – they would never have said something so ridiculous.  And their article might get read by people who DO do these exercises.

They’re lucky I have a math degree and like research.  The truth is, the original paper is good, very interesting, and applicable.  But, by showing their glaring lack of real-world knowledge and experience they are turning off a large potential audience – the very people who would benefit most from the information.

Spinners

Take a look at this video of shot put “spinners” and tell me why the bench makes sooo much sense for them:

Gliders

And here are the “gliders”:

[Hat tip: Beth]