When Leslie and I checked into our hotel in Kaua’i for our honey moon the first thing we did was inquire about the workout facilities. To our chagrin the only option at the hotel was a bowflex. That’s it. Let me tell you, there is only so much two Olympic lifters are going to be able to do with a bowflex! But, we grinned and worked out on it every day.
Then, about 4 days into it, on one of our walks, we stumbled across a sign that had a heavenly word on it … a word that hit us like a ton of bricks: CrossFit.
Here we’d been wasting our time pumpin’ and-a flexin’ on a bowflex when there was a CrossFit club within a mile of our hotel! Why I didn’t just hit up Google before hand I don’t know. But, there it is.
So, I emailed the owner and inquired about their day-rates, and told him about about myself. The owner, Jerome was really cool and relaxed, and when he found out I was an Oly coach he asked if I’d run a clinic for his folks.
Now we were talking! Any time I can coach some weightlifting I’m happy.
My wife filmed it, and below is the whole thing. I split the vid into 4 parts, and added in a little extra video of my own lifters here performing the positions I taught the group.
Zen Quote of the Month:
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell
This Month in the World of Weightlifting:
Lon Kilgore, Michael Hartman, and Justin Lascek have published a new book, FIT. I’ve already grabbed my copy, have you?
Fitness is hard. Very hard. Everyone knows it is, but everyone is also willing to risk time and money on the mythology of easy fitness. If anyone, ANYONE, tells you that there is an “EASY” way to fitness, they just want your money.
Michael Hartman outlines the first week of a 4-week Power Clean program. Do this one this week, and follow along to a PR!
Outlined below is 1st week of a 4-week program that will be used by several lifters as they prepare for this meet. This Power Clean Program is designed to maximize the ability in the power clean (clean) over the next month while also addressing the snatch and jerk in a somewhat lesser extent. Keep in mind this is just a snapshot of what will be occurring in the gym over the next month, day to day changes are very likely based on the needs of individual lifters.
PDX Weightlifting and Black Box FW had another online contest this month. This time, Front Squats!
Here’s our video – Notice my man Peter trying for the 150k front squat many many many times!
Intermittent Fasting, The Vodka Diet, OR How I Got Skinny For My Wedding Like a Real Man
Call me girly, but I had no intentions of being fat at my wedding. Unfortunately, with only a few months to go, that was exactly the situation I was facing. I needed to take drastic measures, measures most will find insane. And, because of my experimental personality, I took them! Lo and behold, it worked! I dropped a total of 25 pounds, and I’m now leaner than I’ve been in over 3 years. What was my solution? Drink more Vodka and Mocha’s; eat more Burgers and Bacon; and pay as little attention to detail as possible!
The fact that I ended up with this much fat to lose would shock anyone who’s known me for most of my life. I am not someone who grew up a chubby kid, I was always skinny as a rail. I also didn’t have the (all-too-common) situation where over a decade or two of adult life I slowly and almost inexplicably gained weight to the point where I didn’t recognize myself. Oh no, my friends. Until a few years ago, I was lean. Really lean.
So, how did I get fat? Wait for it …
I made myself fat on purpose!
I’ve gotten a number of emails from lifters who live in areas without a coach or club who wonder if it would be good for them to follow the Workouts of the Day (WOD’s) that I post up on PDX Weightlifting. The answer I have is Yes and No. I put them up (sporadically, at best) to provide people with some idea of what we’re doing, not as a proscription for what you should be doing on your own.
That said, they could provide for you a base program that you can adapt to your own needs. However, for this to be reasonable, there are some things you need to understand first. This post is as much a disclaimer as anything else for those of you interested in following along with our workouts at home.
Zen Quote of the Month:
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” — Muhammad Ali
This Month in the World of Weightlifting
Nick Horton got married! We said, “I do”, we roller skated, we drank a lot of vodka. Good times. Did I say we drank a lot of vodka?
Michael Hartman and his wife had a baby boy! Perhaps not coincidentally, he wrote a post about how to get more sleep!
In my experience, optimal sleep really comes down to two main areas which need to be accounted for every night: Environment and Routine
Sarah Bertram, my friend, fellow Oregonian, who just won the national championships in the 69k class for the second time, is profiled in this article. I’ve known Sarah for many years, watched her compete in upwards of 5 to 7 local contests per year as a way of practicing the art of staying poised and consistent when it comes time to hit the big stages like Nationals and Worlds … and she always is.
Many many lifters can hit big numbers in training, but they let their nerves destroy them in a contest. Sarah is a machine in a contest – her mind is always where it needs to be. She is, hands-down, one of my favorite lifters ever, because she exemplifies so much of what I think is great about this sport, and what this sport can do for you.
Sarah is the type of weightlifter you want representing your country. (Hint: Olympics 2012!!)
“The hardest part after you’ve been training like, eight, nine, 10 years, making progress is not as quick as it is the first five (years),” Bertram said. “Being able to mentally stay with it and not see progress for half a year. The longer you do it, the more it takes.
“You get to a point where you have to overcome. I mean there has to be something about me that’s weird that I enjoy this odd thing that I come in day-in and day-out and don’t see reward right away.”
And here’s an article about her from January 2010 that I found (PDF).
Sarah’s belief in the benefits of weightlifting motivated her to join Coach Hirtz in his volunteer outreach to at-risk youths in the John Serbu detention center. Three days each week for the past six years, Sarah has volunteered her time and passed along her training to help troubled young people build confidence and self-discipline. “Sarah is such an inspiration to these kids,” Hirtz says.
My Low Hip Start article that went up on Bret Contreras’s website last week was far more controversial than I’d anticipated – I’d expected some, but not at the level I got. I’ve been getting many emails, some in support, others not so much. I’d like to share some of the main points of disagreement people had with me, and my own attempts at response here.
I’d also like to make clear from the get-go that I actually really appreciate that so many people reached out to engage me in a conversation about this stuff. I find the process of trying to figure out the most efficient ways to coach people very exciting (it’s why I’m a coach!). I’m not one of those guys who thinks he knows everything already.
“She feels her feelings when she feels them.” – Robert Downey Jr. in Home for the Holidays.
Those who know me will be shocked to hear that I’ve struggled with depression all of my life. Those who really know me won’t be shocked at all. I’ve always had a tendency to laugh at everything, make a joke of life, and be the life of the party. This can trick people around me into believing that I’m a “care-free” guy. I’ve never been that. I never will be. But, I DO have a happy life. And now, because of the ways I’ve learned to manage my depression, my smile and my laughter represent me far greater than they used to.
A decade ago, I had few coping skills and was a rabid Nihilist. I believed there was no point to anything and I lived my life that way. I couldn’t hold down a job, I couldn’t finish college, and deep down I was always deeply sad and lonely. Today, I’ve learned to manage a disease that can be horribly debilitating. I have my degrees, my business, I’m getting married in a week, and I can honestly say that I love my life. I’d like to tell you HOW I changed so dramatically in the hopes that my methods will help you like they did me.
NOTE to Readers:
If you are astute, or just simply observant in the most basic sense, you’ll have noticed that I changed a word in the title of this series from “Monday” to “Monthly”. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that I’ve never put one up on every Monday anyway. (Hell, I once put it up on a Thursday!) But, there are more important reasons related to the practicality of me putting up something that is supposed to be a weekly or bi-weekly collection of articles with a focus on Olympic weightlifting.
The first practical problem is my own. I’m busy. I try to put a lot of time into the more substantial articles on this blog, and those take precedent.
The second is that the Olympic-Weightlifting/Blogger community isn’t all that big. And, none of us are professional bloggers. We don’t get paid for this. We have jobs: actually coaching, teaching, researching, etc. In light of that, our posting frequency just isn’t as high as some of the other niche blogs out there.
So … in practice this means that if I want to have a nice list of cool and informative information for you, it will take a while. A month is about perfect for all of us to finally have put out enough stuff that I can gather it up in one place for you.
You see, the thing is, I made a point to myself about a year ago that I was only going to post on here about things I’m passionate enough about that I can really write something substantial. Yes, my posts are probably too long, too wordy, too personal, and too full of side-tracks (like this one!!). But, I’m an essayist by nature. If I’m going to write, I’m going to write. I’m going to lay it all out.
The downside, is that it takes time and energy to write like that. I wish I could post 3 times a week up here and have every last article be a meaningful, enjoyable, and worth-a-damn post. But, that wouldn’t happen. So, I hold back until I’m putting up something I truly believe in.
There are plenty of blogs in the world full of tiny little posts. Some of them are GREAT. And, they do what they do very well. The Iron Samurai isn’t that. And, Your Monthly Moment of Zen should reflect that. Big, full of fun, informative, and something to really sink your teeth into.
Thus, “Monday” becomes “Monthly” so that I can focus more on the actual articles.
Thankfully, it still alliterates! (Yes … I DO find that important.)
Now … on with the show!!
Here’s a quick video I did explaining how to do a Close Grip Power Snatch from the High Hang. While that name is stupidly long, the exercise is one of the easiest versions of an Olympic lift that you can possibly do. And when learned in the way I’m teaching it here, it translates very well to the full lifts (if you choose to learn them in the future).
The sound is a bit tough in spots. Our gym is on a busy street, we train with the doors open, and I forgot to close them!! Oops …
Hat tip to Adam Stoffa, of the blog Stretch Exercise Eat, for asking me to do this.
The lifter in the video is Peter Curcio (AKA, Petarski). The camera dude is Brandon Tovey (The Toyev).
We’ve all heard that the back squat is the King of lifts. It’s been at the bedrock of some of the most productive routines of the last 70 years. So, what I’m about to say might sound sacrilegious, particularly here in the world of Olympic Weightlifting. But, I’m going to say it anyway. You don’t have to back squat – ever!
Don’t get too excited. If you want to be a better weightlifter you do have to squat. But, I’m going to argue in favor of swapping out the back squat for the Front Squat and a few other exercises. I believe doing this makes more sense for the majority of recreational lifters, Masters lifters, and CrossFitters out there. You will be less likely to get injured and your lifts will improve at a faster rate. Crazy, I know.
I’m also going to say upfront that I am NOT against the back squat. It is a good exercise, and I use it myself. What I am against is the notion that you MUST back squat to be a good weightlifter. That is patently false.
The Good Things The Back Squat Does For The Weightlifter
The Back Squat isn’t all Bad and Ugly. There are good reasons why people Back Squat. The most important is that it works! You can think of the Back Squat as the ultimate “Jack of all Trades” exercise. It hits the quads, the glutes, the hamstrings, the spinal erectors, the low back, and it even will develop your upper back, lats, shoulders, and arms if you squeeze them hard enough and put in enough work!
If you could only do one exercise, ever, the back squat is a decent choice. (The Clean and Jerk is better, but I suppose technically it’s two exercises combined.)
The Back Squat also develops these muscles in the right proportions that we are looking for in great athletes. It is not just that we want athletes to have a strong posterior chain, we want it to be a well-balanced posterior chain. If you back squat correctly – high bar, on the heels, deeper than parallel – then you will likely do this.
(If you just happen to have the anthropometry of many high level Oly lifters – short and “squatty” – then it will be even more likely that you’ll develop just right with only back squats. However, I think long legged lifters are less likely to see the same results.)
The Back Squat also has the advantage of being highly “loadable” – that is, you can add a lot of weight to it rather easily. I’m wary as all Hell of using (as your mainstays) exercises that you can’t put much weight on. The step up is great, but doing a 1 (or even 3) rep max is just not an option unless you are willing to crash and burn! You need to make sure that the core exercises in your arsenal are things you can do a max set of 1 to 3 reps on without it getting too dangerous.
The Downside of Back Squatting
On the other hand, there is a downside to being a “Jack of all Trades” – you aren’t a master of anything.
- The Back Squat is a good quad builder, but not as good as the Front Squat.
- The Back Squat is a good hamstring builder, but not as good as the Romanian Deadlift.
- The Back Squat is a good glute builder, but not as good as the Hip Thrust.
I’m not a believer in trying to “isolate” muscles. I want lifters to use functional movements. (I’ve always loved that CrossFit sticks to about 10 or so basic functional multi-joint movements and works the crap out of them. I can respect that.) But, there is something to be said for using the right tool for the job: the tool that is best suited to that job.
One of the things that makes strength coaching hard is finding the right balance between using exercises that are general enough to hit the body as a unit and allow for proper loading, with exercises that attack a specific athletes weaknesses in a way that solves the problems at hand. The Back Squat is plenty general, but it just isn’t very specific.
In addition to that, teaching the back squat properly is a pain in the ass! Everyone wants to use too much weight, doesn’t get low enough, bends over too far forward, and turns the exercise into an ugly Good Morning. With beginners, this means I spend my entire evening having to watch and correct guys (it’s usually men) squatting like morons rather than focusing my attention on the platforms where the truly hard technical work is being done on the snatch and clean.
No thanks!!
I don’t let anyone Back Squat until they prove to me that they can Front Squat correctly, make it look pretty, and do so with some real weight – bodyweight or more. That goes for the ladies, too! My fiance was in a car wreck recently, and was unable to lift weights for nearly 7 months. She is now back up to front squatting bodyweight multiple times a week. She’s not a genetic freak. She just likes to lift. Anyone can Front Squat their bodyweight. (Anyone with legs, that is!)
The New Triumvirate: Front Squats, RDL’s, and Hip Thrusts
Now, if you were that hypothetical person who was only Back Squatting, then you won’t be able to just replace it with one exercise and call it good. I think you’ll need three: The Front Squat; Romanian Deadlift; and the Hip Thrust.
Each of these combined will cover your bases (the Front Squat being the most important), and they will do so better than the Back Squat did by itself. They are also all harder to cheat – you are less likely to put more weight on the bar than you can honestly do. For those of you who are self-coached, that is a BIG deal. Doing exercises wrong is not going to do you any good. It is going to get you injured.
These three exercises are ones I think you can figure out how to do well on your own (with ample help from Youtube!), and that will go a long way toward making you a better weightlifter.
Front Squats
The Front Squat is my all time favorite exercise. It affords you most of the best things the Back Squat gives you, but without its biggest downsides.
[Read the study “A Biomechanical Comparison of Back and Front Squats in Healthy Trained Individuals” by Gullett, et al. Here’s a quote: “The front squat was shown to be just as effective as the back squat in terms of overall muscle recruitment, with significantly less compressive forces on the knee.]
The most important downsides that the front squat avoids (at least better than a back squat does) are shear forces at the low back, and compressive forces at the knee. Now, I’m not a believer that you should go out of your way to avoid these “negative” forces completely! When you walk, run, jump, and do other normal human things, your body is dealing with all kinds of forces and you need to make sure you are training in such a way that you are able to deal with these forces appropriately.
But … we need to be realistic. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. (Unless we’re talking about Mochas, of course!) Once you get to the point where you are Back Squatting well over double bodyweight, the stress on the body is getting a bit ridiculous. If I can get the same benefits to the athlete with a Front Squat, and reduce some of the beating on the body, I’ll take it.
(Never forget that the best strength athletes all have one thing in common: big bones. They have a thicker bone structure for their height than other people of the same height – check out their heads, they’re huge! Along with these big bones comes thicker ligaments, tendons, and other connective tissues. They are BORN to lift heavy stuff and not get hurt doing it. You may or may not be in this group. If I were you, I’d err on the side of safety.)
As I mentioned above, from a coaching perspective, I find the Front Squat to be an easier exercise to teach than the Back Squat. I can get someone to squat deep, with an upright spine, much faster than I can get them to do this with a Back Squat. It is nearly impossible to cheat a Front Squat. If you start to lean too far forward, you will drop it.
People are also more likely to get into the deep bottom position in a Front Squat easier than they are with a Back Squat. Cutting depth is a big problem. The glutes get worked the most in the deepest portion of the squat, the part that is well below parallel. But, depth-cutting happens ALL the time when people back squat. Switch them to a front squat and they magically get a few inches lower!
Romanian Deadlifts
For the most part, the Front Squats will cover your bases in the same way that the back squat does. But, to be fair, it isn’t the ideal hamstring builder. We need a specialist. My favorite lift for the hammies is the Romanian Deadlift (RDL, pronounced “Err-Duhls” in my club).
Since the motion is almost exclusively a hinge at the hip, the hamstrings are taking the biggest beating during this lift. I also like that it is a functional movement: we all find ourselves in situations when we are bent way over and have to pick stuff up – a lot. Getting good at it isn’t a bad idea.
The RDL hits the hamstring hard, but it also builds up some necessary strength in other areas relevant to the Olympic lifts: the spinal erectors and low back; the traps and upper back; and your confidence with heavy weights in a precarious position.
However there are a few downsides to be aware of with this lift if you are an Olympic weightlifter. Unlike the Front Squat, the RDL is a killer on the nervous system. Working up really heavy can fry your nervous system, make your hamstrings extremely sore, and make your snatch and clean weights drop for a few days.
Generally I have my Olympic lifters do RDL’s only once a week, most often on Saturdays. We’ll alternate working up to 1 heavy set of 5 for a few weeks, then switch to something heavier like 3’s. And, once in blue moon, I’ll have them turn it into a deadlift and go up to a heavy single (no more than 3 or 4 times a year). Only doing 1 heavy set of 5, once a week might sound like it isn’t enough work. But, don’t forget that we squat and do the Oly lifts every day.
Now, if you are a CrossFitter in my club, I’ll almost never have you do these. CrossFit workouts are all over the map and CNS intensive. I don’t want to tax a CrossFitter any more than I have to when that energy can be spent on the Olympic lifts and front squats. Metcons are a killer. CrossFitters are doing them up to 4 or even 6 times a week! I can’t pile more CNS destruction on top of that.
There is one more downside to the RDL: It is really similar in execution to the part of the snatch/clean pull that goes from the knee to the hip – but … different.
Similar but different is horrible when your goal is to dial in a very specific motor pattern on a particular movement! I don’t want someone touching an RDL until they are quite consistent with the lifts AND I believe they will be able to do so without it screwing with the patterns I’m trying to dial in.
So, while I think it is the best hamstring builder out there that you can easily do with a barbell (there is some argument for the glute-ham, but who has one?), if you want to get good at Olympic lifting, you should limit it to moderate weights done only once a week at most until you become more proficient at the Oly lifts.
That said … there is one way that the RDL can help a lifters technique. If a lifter is having a hard time at the Knee Position of the snatch or clean pull, where the bar is at the knee-cap, the shoulders are over the bar, the hips are high, and the weight is hard on the heels, then the RDL can be a good tool to get them used to it. It is uncomfortable to hold that position, but that is the exact position of the RDL. Since you can RDL so much more than you can snatch or clean, it can be helpful to “convince” a lifter that they can, indeed, hit that spot correctly with heavy weights – and, so doing so with lighter weights ain’t nothin’.
I guess what I’m saying is: Use this exercise to build a strong pull, but be conscious about its possible negative effects on your pulling mechanics and your CNS.
Hip Thrusts
(I’ve added a video at the end of this post by my friend Bret Contreras explaining how to do the Hip Thrust)
We’ve got our quad-focused exercise (Front Squat), we’ve got our Hamstring-focused exercise (RDL), but we need a Booty-focused exercise. Enter the new kid on the block: The Hip Thrust.
The Hip Thrust looks rather … odd, to say the least. But, it doesn’t have any of the negatives associated with the RDL, and it has a number of big positives.
Because the performance of this lift is so far away from anything that looks like a snatch or clean, we have no fear that it will screw with our technical learning. This is HUGE. It means you can get as heavy as you want, do it as often as you want, and you won’t have some negative feedback loop in your brain moaning about how confused it is.
We’ve been playing with this exercise now (at PDX Weightlifting) for a few months, and we love it. It took a while to get down the basic technique (again, see the video below). But, once we did, we found out something remarkable.
The Hip Thrust is the best exercise I’ve ever come across for teaching a weightlifter (like YOU) how to extend at the hip and not the low back when finishing your pull on the snatch or clean – by maximally contracting your glutes.
Your hip is able to hyperextend just a bit (you do it all the time when you walk). This is exactly the motion you need to do to finish your pull. But, when people are standing with a bar in their hand, and are asked to push their hips “through”, they will, at most, stand straight up. Worse, some will mimic the look of that “arched” position they see many high level lifters doing by extending with the low back.
Bad news!
That is only going to result in injury. Being able to extend properly with the hips is an essential skill the weightlifter needs. Given that I work primarily with adults, teaching this is a harder job for me than it would be if I was only teaching young kids who seem to learn everything 10 times as fast. I haven’t yet put the hip thrust into my full rotation for new lifters, but I plan to – especially for those that have the hardest time using the hips in the pull. I’ll keep you updated.
The last thing I noticed is that the lift isn’t very taxing, no matter how much weight you use. Yes, the glutes will be sore if you’ve never done it. But, you don’t have that, “Holy hell, I killed myself yesterday!” feeling that you get when you deadlift, for instance.
I think one of the best places to put this exercises is as part of your warmup. Just do 2 or 3 reps on each set. Add weight slowly until it actually feels like work. Then stop. You’ve just primed your body to use the hips and you’ve warmed up a bit. You are ready to snatch. I’ve had a number of lifters set PR’s on the Olympic lifts after doing exactly this. It works!
Conclusion
Let me be clear – again. I am in no way telling you NOT to back squat. If you love it, do it. If your coach told you to do it, for God’s sake, do what she says!! I have a number of athletes that back squat. But, if you are doing your own thing (as most of you are), and you are wondering if you can do things differently, then I say, “Yes! Yes you can.”
OK, here’s the Hip Thrust Technique video I promised you from my man Bret Contreras. (Be smart, buy his eBook which explains in MASSIVE detail why the hip thrust should be included in your program. If you can’t tell, I’m sold.)
