Bang. Bang.

PEDs or not, Linford Christie, the 100m Olympic champion from the '92 Barcelona Games, was straight yoked.  I mean . . . seriously?

 

I can still vividly remember my first year-round swim coach telling me at age ten "there is no substitute for yardage."  Gary was a great coach, as evidenced by his Crimson Aquatic Club produced several New Jersey state champions in the mid-90s, and he understood that while smart programming is important, athletes ultimately need to perform a certain amount of work to drive adaptation and reinforce proper technique.

Many weightlifters and their coaches also place a high emphasis on volume, especially for beginners – Nick  Horton, Glenn Pendlay, Caleb Ward, Jon North and Donny Shankle, just to name a few.  In the June 24, 2012 edition of "Weightlifting Talk," Shankle, North and Pendlay discuss this very concept in some detail.  Similarly, great powerlifters like Mark Bell, Brandon Lilly and Dave Tate often speak of "time under the bar" as a simple way of stressing the importance of volume.

 

As far as incorporating these ideas into my own programming, I have been performing a higher volume of snatches of late, with a lesser focus on cleans, jerks, and squats (that being said, I still perform these other three movements daily).  Most of this work has been done on relatively short rest intervals, anywhere from thirty to sixty seconds; rest intervals for clean and jerks are between seventy and ninety seconds.  Surprisingly enough, I have been consistently hitting lifts upwards of 90 percent, I have even made a few personal records following this approach.  The small 3- or 5-kilo jumps in snatches and cleans, respectively, have also helped me find a rhythm to these lifts.  Bang, bang – bar connects with my hips, feet slide out to the receiving position.  Bang, Bang.  Each lift the same, regardless of weight on the bar.  Bang, bang.  Don’t a wimp, perform a sufficient amount of volume.

 

Conversely, the problem I see most often with other lifters, especially those individuals coming from a Crossfit background, is that they take an attempt, make it/miss it, rest three minutes, take a ridiculous jump, miss it, rest three minutes, take another attempt, miss it, get upset . . . you get the point.  There is no rhythm to their lifts, and they’re simply chasing PRs, as opposed to developing consistency with a relatively high, i.e. 80-90, percent of their max. 

 

I’m still trying to figure out how, if at all, these same lessons might be applied to squats . . . stay tuned.

Don't Fall Into "The Power Trap"

It's old.  It's rusty.  It's no dice.

One of the mistakes I made recently in my own programming was incorporating the power variations, i.e. the power snatch and power clean (collectively referred to herein as "powers"), too frequently.  While powers do offer some advantages over the full lifts, a longer pull and easier recovery, they also have the potential to introduce bad habits into the full lifts, namely rolling onto the forefoot too early.  Powers mask this mistake by allowing the lifter to jump forward slightly with sub-maximal loads; however, the full lifts are far less forgiving and maximal loads require a greater degree of technical proficiency.   As I can attest, correcting these bad habits and regaining confidence in the bottom position, especially in the snatch, is frustrating.  Do not make this same mistake, I beg you.

In order to expedite these corrections, I am ditching the fancy programming concepts.  Snatch.  Clean and jerk.  Squats.  Pulls.  The meat and potatoes of weightlifting.   Percentages, you ask.  Ain't got time for percentages, baby.  Attitude Nation, Jon North, salute.