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Handling Multiple Lifters at Mega Meets

Travis Cooper gave me the idea for this blog post. Congratulations, by the way, to him for his recent performance at the San Diego Grand Prix meet this past weekend.

The growth in Weightlifting the last decade has seen our meets go from poorly attended one platform affairs to events with up to five platforms and up to eight sessions a day. The first of these mega meets was the American Open in Reno, Nevada in 2015. I took over 30 of my own lifters to that meet and coached another eight for Coaches who couldn’t make it.

If you have two lifters on adjacent platforms, I suggest you warm them up on the same platform in the back room. Choose a platform on the edge of the border so that you can easily go to and from the Marshall table for each platform. You will be the one counting attempts, making tactical and strategic decisions, and walking back and forth between, or among, platforms. You must go to see every platform and every lifter as they warm up, and it’s important you try to see each lifter’s attempts. If you don’t or can’t the lifter has to be prepared for that circumstance. No lifter can be more or less important than another; they all need your support. However, you must prepare the lifters for the times when you have to stay at a platform- your lifter may need you to help calm or excite them for a lift, they may be having a rough meet, etc. When your other lifters trust that you will be there for them when they most need you, they’ll let you down for missing a first attempt.

The best thing you can do to succeed in these situations is to have a good support crew of other coaches, either from your team or friends from other teams. The support crew should consist of a trusted Coach for the platform- someone you KNOW has the same ideas and beliefs you do, someone who will make the same calls as you, and someone who commands respect from the athlete with whom their working. This coach will also read the warm up sheet that you made with the athlete; you’ll tell the coach the count and they’ll get the athlete, or athlete’s, moving. They will also get the bar loaded for the lifter. That’s where the rest of your support crew comes in; they need to be competent loaders who know when to shut up and not distract the primary athlete or athletes. There is no rest for folks in the back on the platforms for warm-ups; they work harder than the lifter does who is in that session. For that reason the support crew shouldn’t be lifters on your team who are in the next session or two. You want them well rested for their own lifting. I like to keep people from helping out the day they lift, and the day or two before they lift they should only help for one or two sessions.

Obviously, developing these coaches and lifters requires you to establish a program and build relationships. You have to also have coaches and lifters who buy into your system. Nothing is more important than the team and family you create.

The Rebuild Cycle

In their Seminar “Practical Strength for Trainers”, Dave van Skike and Sara Jenkins Fleming present a simplified version of periodization which makes understanding the basic process simple; we have the recovery/ rebuild phase, the training phase, and the competition phase.  After we peak, we need to rebuild. 

The rebuild cycle includes some downtime from serious training and then a return to building basic movement skills.  Immediately after the competition, I like to let my lifters have a week off.  I often require it.  If they feel the need to workout, they can, but they cannot do any snatches, cleans, jerks, squats, or pulls/ variations of the lifts (I’ll let strongman type variations in since they won’t distract from our technical progress at this point in the rebuild).  Taking this week off allows athletes to recovery emotionally and psychologically from the stress of preparation they just did.  The week off also allows for the beginning of extinction to occur.  Extinction is the process by which an athlete loses some refinement of technique.  What an athlete loses in this short period are the rough edges of technique that developed over the course of peaking; losing those edges allows us to further improve technique the next cycle.

The second part of the rebuild cycle is movement education.  We’ll look back on the chronic injuries, specifically noting how they developed and how they changed training.  We’ll also look back on acute injuries and how they effect long term development and how they could produce chronic injury.  We’ll also look at any specific weaknesses or imbalances which may have developed and address them.  This cycle will look the least like a weightlifting cycle of any that we do.  We’ll do isolation movements, extra movements in the tranverse and sagittal planes, and a little bit of the weightlifting movements.  We’ll do sprinting (of some sort), more jumping than usual, and some basic cardio too.  What will happen most of all these three weeks is giving the athlete the opportunity to fix pain, learn to move better, and get hungry for the grind that will be coming. 

The rebuild cycle is an essential part of athlete development in the long and short term.  Resetting the system and treating injuries allows us to train harder and peak more.  Too often Coaches forget that the wavelengths of periodization have an ebb, and during that ebb, we must rebuild the body. 

Basic Brainstorm about Tapers

I was asked today about tapering for big meets, and I decided to turn my resulting Stream of Consciousness into a post.  There won’t be any citations this time around as this is my practice and what I do, but even saying that these are strictly guidelines to follow and work from.  Also, I’m talking about the last two weeks, or even one week, before competition.  This isn’t a full discussion of building a peak for a meet or the last four to six weeks before a meet which, obviously, form a true taper period.

A taper is when you alter your training to be able to hit your best lifts in a meet.  There is a reduction on volume, but unlike a deload, there is no reduction in intensity.  In fact, the average weight lifted (intensity) will increase during the taper.  We can taper for any meet we want to, but for advanced or elite level lifters, we will only really taper for two or three big meets a year.  These meets will be our peak meets.  For a smaller meet we may have a mini peak or a mini taper, but please don’t automatically think a taper and a peak are the same thing. 

For beginners, we use a simple three day/ one week taper.  If we lift Saturday, then Monday we will work up to three singles between 80-85% in the Snatch and Clean and Jerk, and to a single at 90% in the back squat.  On Wednesday we go to three singles at 70-75% and a single at 80-85% in the Front Squat, and Thursday or Friday we do three singles at 70% in the snatch and clean and Jerk only with no squats.  I call this basic Taper “Beginner Meet Week”.  However, the taper actually starts on the last test days before a big meet, usually two weeks out for the Clean and Jerk and 10 days out for the snatch. 

Our Advanced lifters get a Ten Day taper based off that final snatch day.  Since the advanced or elite lifters lift at Multi-Day meets, we’re going to consider our lifter to lift on a Saturday for explanation.

Two Weeks before the meet we’ll test Clean and Jerk and Front Squat.  Ten Days before the meet we’ll test Snatch and do a heavy, not Max, Back Squat.  That will probably be the last time we back squat before the meet.  Some lifters like or need the back squat though, and if they do, we’ll hit a heavy single five days out.  After our test days, we will have the following days: 85% for Snatch and Clean and Jerk for a single (on Thursday or Friday 8-9 days before the meet).  Then 80% for 1-3 singles a day or two later (Friday or Saturday a week before the meet).  The Monday before the meet we will go to 90% for a single in the snatch, clean and jerk and front or back squat.  On Tuesday we go to 70-75% for three singles and a double at 80 in the Front Squat.  Wednesday is usually travel Day; if it isn’t, we will go to 85% for a single or two and no squatting unless we need a further stimulus.    Thursday we will go light again, 70-75%.  If Wednesday is Travel Day, we might go to 80% on Tuesday and then only 50-70% after we fly in on Wednesday.  It’s very important to lift the day you get off the plane, even if it’s late at night.  We’ll do five singles total around 50-70% for Snatch and Clean and Jerk.    If Thursday is Travel Day, we MUST train after the flight and we’ll go to 70-75%.  Friday we’ll go to 80% for one single, or maybe stop at 70-75% if the lifter looks sluggish. On Competition Day, if the lifter lifts after 4:00 p.m., we will do a quick morning session around 10-Noon hitting five singles total between 50 and 70% in the lifts.  Then we kick ass that evening.

The purpose of a taper is to prime the CNS, the Body, and the emotions for a peak performance.  The last training cycle should have prepped us for the meet, the taper is merely honing that edge.  Because the workouts during the taper take a shorter time to complete, athletes will often ruin their taper by increasing stress.  WHEN YOU TAPER, you need to reduce stress.  Let things slide that can slide.  Pay your bills early or set up auto payments for them.  Make sure someone is watching your dog and have a back-up for the dog sitter.  Plan to fly a day early and plan a morning flight so if there’s a delay you aren’t missing the meet.  Whatever you can let go of for two weeks, let it go.  We’ll talk about recovery after a meet next week and a big part of recovery is taking care of the life stuff you put aside.

Three Assistance Exercises for the Jerk

This past weekend I was discussing the Jerk with a friend of mine, and I suggested some assistance exercises to help his lifter find their position in the split.  The three exercises I’ll discuss this week are assistance lifts for the total movement of the jerk; they aren’t remedial exercises for mobility or hip strength like unilateral work, nor are they pure strength exercises for the shoulders like push presses are.  They are, rather, a combination of strength and position which demand the body find its best position in the jerk in order to complete. 

Jerk Recovery

The jerk recovery is my favorite overall exercise for total body strength.  When done properly there is nothing that will work your recovery position in the jerk better, and while working the recovery, I will force your body to learn to recover from a properly balanced split.  Here’s how we do it with my team:

1. Set up in a power rack (best idea) or with spotter arms (okay idea).  If you’re strong and doing these with 500 pounds or more, I wouldn’t trust spotter arms.  This is another reason why every gym needs a power rack. USE A CRAPPY BAR for these; we usually use one of our 40 year old York bars, or even a Texas Power bar.  The bar is going to get abused and I would be very angry if you used the Eleiko Competition bar.

2. The bar should rest above your head, more or less where it would be when you are at the bottom of your split.  It’s better to be a little high than it is to be a little low; if the bar is lower than you would do for a normal split, then you will risk injury and throw off your mechanics.

3. We do these for the recovery, and therefore we don’t split under the bar fast and then stand up right away.  I want to overload the recovery position as much as possible, so we start FROM the split.  I’ll mark the floor for people who need their footwork marked to ensure proper foot placement.  Your arms are overhead, not forward, and your first recovery step is going to push  the bar UP.  If the bar goes forward you will need to adjust your position.  If the bar drifts back you’ll need to engage the back leg more to provide a better base of support.  When you’re done, lower the bar by squatting down and letting the bar go with you.  Only let go totally if you collapse. 

4. You’ll learn to brace properly to recover, you’ll learn to hold the brace, you’ll learn good shoulder/ overhead position, and you’ll get a hell of a trunk workout.  Because these are a partial movement, you can do them and recover within 24 hours or so for the next days session.

5. We do low reps and high sets for these.  Beginners and weak folk should start with 50% of their jerk for a set of two and go up 10% until they can only do one rep.  For warm-ups and the sake of easy loading I used to start with 135 pounds- I would always use metal weights on the power or cheap bars- and go until I hit a max double.  I’d start to use 25 pound plates after the bar got really heavy.  I never used smaller because I didn’t need to.  Keep the total reps in the 12-20 range. 

6. When you get very good at these you’ll start to naturally do a front-front-back recovery.  I like that best.  You’ll also learn to slide the front foot back instead of lifting it off the ground.  Sliding maintains some double-support and will keep your elbows from unlocking during the jerk.  I teach all my lifters to slide their front foot back instead of lifting it.   My goal is for the athlete to do 150% of their jerk in a jerk recovery. 

Jerk Balance/ Jerk Step-out

This is a technical exercise I started to use in the early 2000s.  I differentiate between the Jerk Balance and the Jerk Step out as follows:  In the Jerk Balance you have a countermovement, and in the Jerk Step-Out you do not have a countermovement to initiate the drive under the bar.  To perform these, we will:

1. Start from blocks or a rack.  We can clean the bar to position if we need to, but if we want to focus on jerk technique, I’d eliminate the clean.  Jerk the bar overhead into a full split (mark the foot position for beginners or people doing these to improve foot position).

2. Once in the full split position, recover with the front foot all the way.  Your back foot will stay in the split position.  I call this the Front Foot Recovered position.  You THEN lower the bar to the shoulders.  Remember- Front Foot, then bar.

3. With the bar on your shoulders, you will dip with the front leg and drive yourself under the bar into the split position (for the jerk balance); for the Jerk Step out you merely step forward (out) with your front leg without the dip.  In BOTH instances you should land with the front foot in position and arms locked simultaneously.

4. We do three to five sets of three to five reps, relatively light; step outs are done lighter than balances.  We can also add either of these to a complex, such as: push press+jerk+jerk balance

 Drop Jerk

This is among the most difficult psychological movements we do as an accessory lift.  The movement is deceivingly simple, but overcoming the mental need to dip to force yourself funder the bar is very difficult for people.  Casting away that mental crutch, and realizing the jerk is about driving UNDER and not driving UP, will make you a much better lifter.

1. To do a Drop Jerk set up exactly as you would for a jerk.  Brace, tuck your hips, elbows up and out, shift your weight back, and

2. Lift your knees and step forward and back.  No countermovement, no shift, no wiggle, just drop down and punch the arms overhead.  Again, we will mark the floor for foot placement if the lifter needs it. 

3. When we land, we hold for a second, then recover normally. 

4. Three to five sets of three to five reps, or do as a part of a complex:  Clean, drop jerk, jerk; or press, push press, drop jerk, jerk.  Use whatever way your imagination can to come up with complexes, just make sure they flow easily.

The Dynamic Start, an answer, finally and about time, to my favorite lifter who loves Diet Coke

Okay, okay, I am finally going to answer this question for you.  I know you’ve pestered me for months to actually go into details about what a dynamic start is, how to use it, why you should use it, and when to use it. 

There are two basic types of starts in weightlifting, the static and dynamic.  A Static Start is when the lifter begins the separation of the bar from the ground with no assistance from a stretch reflex.  Essentially, the lifter is still, unmoving, as if paused, and then they begin to lift the bar from the platform.  Conversely, a dynamic start is a moving start position, one in which the athlete utilizes the Stretch-Shortening cycle to allow them to pull the bar of the ground with more force, thereby finding it easier to overcome inertia and thereby impart more initial speed to the bar movement.

There are three basic types of dynamic starts with different individual variations within each of the styles.  The first is a top-down start, the second is a bottom-up start, and the third is a dive-bomb start.  In a top down down start, the lifter gets set, lifts their hips sharply up and then down, and as soon as they get back down to the starting position the bar is lifted from the ground.  Mattie Rogers demonstrates this technique in these hookgrip videos:  https://youtu.be/0qYMtJXR0LQ

A bottom up dynamic start is when an athlete brings their hips lower than the hips are at the initial pull from the ground. Sohrad Moradi does this well in this Hookgrip Video: https://youtu.be/Up0mvAdY5hc

The third type of dynamic start is the dive-bomb start.  Wes Barnett did it best for America, here he is taking Silver in the Clean and Jerk at the World Championships in 1997: https://youtu.be/_Hq9h4qukL4

While these great lifters use Dynamic Starts, we do not want to teach this technique to beginners.  Use advanced techniques and aids to enhance strengths, not to hide weaknesses.  A dynamic start should be utilized only when a lifter is physically and technically capable of starting precisely and with good technique and position from the floor, and when the weight being lifted becomes difficult to accelerate off the floor.  We must not coach the dynamic start to lifters who have weak backs, tight hamstrings, etc. As coaches, we fix those weaknesses first then, after a period of a few years, we’ll utilize the dynamic start if it will enhance a lifters ability.    

When we teach or use the dynamic start, it’s important that the lifter maintain tension on the barbell throughout the lift with good upper back position, that the lifter finds their hip height automatically, and that there is no pause between the end of the dynamic start and starting of the pull off the floor. 

There are many movements lifters would like to think are dynamic starts.  The hip tweaking nervousness and bouncing the hips up and down several times before you lift isn’t a dynamic start, it’s wasted energy and a sign of anxiety.  A dynamic start with the bar rolling toward the lifter isn’t a dynamic start, it’s getting set because we’re too heavy to bend down to the bar properly.  Also, getting set with your hips low, then doing the upward start, and starting with your hips high isn’t a dynamic start.  It’s being weak in the hamstrings and glutes and you as a lifter trying to hide that weakness. 

How to Succeed in Remote Training

Most of my clients are remote, meaning they live too far away from me for me to work with them everyday in person.  When we start to work together, we talk about their goals, I do an evaluation of their lifting technique, and we make a plan.  After more than ten years of Coaching via email and facebook, I’ve noticed certain qualities which make for success in a remote coaching relationship.

Communication is the most vital component of a successful remote coaching relationship.  Telling your coach what works and what doesn’t on a daily or weekly basis has to be done; otherwise your coach will just go ahead with a plan in a haphazard manner.  If you don’t tell your coach what you need and what is and isn’t working, then you’re not going to get a better program individualized to your needs.  Likewise, your coach should tell you what the plan is and be open to discussion about how it works and what their philosophy is.  Yes, sometimes you do stuff because Coach says it, but the vast majority of the time a good coach will be able to explain why you’re doing what you’re doing and how it will specifically make you better.

Use video review wisely.  Sometimes your coach needs to see every lift in a workout, but not really all the time.  Send videos of lifts over 80%, and one or two of lifts below.  The coach needs to see development of the technique based on different percentages, but will not necessarily reply to every single lift in a set or every video.  You, however, don’t need to watch every lift you send.  I prefer my athletes to focus on one video review a day of each major exercise even if they’ve sent me more videos.  Furthermore, I can break a video of a lift down into dozens of pieces of information and detail, but good coaches won’t do that for most lifters most of the time.  Good coaches focus on one major fix and one or to minor fixes over an entire training cycle. 

Take notes on your training and show them to your coach.  I like to know how you felt on days you did well and on days you did badly; I like to know about sleep and diet in general. Your putting notes in your training book or on the online file help me understand how to coach you as an individual.  The notes don’t need to be written in exhausting detail,, but they should tell me quickly how difficult exercises felt, if there was any pain, ask any specific questions you might have, and overall the general quality of your workout and lifestyle that day.

You should also try to meet with the coach in a skype or person to person session as much as possible.  I travel all over the East Coast and get to see many of my remote clients one or two workouts a month.  They get better faster because we develop rapport and understanding.

General Considerations for Training Female Lifters

The most requested topic of discussion on my IG poll is how to train men and women differently, or what considerations do you need to make for women. I hesitate to answer this question because I don’t like generalities becoming rules. But I’ll appease the masses on this one and talk about general considerations to consider when training a female athlete.

The biggest and most obvious consideration in training women is their testosterone levels. Testosterone is rocket fuel and allows men to do dumb stuff and get away with it, and Testosterone also allows men to have a much higher reach from their base. However, women also have Testosterone, and understanding how it effects women’s training will bring us to our first major difference. Women, on average, can handle more volume than men of the same level, age, training background, and weight class. Rocket fuel burns hard and fast, but women are diesel. They can train at a consistent level for a longer period of time in their workouts and can train slightly longer before needing a deload week.

Women, also, can handle more volume at a higher percentage of their max. It’s not unusual for a woman to be able to double 90% in the clean or clean and jerk, but with most men, especially 96 kg or bigger men, doing a true double at 90% probably isn’t going to be a regular part of their training.

The biggest practical difference I experience in training women versus men is that truly accomplished and long term female athletes tend to come from a gymnastics or dance background and have excessive mobility, while males who are accomplished athletes tend to come from a wrestling, lacrosse, or football background and have more limited mobility.

What matters most, though, in training women or men is coaching an individual and not making wholesale assumptions about them because of a generalized pattern you’ve seen before. While generalized patterns are valuable and can inform your macrocycle or mesocycle, we want to train the individual and see their movement patterns and specific strengths and weaknesses at the microcycle level. The variables of volume, strength, and recovery depend on an individuals preparation and must be addressed by the coach on an individual basis.

Creating the Competitive Self

You as a Competitor

The third installment discussing Mental Preparation for Competition and training deals with the concept of the Performer, or Competitor, Self.  This topic is discussed in Dr. James Loehr’s The New Toughness Training For Sports: Mental, Emotional, and Physical Conditioning from One of the World’s premier Sports Psychologists. What I’ll do here is specifically apply these ideas to weightlifting, powerlifting, and throwing.

The Competitor Self is the culmination of your training and reflects your ability to achieve the Ideal Competitive State.  When in this state we find it much easier to perform well. Physiological factors contribute to this state, including feelings of confidence, fun, energy and aggressiveness; these feelings draw out physical changes to the brain which are opposite of fear, anxiety, and fatigue (12-13).  In short, the better your body is prepared, the easier it is to prepare mentally.  And when you’re in a good mental state, it’s easier to perform well.  Remember a time in your life when you felt everything was going well, whether it was a job interview, a date, a test, or a competition.  Those feelings were awesome and made it easier to win.  At last Summer’s American Open Series 2 meet in Valley Forge, between my first and second Clean and Jerks, I felt good.  I felt a feeling I hadn’t felt since USAW freestyle Regionals in 1992.  I knew I was going to hit whatever I wanted, I felt the physical prep, I felt mentally ready, and those states fed each other and left no room for any doubt. 

What’s crazy about feeling this way was that I had 26 lifters to Coach, I was the meet director, and I hadn’t competed in a major meet since 2010.  But I turned on a special Competitor Self, someone who is confident, feels good, and knows he can lift (wrestle, throw) well.  It was a long distance from my actual self that day but bringing that Self to the platform is essential to winning and performing well.  And managing the real person that day- the harried meet director and coach- helped me recognize what I needed to do to become better.  “Each and every negative feeling that we experience serves a purpose.” (15) (emphasis in the book).  These negative feelings tell us what we need to take care of.  If you feel hungry, you need to take care of your food.  If you feel out of breath, then conditioning.  If you feel like you’re going to fail- then we need to look at the last couple weeks of blogs and take actions to help us understand why we feel like we will fail and how to turn it around.  It’s okay to have these negative thoughts, because they tell us specifically what we need to take care of.  But a real competitor has to find a way to address those shortcomings and get beyond them.  And that, too, is where the competitor self takes over on the platform.

As such, the Competitor is acting.  No one cares if you are tired, or sick, your competition certainly doesn’t, and to be honest, your coach just wants you to do well.  All of that extra stuff doesn’t matter on the platform.  You, as competitor, need to sort this out.  Pretend you’re fast and you will be.  Whenever you step on that platform, whenever you go through your routine, it CREATES the competent competitor we need to be.   Literally two minutes ago I got a message from one of my lifters saying that there was a smell in the gym and that she was tired and my reply was: I don’t care.  How is your lifting?  Those things aren’t your lifting.  And she was able to focus on made her snatch waves.  We need to realize that extra stuff is a distraction- and if we get distracted, that’s telling us we need to focus. 

There are other situations, too.  Fear is one.  Being boo’d and yelled at, having people mess with your head.  I love these situations.  I own them.  If they’re booing they know they’re in danger, if someone is focused on messing you up you know they aren’t prepared.  Own those actions and own yourself.  LOVE IT.  Love every moment of the stress. 

Finally, we want to practice three things to help us achieve ideal performance.  First of all, we want to be disciplined in practicing the thinking and positive imaging skills we talked about the last two weeks.  Next, we must back up those thoughts and feelings with physical responses.  Stand tall, breathe calmly, be alert in your eyes.  And finally, practice the emotional response we want to have practice responding confidently.  Practice letting go of the negative thoughts that haunt you.    

Next time you train or compete, go out to the platform strong.  Walk out like you just made the lift.  Lift knowing you will make the lift.  Finish the lift knowing you still have a job to do, and stay focused.  Practicing these skills every lift in training makes you better on the platform, practicing these skills at local meets makes you better at national meets.  Show them who you want to be. Let yourself be good, you deserve this.  And finally, everytime you walk out there to lift, every time you walk up to the barbell, when the pressure challenges you, let every action of your being shout THIS IS WHO I AM.

Building Psychological Toughness

Last week’s blog discussed how to mentally handle the daily training stress, and this week we’ll discuss how to handle long term mental challenges.  Again, we’ll use the model from James Loehr, Ph. D. ‘s The New Toughness Training for Sports.  Loehr provides a document called the Competitive Adjective Profile which we use to evaluate our psychological strength and weaknesses.  We can find out what we need to work on most in the course of a month, focus on acting to improve those weaknesses, and then re-asses ourselves at the end of the cycle.

The table consists of 26 pairs of Psychological Characteristics.  As an athlete, you rate yourself on a scale between the characteristics in order to determine your emotional resilience and ability to handle pressure.  Any score under a “4” is a weakness, and after you take the profile, you will choose ways to work on your three biggest weaknesses (lowest scores). 

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Even-Tempered Moody

Resilient (quick emotional recovery) Non-resilient (slow emotional recovery)

Competitive Noncompetitive

Self-reliant Dependent

Committed Uncommitted

Aggressive Passive

Confident Insecure

Patient Impatient

Disciplined Undisciplined

Optimistic Pessimistic

Responsible Irresponsible

Realistic Unrealistic

Challenged Frightened

Coachable Uncoachable

Focused Unfocused

Mature Immature

Motivated Unmotivated

Emotionally Flexible Emotionally Rigid

Good at problem-solving Poor at problem solving

Good at team Playing Poor at team playing

Willing to take risks Unwilling to take risks

Skilled at acting Unskilled at acting

Strong in body language Weak in body language

Relaxed Tense

Energetic Non-energetic

Physically fit Physically unfit

Once you complete the table, you must share it and discuss it with someone you trust and who will be honest with you.  One of the first Weightlifting Athlete to whom I gave this project came back to me and completely misread every weakness he had.  He literally listed Resilience as a strength while complaining about missing lifts last week and how those misses stayed in his head. 

Once you identify the weaknesses, you’ll need to plan a way to overcome them.  There’s a process for working on these weaknesses explained in Loehr’s text:

Step 1: State the Weaknesses in Positive Factor Form

e.g. “I’m highly motivated.”

Step 2: For the next 30 days, make those four Positive Factors the most important themes in your life as an athlete.

1.       Write one positive factor on an Index card, Post-It, etc.- and put them up around you where you’ll see them.

2.       Imagine yourself in a situation where you are using one of these positive factors with great success. Be your “Performer Self”.

3.       Spend 30 seconds every morning and every night thinking and feeling each of the positive factors. Do this when you first wake up and when you are about to fall asleep.

Step 3: Write a one-page summary of what you will do in the next 30 days to improve each positive factor.

One page for EACH Weakness, not one page all together.  Make yourself think.

Step 4: Track your progress daily for one month on each of the factors.

Make a chart with the factors on top and the days on the left.  Use a “=” if you did well/ made improvement that day, a “0” if nothing changed; a “-“ if you did poorly/ regressed in that factor.

 Very Patient Highly Motivated Skilled at Acting

Day 1 0 0 +

Day 2 - + +

Day 3 + + -

Step 5: At the end of thirty days, retake the CAP; profile your strengths and weaknesses, and select the next four Factors you will overcome for your next thirty-day cycle.

Remember that this is not a one and done task.  Working to overcome psychological weaknesses is an ongoing process, and sometimes you’ll regress and a weakness will return.  That’s normal and understandable.  Work on it again.  Next week we’ll do the final installment of our mental prep series and discuss our Competitive Self.

Mentally Handling Workout Pressure

I had some pretty good requests for the return of The McKenna Mondays Blog, including moderating volume and intensity, working with women versus men, dealing with stress and life factors, and mental prep.  Since Mental Prep got more requests, and since I’ve started to add in some specific mental exercises to my programming, I’ll discuss the mental aspect of training first.

My most recent series of mental exercises is based on two books by James Loehr, Ph. D.  Mental Toughness Training for Sports: Achieving Athletic Excellence and The New Toughness Training for Sports.  I used these ideas in College and when I started to coach, and I’ve found them invaluable in prepping me for my own training.  I’ve asked athletes to complete the Competitive Adjective Profile in the past, and I’ll address that document and how to use it in a future post.  I’d like to focus today on how to work on your mindset during the workout or competition.

In The New Toughness Training for Sports, Dr. Loehr discusses how to approach a sport like Tennis, Weightlifting, Throwing, etc where we have to repeat actions quickly, succinctly, and precisely in a time sensitive and high pressure environment.  Dr. Loehr’s suggested response to get ready for the time in between lifts (or throws or points in a match) has four steps which I’ve interpreted for my lifters as follows:

1.     Take a breath and release all tension from the previous lift and accept the result.

2.     Recover physically,

3.     Regain focus, and

4.     Do the routine for the next lift.

What is most important about these steps is the proactive approach they force the lifter to take.  We establish routine, and ask the lifter to address their anxiety, recognize their capacity to succeed, and acknowledge their control over the situation.

For Step One, we accept the result of the previous lift.  We made it, we didn’t, but right now it doesn’t matter.  What matters now is the next lift.  Breathe, relax, and move on.  Don’t get depressed, don’t get cocky, just keep going. 

Step Two is what gives us the physical capacity to succeed.  If we have time to drink water or intra-workout or take some food we do that.  If we are in a set of two or three we relax our posture and then refocus (quickly). 

Regaining our focus, Step Three, is where we give ourselves cues and tell us what to do.  For me, it’s often: Stay tight, be patient, explode.  I like a three step mantra here, but for beginners we’ll have one step to do, or maybe one thing for a set-up and one thing for the lift. Such as Brace hard, Brush the hips.  The key to this step is recognizing our flaws and weaknesses and actively realizing what we can do to overcome them.  We can then prepare immediately for the next lift.

The pre-lift routine is vital to get down.  It should be ritualistic and quick, one or two things to let us get to the bar and get going. I’ve addressed this routine in a very old blog which you can find in the archives: http://www.mckennasgym.com/blog/2015/4/24/everything-is-always-the-same.

I give this entire process to the athletes at the beginning of a four week cycle.  Each week we focus on one of the points, with a specific way to focus each day. 

Week One looks like this:

Day One: This week's focus is on releasing the emotional tension between lifts. Get rid of whatever good or bad happened in the previous rep and get ready to give `100% to the next rep.

Day Two: Remember to speed up this process of letting go. When you feel the mind saying phrases like "That was hard", replace them with more specific, positive statements, like "I made that one, good job"

Day Three: Today's focus is still Step One. Remember the positive vocab, and do positive body reactions. Stand Tall after each lift, make or miss. Nod your head, assert yourself for the lift. Find active, positive postures.

Day Four: Be conscious today of all the Positives in the Step Ones. Repeat the process to yourself, write it on an index card and put it on the platform near you. Create the excellent athlete you want to be.

What you must remember as an athlete is to practice this process.  It isn’t easy, it won’t work perfectly the first time or ten, and you’ll get flustered.  Take the time before the session, or during the day before your workout, to plan the way you’ll self-talk.  This process will get you places. 

Wrap Up:  If I get to 1,000 hits on this blog post I’ll put out a nice little spreadsheet on .pdf you can request and have emailed to you.  If you have any suggestions for future topics or want me to leave feedback, please email mckennasgym@gmail.com. 

Overhead Strength

So to improve overhead strength, I like to work on several different aspects.  Most of my lifters either lack absolute strength overhead, reactive strength,starting strength or have mobility/ flexibility issues (Note:  I like to categorize strength based on Verkoshansky's seven types of strength [click here]:  Types of Strength)

How do I evaluate where the lifter is or what they lack?

Mobility-  I use many different tools, but I basically look for the ability to have more or less neutral shoulder position, scapulae pulled down then together, and palms flat overhead in a snatch grip.

Exercises to improve mobility:  There are many, too many to mention here.  I do suggest working with experts on this one, including Mobility Doc and Nelson Chiropractic and Pilates

Absolute Strength:  People are weak.  I have some strength standards I like to use:  If someone can push press 80% of their jerk, they are strong (total arbitrary judgement based only on my experiences).  If they can't, we can make them stronger and get good gains in their overhead strength. jerk/ snatch.  I assume they can jerk what they can clean, and I also assume they can jerk with decent form a decent amount of weight (at least bodyweight or more).  A second assessment I like to use if if people can do a jerk recovery with 150% of their jerk. Again, it's an arbitrary assessment; I don't know if this number is the right one to use or not, but I see people who don't have problems overhead and they can do this, and I see people with problems overhead who can barely do a jerk recovery with 90-110% of their jerk. 

Exercises to improve it:

Incline Bench Press is the single greatest, and most often overlooked, strength developer in the cannon.  People just don't do this enough anymore.  People have returned to benching, but not inclining.  Barbells, thick bars, dumbbells, alternate dumbbell, whatever.  I like a higher incline, 60 degrees, but 45 is fine.  30 or so reps, more if the athlete needs shoulder and chest mass.  Sets?:  5x5, 6x6, 4x6, 5-5-5-3-3-3, etc.  I am a big fan of 3x3 at a heavy set for these for myself with a couple warm up sets at 5-8 reps.

Push Press+ Jerk (split or power) teaches leg drive and coordination.  Snatch or clean grip, it's helped one of my lifters a ton and several of my others a lot.  

Jerk Recoveries: holy crap these are awesome.  1x a week for 6 weeks or so work up to heavy doubles EMOM.  Finish the last week, or week 7, with a max test.  These can be done as an extra workout and are fairly easy to recover from.  Repeat every 12-24 weeks.

Bench Press:  I like using a thick bar or axle these days to protect people's shoulders, but benching works.  Feet flat, back arch (not excessive, but you should be able to make a fist under the athlete's back), no butt movement, focus on pulling the bar to the chest and exploding off.  Also dumbbells, alternate dumbbells, etc

Starting Strength:

People lack the ability to move weight from a given position without using the stretch-reflex; sometimes this is also a part of their reactive strength failures

Sots Presses and Snatch presses from the Squat- I never use actual Sots presses in training people, but I do use Kettlebell Sots Presses and Snatch presses from the Squat; they really teach engagement and force muscles to fire in the proper order.  Completely humbling exercises; same rep range as the incline bench

Lock Outs:  Set up pins or safeties in a rack at eye level, press from there; same rep scheme as the jerk recoveries

Floor Presses: Lay on the floor and bench off pins in the rack or safeties; your elbows should be 90 degrees; same rep scheme as jerk recoveries

Dumbbell Bench with a light band around your back:  Grab the dumbbells and string a light band around your back, so that when you press you stretch the band out.  Sets of 3-5, 5-10 sets.

Reactive Strength

You can tell if people have bad reactive strength overhead if their snatch or jerk gets into position for a second and they drop it by losing tension they almost had.  

I like training overhead reactive strength through a series of movement types, not necessarily specific movements.  My favorite is power snatching or push jerking with a pause at the catch.  Also, I like slowly lowering under weight.  We start with those two types and move toward the third type.  

Similar to the first two exercises is the drop snatch, or snatch balance with no counter movement:  start in pulling foot position and just drop down by lifting your knees.  Catch the bar in a deep overhead squat with no wiggling or moving around.  You can also do these into a split jerk or push jerk

Slow movements:

Pressing snatch balance: start in your receiving foot position, bar on your back, snatch grip.  Push yourself down into an overhead squat without letting the bar rise above the starting point.  Just push under.  Slowly do this to a five or six count (four if you're short).  

Do all of the above (reactive strength) stuff with kettlebells for mobility and flexibility and unilateral work as needed.  

Counter-Movement Movements for overhead reactive strength:

Snatch Balance, or heaving Snatch Balance as I was taught to call it in 1993.  Also, the split jerk or push jerk.  

Flexibility  I define, for my purposes, flexibility as the ability of the ligaments and tendons and muscles to support a joint through a desired range of motion.  So, for much of my purposes, flexibility and strength are nearly the same thing.  To train flexibility strength for overhead I like the following:  

Landmine presses from the knee- teaches people to engage the hip drive and put shit overhead.

Sots presses w/ KB and SN presses from squat

Windmills

Turkish get-Ups

Dumbbell Pull Overs (mainly for adolescents, sometimes for older people)

Handstand walks and free standing handstand push ups- work toward these as a skill

Arms

Train forearm and tricep strength, and biceps to hold the stuff overhead.  2 exercises 1-2 x per week for reps is all you really need; train triceps, forearms, and biceps separately.

The back is also an integral part of overhead training, but back strength is better addressed as a part of the discussions on why people can't pull properly.  

Relative Intensity Rubric

originally Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2015 1:28 PM

When I was a student at Delaware, Tony Decker, the Strength Coach while I was at UD, explained to me that he determined on a scale of 1-5 if an athlete was good enough to add weight to the bar for an exercise.  He also explained to me that the athlete had to be 3 or better for technique AND strength to go up.  he then explained to me what a 1 looked like, a two, etc.About 15 years later, I read Mike Tuscherer's book   Reactive Training Methods, in which Mike discussed RPE and its use to determine if the lifter was using an appropriate weight for the desired stimulus.  In between these extraordinary moments of insight, Many coaches told me that sometimes, 90% looks like 80%; if it does, put more weight on the bar; it's a good day for a PR.  

Since I've started teaching courses, clinics, and coaching education, many times I've shared my own development about viewing lifts, and when the athlete can put more weight on the bar.  I always used a 1-5 scale of strength, technique, and speed (for the Olympic lifts).  In these last six years, I've been asked many times to explain what those numbers look like, and I have never really sat down and codified what I meant.  This morning, however, I finally wrote down the rubric. 

I intend this rubric to be used when access to a tendo unit, barsense, or other quantifiable tool isn't available.  Furthermore, like all rubrics, this should be used by knowledgeable parties who understand tehcnique and weightlifting.  Finally,this rubric is intended as a guide for newer coaches to know when an athlete can add weight to the bar.  In my experience, an athlete needs to be 4 or above on all three phases to certainly add weight, and in at least two of the phases to possibly add weight.  But that's where the art of coaching is, knowing when and what to do.  Here's a blog friendly summary of the rubric:

Speed

0=Lift was not completed

1=The lift is slow off the ground  with noticeable slowing of the bar before and during the explosive phase

2=The lift starts too quickly from the ground and the bar noticeably slows past the knee and during the explosive phase

3=Bar speed is appropriate from the floor, but appears to  maintain the same speed throughout the explosive phase

4=Bar speed is appropriate from the floor, and accelerates into the explosive phase, but the rhythm of the lift appears off/ or the acceleration is less than adequate for ideal bar height to enable an easy recovery

5=Bar Speed is appropriate from the floor, the bar powerfully accelerates in the explosive phase, that explosion contributes to the final height of the bar and enables recovery

Technique

0=Lift was not completed

1=Obvious technical errors present severe risk of injury to the athlete; the lift is completed only because it is extremely light compared to the athletes ideal capacity

2=Technical errors prevent risk of injury and/or risk of a failed lift; the lift was saved due to its light weight or the extraordinary athletic accomplishment of the athlete

3=Multiple minor technical errors in the lift, but none to the safety detriment of the athlete; the lift was made because the technique was good, not solely because the athlete is strong and fast and lifting light weight

4=One minor technical error in the lift occurs which causes the athlete to make a correction during one of the phases of the lift; without this correction, the lift would be missed, but the athlete saved the lift

5=No obvious technical errors, the lift is made with confidence and no instability in the catch or recovery portion

Strength

0=Lift was not completed

1=Pulling the weight from the floor is a struggle, the athlete cannot maintain positions in each phase of the lift

2=The athlete cannot maintain position in one or two phases of the lift, and there is a struggle to pull from the floor and to recover from the squat position

3=The athlete maintains positions throughout the lift, but cannot attain ideal positions due to systemic weaknesses

4=The athlete maintains positions throughout the lift with only slight variations which cause an adjustment in the athlete’s technique; athlete clearly has an excess of strength which could produce more bar speed at this intensity

5=The athlete maintains all positions ideally throughout the lift, and an excess of strength capacity clearly exists for an increased in weight with little to no detriment to technique or speed

Daily Stretching

originally Posted on Tuesday, March 25, 2014 8:40 PM

This is an awesome song (which has nothing to do with the blog post):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WmqmTFkG9Q

 I recently mentioned on our Facebook training group page that each day you should do a few select stretches.  Lee asked what those might be.  I have the ones I like, and there are some others I'll also recommend.  Let me start by saying that the stretches I've chosen are heavily influenced by Pavel Tsatsouline, Joe De Franco, and Steve Maxwell.  You'll probably see these influences in what I say and I clearly defer to the experts in these matters.  

One of the simplest ways to improve mobility and flexibility is to move in the morning.  I found a simple warm-up in Tsatsouline's writings, and when I do it I feel much better throughout the day. 

Simple Morning Mobility

You can do the routine before you leave bed or as soon as you wake up, or even in the shower.  You can also do this simple routine throughout the day to feel better and move better, more fluidly as you go about whatever your daily routine is.  Often, this is the only warm-up I do before I train, saving my energy for the lifting session and stretching more significantly after the heavy lifting.  

• Start with your extremities and work in, moving each major joint.  Move each joint until the movement feels lubricated/ in the groove.  Learn to recognize when the synovial fluid and blood flow have increased; this feeling indicates you can stop the warm up and move on.  Initially, the movements might need to be done 10-20 times before you're ready to move to a different body part, but soon you'll only need a few rotations and you'll be okay to move on.  
• Rotate your ankles inward and outward in circles.  Go one way for 10-20 rotations, go the other way for 10-20 rotations; flex and extend your toes as you do the ankle rotation.  Switch feet if you're standing up, do them simultaneously if you're lying down.
• Then do your wrists.  If you can, do the wrists and ankles concurrently (at the same time).  As you rotate your wrists, flex and extend your fingers.   
• Working toward the center of your body, next flex and rotate your knees and elbows.  This is a good time to look completely awkward in front of a romantic partner, but do it anyway.  I start by bending the knees and elbows and then rotating them, both with my feet/ hands planted on the floor or another surface and with the extremity in the air, unsupported.  
• Shoulders are next as we work toward the center of the body.  Start with shoulder circles, and move from the shoulder joint, not the wrists.  Do small circles and gradually get bigger, then get smaller.  Do a series of small to big to small circles moving your hands clockwise and counter clockwise.  So, you start with the fingers doing a circle toward the front wall, then those circles get bigger, then those circles get smaller.  You then, immediately, do a series of shoulder circles with your fingers moving away from the front wall, then those circles get bigger, then those circles get smaller.  
•  Your neck is next.  Nod your head, turn it under control left and right, relax your jaw, move the head in circles.  Good stuff. 
• Now for your back. Flex and extend your back, pulling your stomach in and blowing it out, fixing your lower abds and posture, etc.  Twist your trunk left and right.  
• Finish with your hips, the center of your power.  Start with hip circles, hands on your hips, just moving in circles to the left and the right.  
• Then you do the pelvic clock.  These movements are much more important now than I've ever imagined.  Few people in our Level 1 Certs can do this properly, and if you can't open your hips, you can't do the lifts.  The Pelvic clock teaches and enables us to open our hips up properly.  To do the pelvic clock, you stand up (you can also do it laying on your back, knees up, feet flat).  Then, you simply imagine that a clock intersects your pelvis with the 12 directly under your belly button and the 6 on your butt.  You squeeze your abds and glutes to push only the pelvis to the 12, then retract and go to the 6, then move to 3, 9, 11, 5, 1, 7.  Once you do each of these directions discreetly a few times, you go ahead and do circles around the clock.

The above mobility session should take 2-3 minutes at most.  Do it every morning when you wake up.  Life and lifting will be better.  Do it at lunch, do it after you get to the gym.

After Lifting Stretches

In addition to, or in place of what I have below, Maxwell's Daily Dozen is pretty good.  You can find this routine here: http://maxwellsc.com/articles.cfm?art_id=3000&startrow=1
 

My basic after training stretching philosophy is as follows:  roll then stretch.  If you can take 45 minutes to do a mobility and stretching routine, go for it.  That rocks.  Do so after you lift, not before. Stretching on a basic basis should involve one good stretch for each major body part, plus one or two for any problem area you have.  You should also stretch the problem areas before you lift, but more on that routine later.

I break the body down into the following major areas for the purposes of stretching:  calves, hamstrings, butt, lower back, hips, lats, shoulders, wrists/ forearms.  I also prefer to stretch from the inside out as I learned in college.  The last couple years, however, I've come to believe that stretching from the outside in is more beneficial (based on the book Synerstretch).  I don't care which direction you stretch, see what works better for you and do it.  

Here's what I start with:  

Calf stretch.  I do one of the following two:  in bare or stocking feet (or VFF), stand close to a wall and put one foot flat.  Push the knee of that same leg to the wall until you feel a stretch in your calf.  Do the other side.  
The other calf stretch I like is to face a wall and then lean against it. I put a foot behind me and pull my heel to the ground.  Alternate feet.    

Hamstrings:  As far as I'm concerned, this is the most important body part to stretch because mine have always been horribly tight.    I have several hamstring stretches I like, and I'll give them out from easiest to most complex.  Choose whichever works  best for you.

Easy hamstring stretch:  Stand in front of a power rack or rig with a sturdy post.  Put your feet about a two foot lengths back from the post, hold onto the post, and sit into a nice, deep squat using your arms to stabilize you.   Your squat should be as deep as possible WHILE maintaining a good arch (not hyperlordotic).  Once you've sat deeply into the squat, rotate your hips up (I like to say "Put your ass into orbit") until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings.  BE SURE TO KEEP THE ARCH IN YOUR BACK.  Read the parts in bold again.  This stretch is surprisingly effective.  

Medium complexity hamstring stretch:  Stand up facing a bench, a table, a reverse hyper, a bar in a low rack, whatever.  Put your heel on the bench.  Dorsiflex your ankle (pull your toes toward your body).  Straighten your leg out.  BUT:  make sure you keep your BACK ARCHED and your hips square.  Don't give into the trap of putting your hips sideways and claiming flexibility you don't actually have.  SQUARE HIPS, DORSIFLEXED FOOT, STRAIGHT LEG.  The bench your foot is on should only be as high as you can do this effectively.  Don't go for some crazy high bench, just stretch and get better.

Really Complex Hamstring Stretch:  You can do this one with a partner or with a stretching strap or band.  This is PNF stretching, and is awesome.  I show this at the USAW Level 1 courses and my own clinics, and after my back injury in college, this helped me more than any other stretch (Thanks Joan Couch! http://www.bluehens.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=29100&ATCLID=209249464 ).

Lay on your back with your legs extended.  Keep one leg on the ground and lift your other leg straight up into the air.  Have your partner help you, or use the strap or band to help.  Dorsiflex your toe on the leg being stretched, keep your hips down, and keep the leg on the ground straight down on the ground.  Bring the straight leg up as high as you can until you feel a stretch in your hamstring.  Don't cheat, remember the keys to good hamstring stretching:  square hips, dorsiflexed toe, flat and straight legs.  Once you've held the stretch for 30 seconds, take a deep breath and squeeze just a little more out of the stretch using the band, your partner or your strap.  Do this two more times, holding each stretch for another 30 seconds after the deep breath.  Then, pull your heel to the ground in a big arc and resist the pulling using your strap or band, or have your partner resist you on the way down.  Do this with both legs, three reps each leg.  

Butt/ piriformis:  Sit on hands and knees, cross one ankle over the other.  Whatever ankle you've crossed, put that hand under the shoulder on the other side of the body (so, if you sit down and have your left leg crossed over the right leg, put your left hand under your right shoulder) and move your outside hand out about a foot or so.  Sit back and out with your butt until you feel a stretch.  Repeat to the other side.

If you don't feel this stretch, you need to get up, cross one leg over the other at the knee, then sit down with a back arch.  You'll feel this one in your butt.  Repeat to the other side.

Lats: Use a bench for this one.  Kneel in front of the bench with your elbows on the bench, the rest of your body unsupported.  Put your head between your elbows and put your elbows as close together as possible.  Pull back with your hips until you feel your lats stretch.  Strive to one day have your elbows and forearms in constant contact.  Watch to make sure you don't sag with your low back; you can angle from your hips to the shoulders, but you must keep your lower back engaged. 

Shoulders: I need this one and have found it more effective for my needs than any other single shoulder stretch.  I also like the doorway stretch, but this is my go to.  

Grab a strap, band, or broomstick with one hand.  Put it behind your back, reaching down.  Grab the strap with your other hand, while keeping both palms facing outward.  Keep your shoulder square and in line with the body (no extreme internal or external rotation) and work your hands toward each other.  Ideally, you should touch your fingers in the middle of your back or more.  If you can do achieve this goal, you should probably do a different shoulder stretch.  

Hips: The couch stretch.  Emily Socolinsky explains this really well (fivex3.com).  Emily is awesome, by the way.  Go visit her gym and take a class or two with her.  Tell her I sent you.  To do the couch stretch, kneel down on one knee and put your other foot in front of you, bending 90 degrees at the hip and 90 degrees at the knee.  Then put your hand on your butt, just like you were putting something into your back pocket.  Use the hand that is on the side of the knee which is on the ground.  Then, squeeze your butt.  Once you butt is squeezed tight, gently push forward with your hip bone until you feel a hip stretch.  This is not a gross, large movement.  If you can get too far forward, you sacrifice the hip stretch for some BS self-aggrandizing stretch.  You probably think you should get a medal for showing up if you stretch like that.  Once you feel the stretch in your hip flexor (hips in good position) take the away hand and reach to the ceiling.  To increase the difficulty of this stretch, raise the back foot onto a block, or bench, or couch.  

Forearms: Put a hand on the bench or table or floor.  Turn your fingers around to face backwards.  Keeping your arm in a straight line hanging down from your shoulder, lean back and keep the palm entirely on the bench.  You should feel a stretch in your forearm.  Repeat to the other side.  

Those are the basic stretches I recommend on a daily basis.  Doing more mobility based stuff, etc. is needed, but how much depends on your individual needs.  I recommend a full hour-long session 1-2 times a week as a separate workout.  I'll post about that another time.  

Character and Sports

originally Posted on Saturday, February 15, 2014 8:31 PM

Two stories from the past week in sports affect me deeply.  First came the open admission that Michael Sam of the University of Missouri is gay.  He's the best defensive player in the best college football conference in America, and he took a stand which, in American Football, is devastating.  While I played football in high school, and thought, briefly, that I wanted to play in college, I didn't enjoy the game as much as I loved other sports (wrestling, throwing, lifting).  I was simply not as willing to sacrifice for the sport as I desired to sacrifice myself for other sports.  

Football did teach me invaluable lessons about life, most importantly the idea that shutting up, listening, and doing your job is what matters first.  Once you do your job, and earn the respect of your peers, then you can talk.  But until you can do your job, keep your mouth shut.  Another lesson football taught me, cruelly, is that every weakness you have will be ridiculed, brought to the front of your character and personality, and put to a test.  While the Miami Dolphins hazing incidents are disgusting, their horror is that a man looked upon as a leader chose, purposefully, to find a player's weakness and ridicule it and highlight it rather than using his leadership to make an individual stronger.  Character, again, must come forward as the hallmark of an individual.  And in the Miami Dolphins incident, character and courage were lacking in the aggressor, the coaching staff, and across the organization.  The moral failure in professional football is highlighted by the NFL's reaction to Michael Sam of the University of Missouri.  While, truly, his sexuality doesn't matter, it's his skills as a player that make his sexuality particularly irrelevent to the other football players at Mizzou.  And it is particularly these skills that make his coming out poignant and remarkable.  He is sacrificing perhaps millions of dollars a year, and subjecting himself to ridicule in a sport often dominated by ignorance, social posturing, and cruelty.  A lesser player coming out would not be as remarkable a statement; a great player coming out is an enormous stand.  I applaud Michael Sam for his courage, and his character.  His honesty is an act of bravery unparalleled in contemporary football.    In the face of this courage, the NFL reverts to base stereotypical actions, saying that Michael Sam would disrupt the culture or cause trust problems among his fellow athletes.  The NFL speaks about integrity and character, trying to enforce characer by suspending players who break the law and drug policies.  Unfortunately, the NFL failed to put good character to the forefront this week and praise the honesty of this young man.  

I woudl also like to speak about my East Coast Gold teammate, Katie Uehlander.  Katie is a Skeleton competitor in the 2014 Sochi Olympics; she also competed in the 2006 and 2010 Olympics, and was a Olympic trials competitor in Weightlifting in 2012.  Katie's trials the last four years are well known; NCBOlympics.com has much video of her discussing the death of her father and her fighting off depression. Once again, this public act of courage inspires me, and it is this act of courage which make Katie a role model for my daughters (and son), much more so than her athletic ability.  Her hair also rocks.  Here's a link to a short film about Katie discussing her last five years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SBqAuEiDVU

And here's an article on the .04 seconds she was away from a medal:  http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/14/6159277/for-uhlaender-the-distance-between.html

What I like about Katie's reaction is that she's pissed.  She's hurt.  She isn't ungracious, but she shows the pain of the loss, about that difficulty, about doing your best and falling just short.  But she isn't cruel, bitter, or self-pitying.  She doesn't bluster about or blame others.  And this is a character trait I would like my lifters to emulate.  

Every day you train, every time you compete, you must do it with character.  You must strive on each lift, in your recovery, in your desire, and win each of those small moments.  Those small moments mount up, and create a base of excellence for you. Each decision in each moment creates character, and each decision in each moment creates a base for that excellenece toward which we strive.  We will fail at times, we will fall short of some goals and exceed others, but we must always be responsible for ourselves and having the world be a better place for our presence.  

An Introduction to my programming style

Originally Posted on Tuesday, December 03, 2013 1:00 PM

This blog is in response to one of my lifters remarking that Day 1, in our programs, is usually very long and very difficult.  That's true, and I have reasons for it.  Basically, Day 1 is the heaviest volume day and we combine it with some heavy intensity, too, especially in the snatch. We do this day as day 1 because: 1. You should be rested from the previous week/ Day 4. 2. If you have to skip a day, you generally skip day 4. 3. Doing Day 1 initially also means that, if you can't train Monday, you still get that work in on Tuesday. As for our weekly structure, I default to a 4 day week since most of you guys have jobs. Working 40+ hours a week, driving, having to pay bills, etc. makes recovery difficult, and more than 4 days a week on a regular basis would tax the CNS greatly. That four day week leaves me some, but not all, great variables to work with in designing a program. 

So, if we, say, have our two most important variables as volume and intensity, and we assign each of these variables a number (Volume 0-3, Intensity 0-3 where 0=rest and 3=high volume/ high intensity), than we can start to organize our training in a week. Every week should have at least one low volume day, and every week should have at least one high volume day. 

Every week should have at least two high intensity days *(lifts over 90%). A high volume day means 100+ lifts; a low volume day means 50 or fewer lifts. Medium and medium-high volume days are 50-75 and 75-100 lifts, respectively. You'll find that, in the course of a three month period, we'll have 4 High Volume days at least and that our medium- medium high volume days wave from 2 of each per week to 1 of each per week. Intensity ranges are as follows: Low (70% and below), medium (70-80%), Medium-Heavy (80-89%), heavy (90%+). 

Based on these numbers, 1-3x/ week we hit lifts at 90% or above. We normally do this 2x/ week, though we often go to 3x/ week, especially when you guys come visit me from afar. However, in a normal training period, we don't do 90% lifts one week per month (3 hard/ 1 deload). For some people, I prefer 2 on/ 1 off easy week, though I've just started to express that desire for individualization. Generally I see the need for the easy week, or people simply fail and don't go to the 90% level (a natural deload). But back to our weekly organization. 

Using our 0-3 scale, I need to find an effective way to pair intensity with volume. While we do vary the intensity/ volume pairings, they work best with a low volume or high volume day. A medium day is also ok to pair with intensity, but not great, and certainly not for a repeated time period (the reason for this is the subject of another whole essay). So, we have one day of heavy volume and heavy intensity (3/3), one day of low volume/ low intesnity (1/1 or 2/2) and one day of medium high volume and high intensity (2/3). We have another day each week which is a 1/2, 2/2, or 2/1, depending on where we are in relation to a meet. 

Our monthly organization can follow any of the folowing patterns: 2/1/3/4, 3/2/1/4, 1/3/2/4, or 3/2/1/4, etc. The order of these numbers indicate which weeks have the highest volume. You'll notice that our built in deload is week four. Some week fours have higher volume than others, based on our monthly number of lifts. Some months our volume is failry flat, where each week do do about the same amount of volume (we've just come off a series of such cycles). Other months we have the most volume in week 3, which I generally prefer. On occasion, we have the most volume in week 1, which usually occurs after a heavy deload week. This month, our heaviest volume is week 2 (This week), since we had Thanksgiving last week, we have two more weeks of regular training, then we have the week before Christmas and Christmas week itself which will be a longer deload period with lighter volume, though we will still have some days of higher intensity.

There are reasons why I follow this programming style, and I'll get into them in another blog entry.  Please be aware that the above is actually a facebook post, and I intend it to be general, and I didn;t bother to go including any references.  I recommend you start with Bob Takano's book on programming for ideas, then delve into deeper areas.  

Snatching, Cosmo Kramer, and I know a little Polish. He's in San Diego now.

Originally Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2013 12:59 PM

I'm back blogging; my break was due to an insane life schedule, which included me opening my own gym and participating in the lives of my family.  Now for some bagpipes and drums:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Z22qFP_0Boo

This blog is a follow up to this one from last August: http://www.mckennasgym.com/blog/2012/08/14/Your-instep-your-heel-and-pulling-to-the-knee.aspx?alt_id=CBTLW-BA206-8M8&ts=635067181211394778 Further, this blog post is the one originally intended to fend off those true believers who insisted on having the bar move away from their center of gravity as they lifted it. Recently, Dan Bell has discussed the need for keeping the bar in the right position:  http://coachdanbell.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/where-the-jump-cue-takes-you-off-a-cliff/  Luckily, many of those true believers have moved on to a newer, truer way of thinking, but I still see too many lifters who move the bar AWAY from their body as they lift. However, when you finish the second pull, the bar should be over the center of your base.  

What do I mean by your base?  I mean the area encompassed by the outside of your feet.  CrossFit Intrepid has a good picture here of the base in weightlifting:  http://www.crossfitintrepid.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/area-of-base-both.jpg   What I like most about Dan's post is the pictures accompanying it.  He really hits the point about proper extension and keeping the bar in, and the pictures show what happens when you get the bar away from your center of gravity and the center of your area of base.  Bob Takano discusses what would be part of my point here:  http://networkedblogs.com/LGFRy

Lately in the lifting world, especially online (though not as bad as 12 months ago, thank goodness), there's the idea that banging the bar off your hips, or that moving your hips horizontally, is how to extend at the top of the second pull.  

Indeed.  Please allow me to use common sense and basic physics to correct this fallacy.

At the top of the second pull, the bar should have moved in toward the lifter's center of gravity.  This idea is mostly accepted; sometimes the pull line is straighter than others, but the bar starts over the toes (see the old blog post people) and finishes, at the hips, in a line directly over the midfoot (where the heel meets the instep).  Sometimes the bar can be forward, sometimes the bar is back.  Sometimes the lifter's feet are more flat than others.  But ideally, the bar is over the back of the instep, where the heel meets the foot.  Let's look at some pictures of this happening:

And this one of Jenny Butler, lifting a stone nearly twice her bodyweight: 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.488041288252.262441.310417193252&type=3

Whoa!  Hang on here.  WTF is up with the stone loading pictures?

The process of lifting a heavy atlas stone may be different than the process of lifting a heavy bar up, but the concept of keeping the center of gravity over the center of base is exactly the same.  When a strongwoman pulls a heavy stone off the ground, she wants her feet, her instep, to be roughly at the midpoint of the stone (the prime meridian of the globe, not the equator).  And when the stone is past the knees, the lifter locks the stone and hips into a single unit, and simply extends the hips (not the knees!) to elevate the stone.  Hip extension for the stone separates a good stone lifter form a basic stone lifter; to use the heaviest stones, you grind out the movement, and you grind out that hip extension.  But the big stones go up because you use the extension of your hips to keep the weight of the stone over your center of base. Just check out the picture of Maya Camille Winters, a friend of mine and the 2013 Arnold Amateur strongwoman runner-up, lifting a big stone above her shoulders. Notice that her knees are not extended, but her hips are.  Also notice that this hip extension keeps that stone's center of gravity roughly above her center of base, enabling her to elevate the stone.  Most importantly, notice the physical connection between Maya and the stone.  You'll also see this connection in the Jenny Butler sequence, and here as Derek Poundstone picks up a 555 pound stone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grjLaIS8YPg.  Notice how tightly Derek hugs the stone into him and directly a line can be dropped from the center of the stone to the center of base.  Also, notice what happens when that stone moves outside the center of base-- it falls.  

When a weightlifter does a clean or a snatch, the bar doesn't necessarily immediately fall when it bangs off the hips and gets sent out in front of the center of base.  Remember, gravity is always the same- 9.8m/2 squared.  So, when banging the bar off the hips, the bar is accelerated and goes out in a big loop AWAY from the center of base, causing a couple things to occur.  Firstly, the lifter has to chase the bar, meaning that either the lifter falls forward and catches the bar high and has to run forward to maintain standing position, the lifter jumps forward and lands in a squat (this is really how many newer lifters I see lately translate how to do a squat snatch) or the bar rotates back into the lifter, forcing the shoulders back and dangerously out of position.  

All these instances waste energy.  Lifting the most weight overhead is about using energy efficiently.  If your snatch looks like Kramer, you're doing something wrong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlHuQOV-7Bs 

The efficient use of energy requires the bar stay close to the lifter.  As we look at the bar path of successful lifts, of really good successful lifts, we see that the bar doesn't even always cross the midline after the second pull finishes:  

For the WOG, Rachel, Christine, and more we'll start with Mr. Chigishev:

http://www.allthingsgym.com/evgeny-chigishev-211kg-snatch-bar-path-slow-motion/

And this one of Pablo Lara, found via Randy Hauer of FlatIrons CrossFit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kMbne7N4hyA

All these talking and viewing points bring me back, however, to Henry Baran's (56 kg Master Record Holder, he totaled 200 in his 40s as a 56: http://www.mastersweightlifting.org/records/usa-men.pdf and 237.5 when he was 22 :http://iwrp.net/component/cwyniki/?view=contestant&id_zawodnik=24598 and was on the Polish National Junior team back in the late 70s)  advice to me back at The University of Delaware in 1992:  Beat the bar with the body. Henry showed me what he meant, and pushed me toward it every time we trained.  When you beat the bar with your body, you violently flatten out and keep your lats locked and your arms tight while the bar meets your hips and will jump, slightly, up (see the bump in the above bar paths right after the bar meets the hips) as you make forceful connection.  I still tell my lifters to beat the bar with your body, though in the last year I say it less in order to avoid confusion with banging the bar. Beat the bar with your body, but not out.  Keep the bar close, lock your lats in, and finish with active arms.  In a few weeks, I'll talk about finishing the clean and snatch actively.  

I love the bench press, and you should, too, if you want to snatch big

originally Posted on Tuesday, September 18, 2012 11:27 PM
The bench is the lift that got me, and many, many other people, involved in lifting weights.  in HS, only a couple of us squatted, and fewer deadlifted; but man, we all benched.  In retrospect, if we all squatted and did cleans as often as we benched, we'd have been better athletes.  But, Padwan, do not despair of the bench press and its variants for the athlete or the Olympic lifter.  

When I came back to lifting in 2001 after a significant layoff (seven years), I started to bench again.  I hit 315 after a few weeks, and 405 after a few months.  I started to focus on the bench two days a week, my bodyweight was at the time heavier than it had ever been (about 295), and after about 10 months I hit 500 raw (I wore a belt and taped my wrists.  Sorry, it may not have been raw according to your standards, but I don't care about your standards).  That bench hurt my Olympic lifts.  My shoulders were tight, my back didn't balance out my chest, I was front dominant, etc.  But it wasn't the 500 pound bench that hurt my O lifts, it was focusing on the 500 pound bench to the exclusion of good programming and athletic balance.  This, dear readers, is the key to why we should bench, and why we must also not bench too often or too much.

The bench press should be included in the programming for Olympic Lifters, especially early in their career or cycle, because it will help you stabilize your shoulders; Glenn Pendlay has also said that lifters should bench early in their careers (though he did not mention the shoulder stability).  I find the bench carries over directly into the snatch, and have always treated it as a snatch assistance exercise.  I find that the shoulder stability that proper benching, using a moderately heavy weight, brings an athlete is invaluable.  

So, apparently, do these folks:

http://www.allthingsgym.com/2012/01/dmitry-klokovs-home-gym/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Ixa38U9x0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0gE-2TjH8U

And on the Ironmind Polish Video Kolecki benches 180 kg with a hip heist.

I'm sure that some of the smaller O lifters bench, too, but vids of small lifters don't please the women in my house.  

The technique of the bench press I recommend is as follows:

Sit on the bench.
Tuck your feet under you, as far back as they can comfortably get with your toes still on the ground.  
lay down on the bench
arch your back and walk your shoulders down so that your back is arched and tight. 
keep your upper thighs wrapped/ squeezing on the bench
put your heels on the ground, keeping your feet wide (receiving position/ front squat stance), FEET FLAT HEELS ON THE GROUND, and push with your feet like you're squatting 1,000 lbs
take the bar with your jerk grip or slightly narrower and squeeze the bar.  

Okay, you have the set up.  Now, make sure you get a lift off.  Yes, a lift off.  Your shoulders love you, and a proper lift off will keep them loving you forever.  If you can't get a lift off, don't bench.  Do some floor presses instead.   
The lift off merely helps you load your shoulders correctly; the person lifting off should carry the bar for you until your traps are down (not shrugged up) and lats engaged.  This position protects your shoulders.  

I teach people to tuck their elbows in when they pull the bar down to their chest.  LOAD THE ORGANISM.  Tuck the elbows in (really flexible lifters need to tuck only so far; the elbows should always remain away from the body; tucking them helps to engage the back on the eccentric movement, which, in a raw bench, helps you control the bar), touch the bar ideally right above the solar plexus/ bottom of the boobs and then drive it back up so hard that, with light weight, your body comes OFF the bench.  

A few basic key points here:  
feet flat
arched back
tuck elbows
leg drive
explode off the chest

Okay, there is the technique.  

How do you program it?

I like to bench more often for beginners. They should bench or floor press 1x/ week for as long as they need to.  

For the intermediate lifter, I like to press 2x/week.  One time for reps one time for strength.  The strength lift will be either a bench variation or the push press.  I do not like push pressing heavy and benching heavy the same week.  So, we will do 5x5 bench and then another day light military presses, or 4x6 bench and heavy push presses, etc.
Basically, we push press every week forever.  The second day of the week we rotate, on a three to six week schedule, the following:  flat bench, incline bench, military press.  
I train the same way we squat heavy, but with a rep count slid up.  So, 3-6 sets of 2-4 reps instead of 1-3, and I follow with a heavy drop set of 10-20 reps.  

Do some basic shoulder prehab or rehab, either I Y T stuff, the diesel crew shoulder warm-up, or similar things.  You should be doing these anyway for your lifting.

And watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPQJNrm9-_o&feature=related

Exposure to real strength badassery

Originally Posted on Sunday, September 09, 2012 11:17 PM

I just replied to a post on a popular Forum with a program which will, in my opinion, get someone stronger.  It's not a rocket science program; essentially, it's three weeks of lifting hard followed by a week of taking it easy.  But I told the guy that his real problem is strength; any 215 pound man who can only squat 300 pounds needs to get stronger.

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT McKenna, what are you talking about?  300 pounds is a lot of weight.  

No, really, it isn't.  And yes, I know that I have a distorted idea of weight and strength.  Too many times I've been in a gym, or even in my gym, and seen people get proud over the weight they just lifted.  *sigh*  Be proud because you ARE lifting, the weight is meaningless.  Don't brag because you did some weak squat and want to talk about how you could do another 15 pounds if you had a different femur length.  Let me sort this out for you:  your first 225 pound bench press is a big deal, but it isn't a big deal that you benched 225 pounds.  What matters is that you're in the gym.  Don't get cocky because you benched what only six women I know personally can bench. EDITOR"S NOTE: This comment, and others down below, is not meant or intended to disparage women.  SInce men are generally physiologically stronger than women, it is a comment meant to show that women can be really strong, and that many men don't really try hard at all.  

When I was at High Energy Gym in Newark, DE my Freshman year at UD, some people would come in and say I was strong.  I didn't know what they meant.  We had guys in that gym benching 500 pounds or more, and some guys- including a USMC reservist in my German Class- could DL 600+.  My meager 365 bench as a 198 pound 17 year old was embarrassing.  But you know what?  I said "Thanks" and watched the good guys lift, and replicated what they did.  I even spoke to a couple of them, and I listened.  Here are some keys I picked up from watching them:

• Every rep was the same, no matter the weight.  fast, powerful, under control;
• they got set, loaded the weight, and lifted without making a show of what they were going to do;
• they asked for spotters and were willing to spot others;
• They didn't talk too much, use a pager, or hit on girls WHILE they lifted;
• Amazingly, they all kept their shirts on; most worked out in T-Shirts and sweats year round
• They were all easy to talk to when you asked them a question, but when you kissed their ass they intimidated the hell out of you.  
• and they came to the gym and benched every week, heavy.  I'm sure some of the reps I saw weren't too heavy, but 405 for sets of 10 was mind boggling to me

My Sophomore year I went to the UD Track team and lifted with these guys:  Wade Coleman and Brian D'Amico and Larry Pratt.  Larry was our coach, and he had lifted with Bob Bednarski, Bill Starr, and those guys  back in the early 70s.  Larry purchased and donated the first bench, rack, and barbell set for the UD.  He even went to pick it up in York.  Back in the 70s, Larry squatted quite a bit of weight- in the high 600s, maybe even 700+ if you believe the stories.  In his 50s, Larry did little but bench heavy and squat medium, always wrapping his knees with some old knee wraps.  When he benched, he kept his feet on the bench.  And he would, as a 230 pound 55 year old, rep 315 in the bench for sets of 3.  So there you go, he was strong.  But Larry again wasn't cocky about it- he didn't brag, he didn't scream when he got under the bar, none of that stuff.  He would get loud for me, for Wade, for Brian, but not for himself.  Wade, too, was a master of the understated.  An All-American Hammer thrower, who at 295 pounds ran an 16.0 100 and qualified for the IC4A Championships in every throwing event, Wade had a personal best in the 35# Weight Throw of 67'7 3/4" (to understand what that's like, try throwing a light truck tire the distance of three pick up trucks).  Wade was, until I competed against Shame Hamman, the strongest man I'd ever met.  We used to have to sit on the leg press for Wade (Ronnie Coleman's video wasn't original for me), and Wade had injured his back and would do obnoxiously strong hang cleans- like 315 for reps and pressing it, not jerking it, every time.  Wade's squat workouts, too, were legendary- 600/700+ on a weekly basis.  Now, to you purists out there, Wade wore a belt and knee wraps and did low bar squats.  Still, to this day, I've never run as fast as Wade or squatted as much.  Any high bar or low bar arrogance goes away when the weights get that heavy.  Wade wasn't a show off, either. He would lift, say thanks when someone said he was good or strong, and just come to the gym and lift every day.  The most impressive lifter at UD was Jimmy Flynn, who played football (Kicker) at Gettysburg.  Jimmy was in his 20s when I knew him, and would later study for the priesthood, though he wouldn't take his vows.  But Jimmy would come in and do volume which was unbelievable.  One Saturday morning (8:00 a.m. Saturday workouts suck), he did over 20 reps at 600 or more pounds in the deadlift.  This, folks, was my introduction to the power of doubles and singles.  Work up to a heavy single, then do some doubles, then do higher reps to take care of your back.  Jimmy never wore a belt, no knee wraps, just pure out humble strength.  And yes, he always lifted in those gray sweatpants and sweatshirt.When I came back to lifting at 27, I trained at The Training Center in New Castle, DE.  I had some good Olympic lifters there- Alex McInnes, and soon Brian Swedrock.  I had some great bodybuilders and powerlifters there to train with.  Jason Cox, a 1000 pound squatter, worked out there http://freepdfhosting.com/6b03328f9d.pdf, as did  Milt Holloway. IFBB Pro:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoPfAHXwQts&feature=fvwrel

These guys always talked shit to us in the back room where only strong people trained, but when we were lifting, we just lifted.  Jason would squat with serious attitude, but he wouldn't be obnoxious, he wouldn't get any attitude, none of that crap that passes for intensity in some gyms.  He would simply squat heavy.  Milt would come to the back room and rep out 405 deep in the squat for sets of 20, but he would never draw attention to himself and brag.  And he would talk about diet, training, how we trained and why etc.  We also had John Green, the Westside Disciple, Sue Scheppele, Women's Bodybuilder:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/femalemuscleclips/sets/72157629741014389/

We'll have a Blogterview with Sue in the upcoming weeks, but yes, she's humble, too.  And lifts a hell of a lot more than you do, most likely.  

In Moorestown, NJ, though, we had a great group of Olympic lifters form 2003-2008.  The list included Inga Denunzio, Shannon Pole-Summers, Jenna Bussard, Kiyo Fujimoto, Lance Frye, Jason Gump, Joe Fondale, Matt Devine, Missy Saucedo, and some other up and comers.  These workouts rivaled anything you see on youtube today from the powerhouse training centers; Jason once cleaned 190 on a Saturday morning without a warm-up.  Tom Black, an 85 who qualified for the American Open many times, had dropped a back squat and bet Jason 20 bucks he couldn't clean it back up for him.  Jason did.  Lance would regularly snatch up to 150 kilos and clean upwards of 190; one day he push jerked 207.5 out of the rack weighing about 80 kilos.  Missy qualified for Nationals several years in a row in two weight classes, Joe, Matt, Inga were all Olympic Trials qualifiers and Matt represented the US on a Pan-Am team (As did Jason and Lance);  distinctly remember doing 170 for a double in the clean and having it be the third heaviest clean of the day (Matt and Lance, you can both kiss my... sorry, this is a family show).  Of all these lifters, only one was arrogant and obnoxious, and he's living a troubled life right now.  The rest of them were humble, kind, easy to talk to, even self-deprecating.  We all knew- and know- that people were stronger than us, were better lifters, and we knew we had a long way to go, through many more years of hard work, to get where we wanted to be.  

So here's a note to all you shirtless fools out there bragging about your 225 pound cleans:  I was in a weight room where women regularly cleaned 275 pounds, where I saw first hand lifts that rivaled the best on you tube today, and where a 77 kg lifter hung with me for singles at 270 kg in the BS.  And throughout the entire time, these folks- most of them- were humble, easy to talk to, and didn't leave sweat angels on the floor to show how hard they worked.  They won, they competed, and they shut the hell up and got under the bar.  None of these folks started off lifting record weights, and none of them were satisfied or needed some guy on TV telling them they were strong because they could lift a minimum of weight.  They worked hard, stopped showing off, and got stronger.

One final note to you strength gurus and the coaches out there who've never lifted big:  Put your shirt on, stop wondering what program to do, go find some lifters who know what they're doing (not the shirtless fools out there, but the ones in old champion sweats and beat up 20 year old T-Shirts), and watch them and listen.  Then you'll figure out the secret to strength:   

• listen first
• do no harm
• be humble
• every rep counts, make each one intense and focus on form
• keep adding weight
• and realize that someone, somewhere, is better than you are.  Go get them.  

"Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone/ Save that, to die, I leave my love alone."

Originally Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2012 4:08 PM
Yeah, conditioning makes me feel like the title (extra points for anyone identifying the origin and sending it to me).  But couplets are more than just rhymed (usually) lines in Shakeseare (and others).  They're a good, safe, smart way to finish your lifting workout.  

I've spoken about barbell complexes here:  http://www.mckennasgym.com/blog/2011/07/22/Complex-Conditioning.aspx and about other finishers here:  http://www.mckennasgym.com/blog/2011/11/17/What-are-Extras-and-my-suggestions.aspx

But a quick 10 minute couplet can condition you, work on a particular weakness, and generally get you ready for the beerfest your Thursday night will turn into after all those squats we do.  A 10 minute couplet also won't destroy your recuperative abilities, though it may make your evening less enjoyable.  

Gant Grimes, a fine gentlemen with whom I've spent some work time the last few months, advises his clients to finish their workouts with these couplets rather than destroying themselves with a non-sensical high intensity conditioning punishment.  A good couplet flows, complements your workout and your goals, and is done in about 10 minutes, give or take a few.  If your conditioning is going to take longer than 10 minutes to finish, go for a 2-5 mile run, row a 5k, or bike 10+ miles.  Or swim if you can.  Jumping around like an idiot with a bar for 10 minutes won't make you a better athlete, it will just cause injury.  

When designing a couplet, use what you have on hand, and don't make the exercises ones which require a lot of thought or CNS activity.   Further, the exercises should flow into each other, be intuitive.  And, finally, the exercises should be challenging, but not destructive.  

My favorite starting place for planning a couplet is the KB swing (or core blaster).  I like the kb swing to speed up the workout at times, or sometimes it slows us down, depending on the other exercise.  For instance, I'll often have the group do KB swings and battling ropes.  20 swings/ 20 seconds on the rope with a 10 second rest in between, or jumping rope for 100 jumps then 20 swings.  In these instances, the swings slow us down.  

I'll also use swings to speed up a couplet.  My favorite couplet of late is the KB get-up and KB swings.  We'll do 5 get ups to each side, then 10 swings; then three get-ups, then 15 swings, then one get up, then 20 swings.  For well conditioned folks we'll do 15/20/30 swings.  

Another base exercise I use for couplets is the sprint.  Well, the fast run for a short distance; I like 20-40 yards, or up a hill. Sprint and do push-ups, or sprint and do pull-ups, or sprint and do jumping jacks.  

I don't like to do the rower with a couplet; getting in and out of the rower is just a pain.  But some people like to row without the toe straps fastened hard, and if so, then rowing and ball slams are pretty cool as a couplet.  

Strongman conditioning is also a good couplet maker, especially a load and a pull.  Load a stone over a bar a few times, then drag a sled.  Or load some things and flip a tire a couple times.  

For wrestlers, find a set of steps, do 40 push-ups and carry a sandbag up the steps.  Walk down and repeat 5-10 times; maybe you do 20 push ups instead of 40.  The number isn't important, the work is.

How do we determine the weights and load for a couplet?  I believe an effective couplet should be with a load between 60-80% of your max.  Yes, so run a bit slower than your 100% speed on those sprints.  Do 40 push-ups instead of 50.  Use the 100 pound sandbag instead of the 150.  And for the love of everything, do 5 pull-ups with good form instead of 40 with bad.  

 When choosing your exercises, choose things which you need to improve.  I hate get-ups, so I do them.  I love push-ups and am inexplicably good at them, so I avoid them.  I cannot do a pull-up, so I also avoid them (strength movement for me).  I can sprint, albeit badly, and I do it.  I like the core blaster because it improves my hip drive, so I use that more than a single KB for swings.  I like double KB swings for the same reason, so I do them, too.  

Also, choose something you can finish.  10 sets of the 240 stone over the bar 5x and then flipping the 750# tire 5x is not a good idea.  Maybe 3+1, or 2+2 for 10 sets.  maybe five sets of the five.  Maybe 10 sets if I'm in shape and strong.  

The key to couplets is to make them achievable, smart, and short, without a body destroying intensity.