What I want you all to focus on, aside from how awesome the old guy was in the video, is that he apparently is in his 50’s (maybe 60’s, I can’t tell because the words are lost in his beard). I mean, he looks like he’s at least 72, but that’s not the point. He lifted that fridge overhead like a man should, much to the approval of his wife. And he didn’t need the tailgate down.
Wouldn’t it be nice to do that at 50 years old? I don’t know about any of you, but I’d like to still compete in weightlifting at that age. My friend, Lon Kilgore, started competing when he was 11 and still competes into his early 50’s. That’s awesome. If that’s gonna happen, then we need to address a few things.
The only person that has been on this site that is in danger of doing something spectacular as a world class athlete is Kendrick Farris. The rest of us lift because it is a glorified hobby. Some readers may do it because it helps them do their job as a law enforcement officer or military personnel, but for those of us that will compete in things that probably won’t get us killed, we are simply hobbyists.
We have goals and should train hard, but we need to be mindful of not completely breaking down in the process. Strength is incredibly important for longevity and overall health, so let’s not let our pursuit of it turn everything into an unhealthy endeavor. Keep in mind I’m not saying that Skinny Guy needs to have a pristine diet. No, that little bastard needs to eat everything so that we don’t have to call him Skinny Guy anymore. Eventually he won’t be skinny, and he’ll learn how to eat correctly for the maintenance of lean body mass, and we’ll have a delightfully productive human male among us.
But make sure you’re doing all of the little things correctly, like warming up properly, handling injuries and set backs correctly, and taking rest when you need it. And next time you make an AC Jump on your weight, remember Bill Starr’s old adage:
Patience + Persistence = Strength
A Request For Experienced Lifters
I’d like to ask any experienced lifters and competitors to share what they have learned they need to do in order to keep training, whether it be training for competition or maintenance, as well as anything they wish they would have done differently when they were younger. I shouldn’t have to say this, but “experienced lifter” would probably mean you’re at least in your thirties if you’ve been training consistently, and I’d like to hear from much older guys. I’m gonna send this link around to pull in some good feedback, and you should do the same.
Note: If you get lost with some of the terms in this post, then a good read-through of Practical Programming is in order. If you are serious about getting stronger or preparing for any kind of competitive event, it is well worth the money.
When you train hard by lifting weights, you disrupt homeostasis in your body. The disruption occurs at a general and a local level. If you are going to continue getting stronger and you aren’t using “medication”, then you need ample recovery for this “metabolic and structural fatigue” to subside.
There is a point in the linear progression when an appropriate body weight is reached (that is variable to the individual, but mostly dependent on height and frame) and recovery processes will start to ebb. This is the diminishing returns aspect of the linear progression; you cannot make five pound jumps on your squat every day forever.
When I approached the mid 400s on my linear progression, things became difficult. If I put any additional work load on my body, then I wouldn’t recover for the next workout regardless of how much I was eating. My comprehensive recovery processes were maxed out and soon would not be able to continue working. I survived a workout of 465x5x3…barely. I knew that it was time to switch over to the Texas Method. That point in which you cannot recover from the work load on a daily basis and must switch over to a program that allows you to adapt on a weekly basis is the conversion from “novice” to “intermediate”.
Linear progression days
Olympic weightlifting soon became my focus, and for different reasons, I went back and forth between a Texas Method program and an Olympic weightlifting program (that included the strength lifts). I began competing in the sport of Olympic weightlifting having performances that ranged from success to failure. Every time I got through a competition, I was eager to start training for the NEXT one. I always identified ways I could improve, and wanted to get started on them immediately.
Not so fast my friends…
It was Dr. Kilgore that gave me the proverbial slap in the face after I qualified for nationals in March. He told me to take a week off and I couldn’t understand it. I had been injured before that meet, I had gotten weaker, and I wanted/needed to be stronger. I didn’t want to hesitate – I only had 14 weeks to get ready for nationals, and I wanted to use every second of it!
He kept explaining to me matter-of-factly things that needed reminding. In the same way that there is a hormonal fluctuation for a novice, the same happens in the long-term for a more advanced lifter. If you are truly peaking for a meet, you change programming variables like volume intensity so that you give your body a chance to supercompensate for that meet. As Rippetoe has written, you don’t get stronger from lifting weights, you get stronger by recovering from lifting weights. The same concept holds true for a taper and peak; you stop doing as much work so that your body doesn’t have as much to recover from, and then your body will be in an optimal state to produce more force at the meet.
At a meet you pummel your body with maximal attempts (which you may or may not be adapted to) and your body may still be limping along from your previous training cycle. The best thing to do (for a non-drugged or non-elite lifter) is to take some time off to let the body get back to an appropriate homeostasis before the next training cycle begins. By trying to blow through your peak into heavy training, you are only reducing your effectiveness.
Recovery is the most important aspect of improvement. If you cannot recover from what you’re doing, then you won’t progress. Ensuring that recovery is fully complete before the next training cycle will help reset your body and your mind. You’ll know that you are starting with a clean slate for the next training cycle. When Kilgore was patiently explaining this to me, he referenced how the Russians of old would have a week of “play”. They’d play racquetball and get outside for a change. A “week of play” would would be a perfect opportunity to partake in activities you may have cut out before the meet so that it didn’t interfere with recovery or prevent injury. Get on a bike, play volletyball, or chase the dog – just do something that isn’t lifting for a week.
Brent told me last night that Dmitry Klokov, a 105kg Russian weightlifter, didn’t lift after the 2004 Olympics until the beginning of the next year. He apparently just swam, and when he came into the Arnold Classic in 2005, he was weighing around 96kg or so. This is an example of an elite athlete needing time off in order to rest his body, and probably more so his mind.
I’ve seen lots of people get overtrained unnecessarily, and they are always worse off for it. Gant has always said, “I have never rested too much.” As much as the “don’t be a pussy” attitude has permeated through strength training culture, it is still best to treat your body right. After you compete, take some time off, relax, and enjoy your plunder. Your body and mind will thank me.
AC has Heracles-esque strength, and I’ve known this for a while. This is why I befriended him long ago; so that I could keep him close as a friend in preparation of when he was a foe. Secretly I know that he is my nemesis (don’t tell AC this), and one day we will battle to the death…
But in the mean time we are best friends, and as Brent would say, “His strength is ill.” He recently pressed 245 for a triple at a body weight of 216. Yeah. I know. Edit: Sorry for the quality, it’s a cell phone vid.
AC and Brent were talking about this video (sheeeeeit, everybody is talking about it), and on AC’s last rep, he yells “YEAH KENT!” to the guy holding the camera. I don’t think this Kent actually “exists”, but Brent thought this was pretty cool (I don’t know why). Being the chivalrous nemesis guy that he is, AC said he’d dedicate his next bench workout to Brent, which was to be 365 for a triple. This pleased Brent, because he is easily pleased by such things, so he decided to dedicate one of his own sets to AC (AKA Ace McGonague). Brent squats 410×5 (he did three sets at this weight) at a body weight around 177.
You’ll notice my other besties with testies, Chris and Mike spotting Brent in the video (we’ve come full circle). To complete this roundhouse kick, here is AC’s final contribution, the video of him squatting 525×2 and benching 365×3 (with a surprise appearance by Taylor, another one of my friends).
So, as you can see, I have proved many points today. I have proved that my friends are stronger than your friends. I have proved that one day, I will destroy Arin W. C********. I have proved that my friends are more amusing than yours. And I also proved that 70’s Big is the way of the chainsawed warrior. Need proof?
QED.
On a side note, doesn’t AC look way more awesome (obligatory no homo because I know I’d get comments on it) with longer hair? Vote on it, for this is the poll to end all polls.
PR Friday — post all your personal records to the comments.
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USA Weightlifting’s School Age Nationals begins today (at 7:00 AM actually) in the bay area of California. There will be 287 kids from around the country competing on two platforms. I’ve never seen an Olympic weightlifting meet run on two platforms (seen it in powerlifting), so it should be non-stop lifting. The best part is that they are running a live webcast for both platforms. You can watch it here.
Remember when I talked about Paul Doherty and Hassle Free? Well, they have lots of lifters competing as well as other bay area clubs like, FitBBC, TJ’s Gym, Catalyst Athletics, California Strength, The Sports Palace and Myles Ahead — somewhere around 50 lifters from this area alone.
I wish I would have been recruited for weightlifting when I was younger (I was pretty good at power cleaning), but we can watch all of these kids that range from 13 to 17. You can see the schedule and qualifying totals for each weight class starting on page five of this .PDF file. Oh, and here’s a quick shout out to my pal Kyle — he’s 15 years old and qualified for nationals, but won’t be making the trip to compete. Good stuff nonetheless.
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Here’s a pretty cool video of David Rigert, a 90kg lifter, pressing 203kg in a 1971 competition. That’s about 446 lbs. boys and girls. You’ll notice the obvious knee kick, but that’s how guys pressed because the judges allowed it. The press was eliminated from competition one year later. I always wonder how different weightlifting meets would be if we had to do the clean and press first.
That is a video of my friend Antoinette deadlifting 250 for a single. A couple of weeks ago she e-mailed me telling me that her deadlift PR was 230 for a double, so 250 ain’t too shabby (she did it after being sick for two weeks too). I think Antoinette’s video has good timing for two reasons; it dispels some myths about girls who lift and let’s us have a talk about lifting mechanics.
Girls and Lifting I’ve written about this before, but it’s still difficult to convince girls that lifting is not going to make them “bulky” or “big”. On one hand, it sounds ridiculous to the informed, but on the other hand, the strongest women are also the biggest women. As with men, the strongest lifters get the most publicity, so it’s natural for the average gal to see the bigger gals lifting. What they don’t see are all of the other weight classes lifting either, and these girls are usually in great aesthetic shape (like the gals here).
Girls always want to be “toned”. I don’t know what the hell the definition for “toned” is, but it can be deciphered as “I want less body fat and although I don’t know it yet, I’ll need some muscle underneath it to look how I want to.” Even girls who participated in sports in high school grow soft after not doing anything athletic for a while, and thus they don’t have much decent muscle mass. That’s just how the body works
Enter barbell training. Squatting, pressing, and deadlifting helps girls get stronger (which is never a bad thing) as well as developing a nice, shapely body (i.e. the appropriately curvy body they are wanting anyway). Nobody wants to have a flat butt, right?
Olympian weightlifter Melanie Roach (center) is a good lookin' 53kg lifter
Aside from the aesthetic results of lifting, girls are usually thrilled with the improvement that they can make with their strength, enjoy the challenge, and a few will go onto compete. Competing isn’t just a man’s realm; anybody can benefit from preparing for a contest and performing in a structured and high adrenaline environment.
In this instance, Antoinette picked up lifting and has a Paleo-type diet, and she has leaned out, dropped bodyfat, and gained muscle. She told that me that her friends think that she has lost weight, and then she tells them, “No, I’ve gained about 15 pounds, but lost fat and inches and my pants are falling off.” Sounds like crazy talk, but hopefully we can make it sane. Nice job, Antoinette.
Pulling Mechanics
Ah, now that we got that out of the way, we can scrutinize her lift. It’s important to note that this is a max or near maximal attempt for Antoinette. Form is not only expected to break down, but it should if you’re doing a maximal rep. As Rippetoe always says, if you are able to do it with perfect form, then the weight isn’t heavy enough and it isn’t your max. With that being said, I’m not sure how Antoinette lifts on her training sets because I don’t coach her (so I don’t know if this form fault is habitual or appearing on the max).
You can see that she has a good starting position (chest squeezed up correctly, bar underneath the scapula, bar over midfoot, etc.), but the first thing that happens as she pulls the bar off the ground is she loses tightness by raising her butt a little bit. This angles her chest down which helps round her lower and upper back round as a result. If your butt raises as you pull off the floor, then your knees extend just a little bit. This is a problem for two reasons:
1.Your quadriceps are the muscles that extend the knees, and if the knees extend and the bar doesn’t move up, then the quads haven’t done any work on the bar. This means that you are removing them from helping, and lifting with less muscles isn’t as fun..
2. The hamstrings are the muscles that flex the knee and extend the hip. They attach up under the butt cheek, and when your knees do their job correctly (in this case, correct would mean not extending early like they are here to help lift the bar) then the hamstrings would stay tight, and that tightness helps hold the back angle in place. Antoinette’s butt raises because her hamstrings do not maintain tension, and then the quadriceps don’t help the bar off the floor. This means that the low back will carry the brunt of the load if the bar is going to be lifted in this mechanically disadvantageous angle. It’s important to note that if you’re in a meet situation, bad form is not a sign that you should just stop the lift, and she does a good job of continuing to pull the bar.
Now here’s how we can improve in the short-term.
A good concept to think in Antoinette’s situation is “push the bar away from the floor with your feet”. She’ll set her back angle by squeezing her chest up like normal, and then she’ll think about pushing the floor away with her legs to eliminate the butt raising first. The simple, short cue is “push the floor away” (which is what she could think about or told right before the lift). This cue does a good job of not getting into the minutia of mechanics (which confuses the majority of lifters — or at least confuses their body), and gives the lifter a vague concept to think about and their body will usually get it right. I don’t take credit for it, I learned it from observing Rip (who is good at creating conceptual based cues to not confuse the lifter with little details – a necessary skill for a good coach).
Alas! Not all cues will work with all lifters. People think differently, learn differently, conceptualize differently, and know how to move their body differently. I take all of these variables (and tons more) into account when I coach to figure out what I say next to a lifter. In Antoinette’s case, if we stick with cuing her knees, we could try another cue. The next cue could be “make your knees go back as the bar comes off the floor”. This would make the knees extend off the floor appropriately, and the short, simple version is “knees go back”. I like the first cue better for a few reasons, namely because it simplifies and doesn’t direct the lifter’s attention to one little detail.
If those cues didn’t work, there are plenty of other things to try. I was cuing her knees here, but I could also cue her butt or shoulders since they are different points in the system. As with all things, I use the method that works the highest percentage of the time, and then if it doesn’t work, I figure something else out. It’s like a little puzzle waiting to be solved, but it’s a puzzle that the lifter cannot solve on their own (only a few can). If you’re shitting your pants worrying about what you may be doing when you deadlift (or squat, or press, or snatch, or clean), then you should find a good coach to help you out. There is no substitute for a good coach.
