Jacob Tsypkin has been fielding questions on our facebook page about weightlifting/crossfit/training/coffee/beardliness, and will compile 3-4 of them weekly for your reading pleasure. You’re welcome.
Gregor S asks, “Squatting every day: a good idea?”
Yes. No. Maybe. Sometimes.
View the option of daily squatting as a tool. I have used it to great effect in certain situations. It can work to break plateaus, it can work for lifters who are significantly better at volume than they are at intensity, and it can work, surprisingly, for lifters who have knee pain when squatting.
The key is doing it intelligently. You’re working up to a heavyish single each day (occasionally I’ll work in a double or triple instead.) If you feel great, go for a PR. If you don’t feel great, just hit what you can hit without getting ugly and call it a day. If you want daily squatting to be effective, you absolutely MUST check your ego at the door.
Andrew K asks, “What cues do you like to use for the jerk? How about supplemental exercises?”
Predictably, the answer is, “it depends.” It depends on what the lifter is doing right or wrong, what they’re good or bad at, and of course, what they respond to. With that said, some of the most common cues I use are:
“Drive it high and back” to get the lifter to be aggressive in driving the bar off the shoulders “Move straight” to cue the lifter to keep the hips and torso moving straight down/up/down “Step in front of the bar” to get the lifter to reach their front foot out to an adequate degree “Keep driving, keep reaching” to cue the lifter to stay with the bar, driving it as high as possible and to be active, rather than passive, about receiving and holding it.
For supplemental exercises, again it depends on what the athlete needs. Obviously the jerk from blocks is fantastic, and I prefer it from behind the neck for most people, as it teaches the lifter where the bar needs to be and, for most people, allows them to handle more weight. Of course, the jerk from the front rack is also very useful, so we employ both.
A fantastic exercise for improving footwork is Glenn Pendlay’s jerk ladder. This drill will help the lifter get used to the back foot landing first and “catching” himself with the front foot, as well as learning to remain rigid when going under the weight.
Lastly, the press from split is something all of my lifters do both when learning the jerk and in their warm-ups. It’s exactly what it sounds like: with the bar in the front rack, walk the feet out into your split position, and press. The most crucial part is that the press is EXTREMELY strict. There must be no movement of the legs, hips, or torso whatsoever. By doing this, the lifter learns where his body needs to be when receiving the jerk.
Stroup asks, “What is the minimal amount of weightlifting training a CrossFitter needs?”
In a word, plenty. Assuming we are talking about competitive CrossFitters here, my athletes do the snatch and clean & jerk heavy three times a week each, on average. That’s not including what they do in conditioning circuits. I think this would roughly hold true with most competitive CrossFitters.
Rudy Nielsen of The Outlaw Way wrote the following in an article about the importance of weightlifting for CrossFitters:
“Larson also has added up the total point values for every movement tested during both the 2011 and 2012 Games seasons. The snatch and clean & jerk are worth 20 percent of the total point value. If you add accessories, you have 36 percent of the total point value—read that again, except in all caps: THIRTY-SIX PERCENT. I can and will talk about exactly how the lifts develop the athlete from an overall perspective, but strictly from a sporting perspective, that’s a lot of points.”
Between that, and the ability of the lifts to improve an athlete in so many ways, I think it’s undeniable that if you want to be a good CrossFitter, you’ve got to spend some serious time developing the snatch and clean & jerk.
‘Merica
Jacob Tsypkin is a CrossFit and weightlifting coach, the co-owner of CrossFit Monterey and the Monterey Bay Barbell Club in Monterey, CA. He is available for weightlifting seminars and gives excellent hugs imo.
Well, the weekend of the Arnold is over. Sadly, I did not attend this year, but I was constantly in contact with various field reporters and friends who were on-site, and I’m already looking forward to Arnold 2014, where I hope to be coaching several lifters. We’ll have a pretty big gathering of 70sBig folks for sure. Did any of you meet up and share mead? Were you able to watch the multitude of our community who competed? Did you get a cool shirt, at least? (Many thanks to my lifter Ben, who brought me one back!)
Last Monday, we previewed some of the female weightlifters (along with Jennifer Thompson…who, spoiler alert, broke her own bench world record!). Now, you can check out the results, since you couldn’t watch it live. (Note: I’m still waiting on the ACTUAL results sheet to be posted, but keep clicking the facebook pages below since that’s where I’ll be sourcing them from).
The Columbus Weightlifting Club holds this annual meet, which is no small feat. There are countless hours of work involved in putting on the Arnold Weightlifting Championships, so give them some credit. They have a team facebook page, but also an Arnold-specific one HERE.
Note that they recently asked “Only 361 days until Arnold 2014!! What would you like to see next year?” I suggest letting them know that livestreaming the lifting is something you’d be interested in, if that’s the case. I will be suggesting that, at least.
In any case, they posted most of the videos online relatively quickly. You can search through various parameters and find who you want to see HERE.
There are also some great photos from hookgrip.com. I don’t know these guys, but they have by far the best photos of Olympic Weightlifting you’ll see on the internet. Go to their facebook page and like them. You won’t be sorry.
Visit Hookgrip.com and their facebook page for many more excellent photos.
So, there are the links. Let’s open this up for discussion. How did you feel about not being able to watch the weightlifting on the internet? How do you feel about the coverage this event received? Did you know it was the Pan-Am qualifier? Whose performance was the most impressive to you, and which performances were you disappointed by?
It’s finally here – this is the week of the Arnold Sports Festival, which runs this Thursday to Sunday in Columbus, Ohio, and is so massively awesome, it might make you shit your pants. You’ve been warned. If you do, just own it.
This is a huge deal. We have a bunch of 70sBig lifters competing, a lot of readers attending, and there will be more sports and competitions and displays than we could possibly begin to preview, or cover. Luckily, I’m guessing not many of you care as much about the “5k Pump ‘N Run” or the World Jump Rope Championships, and we’ll be sticking to covering mostly the lifting exploits, and probably a few pictures of the IFBB stuff just for funsies.
In the spirit of Ladies’ Mondays, I thought I’d highlight two female weightlifters who will be competing on Saturday, and whose coaches actually post on here.
Glenn Pendlay is a household name in our world (unless you’re ow3n), and his MuscleDriver USA team will be very well-represented at the Arnold, which also serves as the qualifier for the Pan-Ams. I think he’s coaching around 9 athletes, which sounds pretty much like cardio. We’ll cover some of the guys later in the week, but you already know Jon North is one of ’em. Did you realize, however, that Jon’s wife is also competing? Jessica is a ton of fun to watch in the MDUSA training streams, because her quiet intensity and determination is inspiring as hell. Check out this video, ignore the cheesy music (really, Jon, really?), and tune in Saturday to see how she does in the 75kg class.
Big Ben “Brown Thunder” Claridad has also been a friend of the site for a long time, and was teaching us all how important it was to have ginormous arms before we even knew who CT Fletcher was. He’s not only competing (105+), but also coaching two female lifters, Emelie (75+) and Cecily (69). I haven’t met Emelie, but I can attest to the fact that Cecily is just as fun and inspiring to watch as Jess North. When I briefly met her and Ben at Cal-Strength, I got to witness one of the most badass jerk recoveries of all time. Little did I know she would make a habit of it.
Amanda and Jess at Raw Nats
In Powerlifting, I could go on and on about at least half of the female competitors. There are several who have posted on here in the past, and several who I’ve met in person and are flat out awesome. Amanda Padgett’s long humble discussion with my special lady friend at Raw Nats is something Jess still smiles about to this day. She also loves to tell the story about her competitor, the one-and-only Jennifer Thompson, taking time to cheer her on mid-meet. JT is one of the best powerlifters of all time, male or female, and at last year’s Arnold, she broke the 300lb bench barrier – raw and drug tested – at 132 pounds. I think she’s going to break that this year… Check out this vid she put out in the past week of her smoking a 305lb training lift.
We’ll continue coverage this week of more lifters, more sports, more hookers, and more blow. If you’re attending the Arnold and would like to submit some photos, I’d appreciate it – click on Submissions and get’r’dun.
As promised, here’s the second article by Jacob Tsypkin about building up your backside. This one is specifically targeted towards weightlifters, but every general trainee can learn a lot about a coach’s approach to attacking weaknesses by really analyzing these lifts.
Last week, we discussed various general posterior chain strengthening movements which, while useful for improving the snatch and clean & jerk, are not specifically designed to improve those lifts.Today, I want to give you some drills and variations which are particular to creating positional strength for weightlifting.
1. Paused Snatches/Cleans
I typically employ a 2 count pause just below the knees. This is the mechanically weakest position in the pull and this helps develop the ability to stay over the bar. For newer lifters, the pause also presents them with a chance to correct their positioning during the pull. Singles and doubles are best here.
2. Two Stop Pulls
I’m not a big fan of plain old pulls. I think pulls are better employed when you do something to alter them from the actual lift. This is one of my favorite variations: stand on a board, 1-3”. Assume your start position, and SQUEEZE the bar off the floor, so that you are in your “normal” starting position with the bar floating in mid air. Pause for a 2 count, then proceed with the pull until the bar is just below the knees. Pause for a 2 count, and then finish the pull. We usually do 3-5 triples here, with around 100-105% of the best lift, but some heavier singles or doubles wouldn’t kill you.
3. Snatch/Clean Deadlifts
You should strive to pull these with exactly the same line that you pull your snatch or clean. If you can’t do it, it’s too heavy. Doing these without straps is great to build up some grip strength and confidence off the floor. A rep scheme I’ve been using, which I got from Coach Don McCauley: 90%x5x2 100%x3x2 110%x2x2
Percentage of your best snatch/C&J. Do them touch-and-go (not BOUNCING, just TOUCHING,) and after two workouts, up the weights about 2.5kg.
4. Snatch/Clean RDLs
Instead of standing straight up at the top, start at your first position (bar in crease of hips for snatch or mid thigh for clean, weight in heels, shoulders slightly behind bar and knees slightly in front of bar.) From there, lower the bar to your second position (bar just below knees, weight in heels, shins vertical, shoulders well in front of bar) and come back up TO YOUR FIRST POSITION, and then aggressively finish the hips as you would in a pull. 3 sets of 5 is good here, typically I will start a cycle at about 85-90% of the best snatch or C&J and work up over the course of 4-6 weeks.
5. Eccentric Pulls
Do a snatch/clean pull. Lower the bar over a 10 count, back to your starting position. Focus on maintaining tension and hitting proper positions all the way down. A word of caution: it is best to do a few weeks of isometric paused work (such as the aforementioned paused snatches/cleans or 2 stop pulls) before jumping into these. Start with around 100% of the best snatch or C&J, and three singles of 10 seconds each should be plenty.
Jacob Tsypkin is a CrossFit and weightlifting coach, the co-owner of CrossFit Monterey and the Monterey Bay Barbell Club in Monterey, CA. He is available for weightlifting seminars and rarely gets mad.
This post is written by Jacob Tsypkin of CrossFit Monterey, who coached two female lifters. I asked him to do a write up of his experience at the American Open. He said, “I’ll do my best to keep the boring details to a minimum and tell some stories of what I think were totally sweet lifts.”
Venue
The venue was awesome. The hotel was very comfortable and attached to the event center, meaning it was very easy for athletes to relax the day of competition – you could easily go back to your room after weigh-in and relax. The competition room was large and had plenty of seating, and the platform was a large stage that allowed the lifter to be easily seen from anywhere in the room. Perhaps of greatest importance, the warm-up room was spacious and well stocked with good equipment – no one had to scramble for platforms, bars, or plates (Dynamic Eleiko provided high quality bars and plates for the event, and as far as I can tell there were no bars that weren’t in great condition.) There was even a small area set up in the back of the warm-up room for non-competitors to get a training session in, including platforms and squat racks.
Organization
Overall, I was happy with the organization of the event. Pretty much all the sessions ran on time. It was easy to find everything and to get around. Technical officials were easy to find whenever you needed them. There were a few times that technical issues slowed a session down, but apart from that things ran pretty smoothly.
Editor’s Note: Other people have reported that they were unhappy with the organization of the event or the venue. I’m sure experiences varied.
Judging
Those who know me know that I think the pressout rule is silly. But rules are rules, and I coach my lifters to abide by them. However, the absurd standards at this meet were off the chart. First, things were inconsistent: during the B sessions on Friday night. A friend of mine who was in the audience commented that there were multiple occasions on which two lifts which seemed identical, one on platform 1, and one on platform 2, were judged differently. I have heard it claimed that USAW wants to “enforce the standards lifters can expect in international competition.” Well folks, in international competition the judges know that a slight bobble of the elbow upon receiving the bar in the jerk is not the same as a pressout. They also know the difference between a shoulder and an elbow, a concept which some of the judges at the American Open seemed to find difficult to grasp. I saw multiple lifts get red lighted for no other reason, as far as I can tell, then that they looked hard. Everyone I discussed this with seemed to have the same opinion on the matter.
Lifts of Note
(Obviously there were more epic lifts than those lifted here; these are just the ones I came to mind.)
Some of you know/know of Ben Claridad. His lifter CC went 77/103 in the 69kg women’s A session. Her 103kg jerk was legitimately one of the most ridiculous lifts I’ve ever seen. She locked the jerk out in an INCREDIBLY deep lunge, one which any lifter would have trouble recovering from. As if that weren’t enough, her foot slipped on the stage as she brought the lift back. This sent CC careening around the platform, backward, forward, and side to side. Through all this, she maintained a strong lockout overhead, eventually stabilizing and getting white lights on the lift.
Also in the 69kg women’s session, 19 year old Jenny Arthur dominated the clean & jerk, opening 120kg and finishing by absolutely crushing 127kg, a new American Senior Record (she broke the junior record on her first lift.) Let me put this into pounds, as it seems to have more impact that way for us Americans: a 19 year old girl weighing 152lbs, smoked the piss out of a 280lb clean & jerk. I guess we should all harden the fuck up, shouldn’t we?
The “Most Reckless” award goes to my friend Kevin Cornell of Pittsburgh Barbell. Competing in the 105kg men’s A session, Kevin snatched 145, got a bullshit red light on a beautiful 150, and went 154 anyway to try to make up some kilos. Unfortunately he was unable to make the lift. In the clean & jerk, Kevin missed his opener and second attempt at 185. Having put in a decent lift in the snatch, the sensible thing to do would have been put in a third attempt at 185 to get a total.
But Kevin is not a sensible guy. Kevin wanted a damn medal.
So he called for 190, then 193, which was a lifetime PR attempt. For those of you who may not know how a weightlifting meet runs, you should know that this has a very significant impact: because the attempts in a weightlifting meet follow the weight on the bar, rather than the round-robin style of a powerlifting meet, not only was Kevin taking an 8kg jump after two misses, the large increase in load meant that he would have a very long break between attempts – about 12-15 minutes, since it was a very large weight class and there were a lot of attempts between 185-192. To add to to the absurdity of this increase, Kevin did not deign to follow standard practice for such a situation. Normally, a lifter would go into the warm-up room and work his way back up. Perhaps take a rep at 140, then 160 to stay warm. Kevin took two attempts with…70. Not 170. Actual 70.
When he stepped onto the platform, I stood watching, prepared to see a missed lift.
Kevin Cornell wanted that medal real fucking bad. He stroked the clean and racked it. Now, Kevin can front squat 240, so if he racks a clean, he’s probably gonna stand up with it. And he did without too much struggle. Kevin also rarely misses jerks, so he popped it overhead for a good lift and went home with a bronze medal, proving that sometimes, you’ve just got to do it live. Way to be reckless, Kevin.
An honorary “super reckless” award goes to Kollin Cockrell, who, knowing it was his last chance to break the Junior American Record in the clean & jerk, jumped from 187kg to 201kg. He missed the jerk, but props to him for doing the reckless thing in pursuit of greatness.
Kollin Cockrell attempting that 201kg C&J in the 105kg class. Pic is clearly from HOOKGRIP.
Lastly, I want to express my pride in my two lifters, Ariel and Amy. Amy was there competing in the Outlaw Open, but we chose to take her to her first meet a few weeks ago in order to attempt to qualify for the American Open. She qualified for the 69kg B session and lifted on Friday. She had a decent session in the snatch, matching her competition PR of 62kg. In the clean & jerk, Amy got some bullshit red lights on her first lift at 86kg. Her second lift, also 86kg, passed with two white lights, but got one SUPER bullshit red light (anyone with eyes could see it was a good lift – this was one of the ones that got called for looking too hard.) After coming off the platform, I told her “fuck it, let’s go big. I’m calling for 90.” 90 was 1kg under her best clean, and a 3kg PR in the clean & jerk. After I came back from calling for the attempt, Amy looked at me and said “I’m not letting them take this from me. This is my lift.”
I told her to go out there, and make a statement.
She did – she absolutely CRUSHED 90, for three white lights, a PR clean & jerk, and 5th place overall in the total in the Outlaw Open.
Additionally, Amy’s nickname is Baby Gorilla. She has traps to make Brent Kim envious. Don’t act like you’re not impressed.
My second lifter, Ariel (yes, she is named after “The Little Mermaid,”) competed in the 69kg women’s A session on Sunday. Ariel has been training since March, and has done some impressive lifts – 76kg in the snatch and 99kg in the clean & jerk. However, she has been plagued by shoulder problems, which have become increasingly serious in the last month. She popped the shoulder out of place on Tuesday of the week before. She had some soft tissue work done and was feeling good – until it moved again on Saturday during a light session, with 55kg. Though Ariel was obviously concerned, she wanted to compete.
Ariel is probably the best competitor I’ve ever worked with. In the heat of competition, she is a different being. During the course of her warm-up, she became more and more composed, until her first attempt at 71kg. No problem. Second attempt at 74kg, Ariel was a little bit hesitant on the finish, and it’s lifts like these that tend to lead to problems with the shoulder. She missed it out front. I expected it to shake her, but she walked off the platform collected. She walked out for her third attempt, and though the shoulder was visibly hurting, she pulled the hell out of the bar, racked it, and fought hard to walk out a good lift – 2kg under her PR with a seriously unstable shoulder. Her demeanor changed completely for the clean & jerk, and she made 95kg, for a 169 total and 11th place in her first national meet, in a very large and VERY competitive weight class.
I checked with some science mother fuckers, and according to math, I could not be more proud of my girls than I am.
Overall, the 2012 American Open was a great event. Organized, well run, and a lot of fun. I hope they choose to hold it in the same place for a few years to come, and if you were on the fence about going this year, I hope that this brief summary helped you decide to come next year. Maybe even qualify, and compete yourself.
