Chalk floats softly through the air. The thumping of your heart is all you hear, all you feel. You step to the bar and place your hands on it, feeling the cold knurling on callused hands. The whirling hurricane of emotion settles into the eye of the storm, the peaceful moment when you have to make a decision to begin.
If you’ve found yourself on the receiving end of an ass kicking by gravity, I can feel your disappointment, irritation, and likely rage. Missing reps is common among lifting, yet dealing with them is not. Powerlifters can go months without missing a single rep to experience the ultimate let down on a third attempt. Weightlifters who push themselves will miss in each workout, but it doesn’t make it any easier. After the initial moments of rage subside, remember that each missed rep is a learning opportunity.
The process of getting stronger is dependent on how you react to failure, and failure will be prevalent. In order to get stronger, you have to get smarter, and you get smarter by analyzing what went wrong, how to fix it, and doing it better next time. This may require a hard look at recovery methods (food, sleep, etc.), the program (levels of volume or intensity throughout the week and over time), and technique (inefficiencies in movement and bar path). The possibility may exist that you didn’t have any business attempting that weight, but you won’t know until you try. There’s always a reason for failure, but it’s up to you (and the coach) to figure out why. Otherwise you won’t get smarter about getting stronger.
Training consistently is a learning process, an active process of introspection. Getting stronger isn’t easy. It requires a laboring, painful work that will only be expressed in the next bout of laboring, painful work. Yet with strength training, that process is just as important as the end. Choosing to do something hard — of your own volition — puts the mind in a vulnerable state. It forces you to decide whether or not you think you’re capable. Want to complete a set, but don’t think you can? You won’t. Staring down the bar, daring it to beat you and knowing that you will crush it; that is something entirely different, my friends.
It isn’t about merely attempting something that is Very. Fucking. Hard. But shifting the mindset into not just the possibility of completion, but the explosive dominance and subsequent victory you’ll have over that barrier. The mindset itself is the victory. The destruction of the set is the victory lap. The weening moments after when your heart is still racing and short of breath — that’s standing on the podium. Learning how to give everything you have mentally and physically to achieve your goals is what getting stronger is all about.
This topic has been festering on the internet for a few days because Mark Rippetoe wrote an article titled “The Fallacy of High-Rep Olympic Lifting” for T-Nation. By the way, I see a comparison between Rip and Stone Cold Steve Austin in his heel (bad guy) days in WWF — he’d come out and buck the system and some people hated him, some loved him for it, yet both fan groups paid attention while another group just said, “Get this guy outta here, I wanna watch Shawn Michaels hit a side-lunge-front-double-bi.”
Rip’s article basically says that using the Olympic lifts is misguided because they are injurious, reinforce poor mechanics, and aren’t optimal for conditioning anyway. You also get the gist of an anti-CrossFit sentiment. Various CrossFit-oriented responses will point out that the end will justify the means in the pursuit of well rounded conditioning (or maybe just CrossFit capability).
Well, I’m a fence rider. I always tell people that there are things I like and dislike in CrossFit, but overall I have a favorable opinion (more on this from a couple years ago. Edit: From 2012). Anyway, let’s ignore the idea of CrossFit and focus on the primary topic: the deabte of high rep Olympic weightlifting movements in conditioning.
Proper mechanics with the lifts is necessary before using them in conditioning
Do they have a place in a training program? Like all programs, it depends. If someone is doing high-rep, light-weight snatches or clean and jerks, can their form fall apart? Of course. Can someone do a conditioning workout and maintain technique? Certainly, but they’d probably have to slow the overall workout down a little. I agree with Kelly Starrett in that performing snatches or clean and jerks in a conditioning session is not only acceptable, but that they can provide meaningful training adaptations. The trainee in question would need to have the appropriate strength, mobility, and technique to even be considered for such a workout.
Snatches and cleans are beautiful movements where a lifter creates tension in their system, explodes to release the tension, and then creates tension in a completely new position. They are the epitome of full body, technically demanding lifts. Not only do they have their gross motor pathway demands (e.g. proper pulling position, proper mechanics through all phases of the pull, proper receiving position, and proper recovery), but they have acute motor pathway demands (e.g. keeping the torso solid and not extending or flexing the spine, maintaining external rotation in the hips and shoulders when applicable, etc.).
A 5 year old picture of cleans in a conditioning workout. It’s possible to maintain technique while fatigued.
A trainee who plays a sport or has a physically demanding job can use snatches and cleans to test whether they can maintain gross and acute motor pathways when their muscles are tired and they are breathing hard — the latter of which is extremely important for anyone who has to run around with heavy gear on. If a soldier can’t maneuver his battle space with proper mechanics, it can lead to acute injury or chronic irritation that will deem him nonoperational.
The point is that movements like snatches and cleans can help teach a trainee to maintain positioning in extreme fatigue so he can learn what is right and what is wrong. I’ve worked with a lot of athletes and military personnel, and both parties are guilty of reverting to bad positioning in the heat of the moment.
Should these populations bother with the weightlifting movements if they perform them poorly? Of course not; training would only serve as a source of injury. But it’s up to the coaches to develop their trainees to the point that they can do lots of technically sound cleans in a row. That’s one thing CrossFit has taught us: doing the high reps matters not for the sake of increasing the work output, but having proper mechanics to reduce the wear and tear on the body. I’m not so sure CrossFit would emphasize the latter, but it’s up to us as coaches and programmers to learn and acknowledge that.
Are there are a lot of CrossFit coaches who have no business putting someone in a workout with high rep snatches? Fuck yes. Is that a CrossFit problem? I don’t care, because at the end of the day it’s the responsibility of individual coaches to properly prepare their trainees for whatever workout they create for them. Instead of lambasting the use of high rep Olympic lifts and CrossFit, let’s use this as an opportunity to learn and get better as coaches. And that means developing a trainee’s mobility, getting them strong, and teaching them how to lift technically sound before challenging them with fatigue and high ventilation rates.
I recently had a conversation with someone about post workout nutrition which turned into me regaling them with my general nutrition philosophy which fell back onto the foundation of my training philosophy. Their question asked about timing of their post workout (PWO) and they were bothered by how I sort of shrugged off the need to worry about it.
“But I thought you were supposed to have x amount of protein and y amount of carbs within 45 minutes…and shit?”
That’s what popular muscle magazines or bodybuilding lore would tell us; the timing of meals is quintessential to progress and jackedness. But I say that the intricacies of the PWO nutrition is low on the priority list. Why would you care about the specifics of your protein shake when you don’t meet the required amount of protein each day, much less the minimum amount for your body weight? Oh and you’re eating about 100g more carbs than you need, eating shitty fats, not mobbing, and getting about 6 hours a sleep a night? And you want to worry about how many scoops of protein and molecularly dense carbs to swallow after training? Assuming you’re doing an appropriate systemically stressful strength training session to begin with?
If it sounds silly, it’s because it is. If you feel cheated, it’s because you have been.
Focus on getting the big picture right first. That means dialing in your overall diet, prioritizing sleep, and implementing a solid strength training program. Once that foundation is laid, then you can start to explore the finer details like peri-workout nutrition. These details can provide that extra edge, but they won’t magically compensate for a chronically under-fueled or poorly-rested body.
Looking to take a deep dive into holistic health and wellness? There are fantastic international courses available online that can equip you with the knowledge to optimize your nutrition, sleep hygiene, and exercise routines. Websites like https://es.scholistico.com offer in-depth programs that explore the interconnectedness of these factors and their impact on your overall well-being. By investing your time in these resources, you’ll gain the tools to build a sustainable, results-oriented approach to your health, one that goes beyond the quick fixes and fads promoted by some muscle magazines.
Doug Young would never cheat you like dat.
Take a look at this short, quality article by Dr. Hartman (The 45-Minute Testosterone Myth). It turns out there really isn’t any research on the “do your workout in 45 minutes or your testosterone levels will drop”. Furthermore, there is discrepancy in the research that may show that protein and carb PWO shakes actually decrease testosterone levels! That sound you hear is your entire world-view burning to the ground. However, if testosterone levels drop, you might consider having testosterone replacement therapy, which the ED Clinic Cary will discuss about the procedure.
Hartman goes on to say:
The short-term effects of testosterone to a single session of exercise are inconsequential to long-term performance. Long-term changes, or having testosterone elevated over a period of months and years, have been shown to lead to increased strength, power, hypertrophy, and performance. Short-term; those relationships do not exist.
And this is my point entirely, whether we’re talking PWO nutrition, or nutritional and training philosophy, it’s not the precise decisions you make throughout the day, it’s the fact that you hit the minimum requirements on a regular basis. Timing your daily protein or meal intake pales in comparison to getting the appropriate calories in an optimal macronutrient (proteins, carbs, and fats) distribution on a regular basis. If you’re struggling with low testosterone, you might want to look into trt.
The chronic effect of doing the simple things right is more important than doing the fancy things occasionally or randomly.
Johnny Skeptic then says, “Well, if I have an optimal PWO meal on a regular basis, won’t it make up for some of my other slacking?” Even if the whole PWO meal was proven to be optimal — the research is meh — it’s better to get the macronutrients you need for the day than it is to specially time everything for your training session. For example, if you train after work and then go home, just eat a quality dinner and don’t worry about making the dinner match an arbitrary PWO requirement.
This is how a discussion on PWO nutrition circles back to general nutrition and training advice; make the simple stuff a habit. Get enough protein and fat to recover, get enough carbs to match your activity level, and get it through quality foods that limit systemic inflammation and help promote recovery (Paleo for Lifters can help you understand this). Worry about your general food intake before even considering supplementation; if you’re eating crap food then the supplements won’t matter anyway. Combine full body, systemically stressful compound movements in each training session a regular basis to get bigger and stronger — squat, press, deadlift, bench, row, and pull-ups. Keep the approach simple, yet consistent. Squatting 100 times over the next year will be more important than following three crazy squat programs sprinkled throughout your year.
Every training or nutrition lesson revolves back to a single, easy idea: the chronic effect of doing the simple stuff correctly is necessary before worrying about sexy or complicated ideas. All that free time you gain by not worrying over your training can now be spent on growing facial hair.
My travels have led me to many gyms ranging from performance centers for special operations personnel to CrossFit gyms, from storage containers to globo gyms. There is a constant in all of these facilities: inefficiency.
One of the biggest training abominations is the lack of proper technique during high intensity conditioning workouts (which includes “met-cons”, CrossFit workouts, or otherwise). Typically lifting exercises, or derivatives thereof, are infused into high intensity conditioning with an attached performance standard. This is a fantastic way to create an abnormally high work output as an adaptive stress, yet not at the expense of making a decrepit athlete.
It’s hard to maintain technique while fatigued with a high ventilation rate (breathing hard). In fact, it’s actually beneficial to test an athlete or trainee’s ability to use quality technique while under duress as it can help them do so in their sport or job. For example, if a football player or soldier can’t maintain mechanics in the middle of the 4th quarter or towards the end of a mission, their body position could be compromised and opened up for poor performance or injury.
Yet executing poor positioning in a workout specifically designed to maintain it while fatigued is obviously missing the point entirely. Training needs to serve a performance enhancement purpose — an adaptive stress — instead of merely completing a task or workout.
I don’t think this is CF, and it’s a power clean, but it has all of the same faults as a crappy thruster
Using poor technique can have a future debilitating effect because of the trainee learning bad positioning, but crappy mechanics also loads musculature ineffectively. If a workout includes thrusters, then faults like the knees caving in, thoracic spine rounding, elbows dropping, and wrists cranking back into extension results in a) structures not being loaded properly and b) focusing the force application on the wrong structures. The former means the trainee doesn’t receive beneficial work on the related musculature and the latter means they end up putting stress on specific structures that cause or contribute to injuries. Nagging soft tissue injuries are almost always caused by doing many reps with poor technique. Mobility work can treat the symptoms, but the root cause will almost always be poor mechanics.
Proper technique that distributes the force across the musculature will use the maximum amount of muscles intended for a given movement. More muscles working most efficiently means more force production which results in optimal performance. Good mechanics = optimal performance.
If or when you conduct high intensity conditioning, ensure that you don’t compromise technique for the sake of doing the workout faster. If the work is too difficult — whether the weight is too heavy or the reps are too high — then account for this by adjusting the workout as you go, doing fewer reps per set, or by not programming that weight or number of reps in the first place.
If you are a coach, then ensure your trainees can conduct relevant movements properly before increasing the duress in a high intensity environment. Don’t put your trainee in a workout that allows bad positioning, and if their technique degrades, then cue them into efficient technique or throttle them back so they can maintain it. Sure, showing that your trainee hit a performance PR is nice, but not at the expense forgoing efficient movement mechanics. Your job as a coach is to instill good, natural movement mechanics that are transferable to any activity. This will always improve performance and mitigate injury.
Sacrificing good movement mechanics in high intensity conditioning training can lead injury, performance loss, and wastes everybody’s time. Aim to be efficient.
