PR Friday — post all your personal records to the comments.
———-
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.
———-
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.
“When I was a lad I ate four dozen eggs every morning to help me get large.”
You’ve done it! You have completed linear progression. Along the way, you gained twenty-five pounds, put 100 pounds on your squat and deadlift, and busted through a few pairs of jeans. You have also acquired a bit of belly fat you don’t care to keep around anymore. So what to do?
For starters, you need to clearly identify your next set of goals and how you are going to get there. Performance goals take priority. So you might decide that you’re going to add 30 pounds to your squat over the next four months. Or that you want to win your class at the next strongman competition. Or that you want to go 5 for 6 and total 245kg at your next weightlifting meet. Then, of course, you plot out how you’re going to get there.
Next comes the body composition goals. As much as I like to eat and talk about eating, you are going to feel better and be healthier at a reasonable body fat level. Being healthy and not having moobs is a good goal. Looking like The Situation after doing Fran is not.
There are now a googol diets out there. Zone. Paleo. Warrior. Velocity Diet. Ketogenic diet. Lean Gains. Lyle Macdonald’s various iterations. The No S Diet. And there are a host of fitness/nutrition gurus and TV shows to go with it. The Biggest Loser. Honey I’m Killing the Kids (or whatever), Andro Friday Hall of Famer Jillian Michaels, Sears, Cordain, Eades, Dr. Phil, the sweet clean Sarah Dussault from DietHealth (every one has their guilty pleasure youtube subscriptions), and that villainous pseudo-scientist, the evil Robb Wolf.
So where do we go? Who do we believe? The answer is Grandma.
Grandma didn’t prepare healthy meals as a goal. She prepared healthy meals because all she had was real food and real ingredients. That’s your first directive: EAT REAL FOOD. If you’re over 215 pounds and actively training for a strength sport (or otherwise large volume) you might have to supplement whey. Otherwise, keep it real. Lesson: eat real food.
Grandma also made you mind your portions. It wasn’t because she was worried about you getting fat. It was because food was expensive and resources were scarce. Most of you guys are younger than I am, but my grandparents lived through the Great Depression. And Depression Era folk don’t waste a damn thing. That went for food, too. Sometimes we got seconds, but it was usually just to finish off what was left. LESSON: Control your portions. LESSON: real food doesn’t keep for long in the refrigerator!
Grandma made meals, not a la carte items. She never just made a roast and left it at that. There were always greens, a salad, fruit, and assorted veggies. You didn’t eat meat without equivalent portions of veggies. This takes care of all that macronutrient ratio and hormone balancing crap you read about now. It just makes good sense. LESSON: eat meats, veggies, fruits, and fats together.
Finally, after supper, the kitchen was closed. You didn’t eat again until morning. Why? Because Grandma was an early riser, which meant she got to bed early, too (are you getting this?). Once supper is done, unless you’re doing a forced bulk (purposely consuming calories to keep insulin high into the night), shut it down after six or seven. LESSON: No eating or snacking after supper. BONUS LESSON: Going to bed and getting extra rest helps improve body composition.
Grandma did other things too, like clean whole turkeys and fowl. She didn’t buy fish sticks; she filleted catfish. She made three meals a day and didn’t mess around with snacks. She served water or tea—mostly water—and she’d occasionally squeeze some fresh fruit. She didn’t worry about the cholesterol in eggs or the fat content in butter.
For those who are upset at the lack of strict guidelines here, I’ll put it like this: eat 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight, more if you’re training heavy at least three times a week. Do this with lean meat as much as possible. Eat enough carbs to fuel activity (weightlifters don’t need as much as cyclists). Colored veggies are particularly good for this. If you need dense carbs, look to tubers. Don’t go nuts on your starch and do NOT avoid fruit like some would have you do. Eat enough good fats to fuel recovery. If you can, get your fats from nuts, avocados, and healthy oils, not so much from milkfat and animal fat.
If you’re over 20% bodyfat, don’t worry about macronutrient ratios. Just quit eating so much crap. Once you creep down to the mid-teens, you can start removing the bloaters like refined sugars, starches, artificial sweeteners, grains, and dairy. If you want to get down in the 11-12% range (you can’t go too far under this without a dip in performance), you’ll have to remove almost all of the things I just listed, as it becomes a hormone control issue at this point. If you want to get under 10%, do some meth, buy yourself some skinny jeans, and get your emo self off of this site.
Don’t think of this as a diet or even the hackneyed “lifestyle change.” It’s just the way you’re going to eat. People complain that “when I come off this plan, I’ll just gain the weight back.” Well yeah, dumbass, that’s why you were fat in the first place. You have to get it under control by removing the emotional and social connections you have with food.
Don’t trick this up, folks. This is more birthday party than physics class. When you’re bogged down in the diet minutiae, remember Grandma. She just made real meals—damn good meals—with real ingredients, for real people, who did real work. And that, my friends, is the key to achieving good body composition and good health.
This post is dedicated to my maternal grandmother, a saint of a woman who lived to the ripe age of 94. She prepared many a fine meal of biscuits and gravy, chicken and dumplins’, turkey and green beans, and butter-fried T-bones. Heaven’s kitchen smells a little better now that she’s cooking in it.
Look at you: member of the honor roll, assistant to the assistant manager of the movie theater. I’m tellin’ ya, Rat, if this girl can’t smell your qualifications, then who needs her, right?
(Justin is on a 2-day road trip. Sorry for the mid-morning post).
A couple months ago, Brent wrote how I recommended Kroc Rows to Brent to help his grip work. That recommendation was based on his training and his goals at the time. When he posted up, the comments came alive with questions about Kroc Rows.
Last Friday I wrote about curls. So before everybody runs over Skinny Guy to go do some Preacher Curls, we should talk about assistance exercises.
First off, this is ASSISTANCE. Don’t overthink this stuff. The point of assistance work is to compliment your overall program. You can use it for strengthening a portion of the movement of a major lift (rack pulls), strengthening one or more muscles to support a compound lift (good mornings to squats), reinforcing a major lift by adding volume (and hypertrophy) with a similar movement (bar dips for bench press), balancing symmetry via hypertrophy (shrugs), strengthening the muscle and connective tissue around a single joint (curls), etc. Yes, there is some overlap here.
Generally, you want to do one or two movements of assistance work for each lift (I like one). And you’ll typically do 3-5 sets of 8-15 reps (20 if it’s bodyweight stuff). Remember, volume is your friend here. Do not go to failure, and do not let this become so taxing that you have to miss a day. Beyond this, don’t give any more thought to set and rep ranges.
The Kurgan made good use of unilateral work after doing his basic lifts.
Don’t ever confuse assistance exercises for the main lifts. A semi-good (Mike Tyson word) program of foundational lifts trumps the best assistance program. Focus on what’s important. If you are still on linear progression, don’t bother with assistance work (unless you’re doing it to build a miniscule of amount of weight room GPP, e.g. supersetting chins with GHRs or hanging leg raises).
For you recovering CrossFitters, assistance work is where you get your variety. A well-thought out program is NOT constantly varied (note the distinction). But I’ll make this deal with you: do your pressing like a normal person (with some progression in mind), and you can trick up your assistance to your heart’s content. Ideally, you would keep an assistance movement in the rotation for a 4-6 weeks, but I’ll take what I can get from you guys. You can get creative with this in terms of conditioning, and I will cover this later. But, and this is a big but, never ever ever never do something stupid like the crossfit.com workout that had high rep good mornings. You will be banned from this site for life and hopefully murdered by Sleestaks.
Good use of assistance exercises will bring balance to your program and your body. Use them appropriately and reap the benefits.
Edit: For some reason the auto-publish didn’t work. Apologies for the delay.
———-
There is a very good possibility that you may find yourself in the twelfth century fighting for your life. In such a (likely) scenario, your only chance of survival would be your manly brawn — if you’re a(n adult) man. How else could you fend off your enemies in close combat? You may even acquire a two handed great sword from your fallen foes. Quite the weapon of choice, indeed.
Click “Read More” for a better video that has the guys chopping and stabbing a whole bunch of stuff while getting really excited about it.
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.
