Getting Into Weightlifting – Part 1

Posted on by
35

So it goes.

We like to encourage the readers of this website to compete in something. It’s a safe way to take risks, it allows you to challenge yourself, it focuses your training (and makes it more fun), and it lets you learn about yourself. Since we want you to be strong, the initial competitive endeavors are the barbell sports; powerlifting and weightlifting.

Most of the people here gravitate towards powerlifting since that closely resembles their training: squats, presses, and deadlifts. Olympic weightlifting seems to be less popular. The biggest reason probably is that the lifts look difficult to learn and execute, especially without a coach.

Yes, the shit is hard to do without a coach. For some people, they will never be decently good because they are goofy athletes. But if you were athletic growing up, and you like lifting weights, then why not take a stab at Olympic weightlifting?

If you take a chance on weightlifting, then you should initially learn the movements from a decent coach. I suggest this because the ability to properly teach yourself complex movements is rare, and you don’t want to teach yourself a bunch of bad habits — they are harder for a coach to break than for the coach to teach you properly to begin with.

Finding a “decent coach” may be a task. Some of you will be limited to what is available to you locally or to your own resources to find a coach. My experience would suggest that you find a coach who takes mechanics into consideration. Rippetoe has taught me how to do the lifts and coach them (as he has with many people), and the way that he coaches lifting is derived from a mechanical analysis of the body’s anatomy. I have been coached briefly by Tommy Suggs, and he thinks in terms of efficiency (bar path being vertical, no wasted energy as a result of a non-vertical bar path, etc.). Here is a video of weightlifting legend Tommy Kono explaining how he teaches the snatch. I particularly found it interesting how he wanted the shoulders in front of the bar in the set-up position, which is contrary to what most coaches teach nowadays:

I like how Kono makes an attempt at validating some of the things he is teaching, even if one or two points are contradictory to what I have learned to teach. Having a reason based on analysis, even if it is faulty analysis, is better than teaching it because “that is how it has always been done”. I consider this particularly important; if it were me, I would use this as one of my qualifying factors in choosing a coach…assuming the luxury of choosing a coach was present.

Then there is all of the obvious shit you should look for in a coach; how you get along with them, what is their coaching style, what kind of experience do they have (higher level lifters or novices — some coaches are not very good at teaching a beginner), how patient they are, etc. I could write quite a bit on coaching and all of the considerations that go into doing it and receiving it, but it leaves the scope of this post — you’ll just have to learn what kind of approach works best for you.

This is, of course, more of an extensive list for the OCD-type person that takes all of this stuff into consideration. The majority of you just need to get your ass on a platform and learn the lifts from somebody. Get a working knowledge of how they work, what your body is supposed to be doing, and then you can start gaining the experience to make adjustments.

In the next few parts of this “Getting Into Weightlifting” series, I will talk about how you and your coach will program, what to expect in your learning process, and suggestions on how to proceed after that initial learning stage. If there are any of you who are experienced in this sport, feel free to add to what I have started in the comments section. More information from multiple sources will help prepare the beginner and experienced lifters alike.

People always like training montages — here is the Polish national team (get past the non-english intro and you will see some lifting):

Gary Gibson – Part 4

Posted on by
22

The 2010 USAPL Florida State Championship
by Gary Gibson

The meet directors confirmed that I was not large enough to be considered an adult male. The first flight was composed of all the ladies and men in the 82.5 kg class and below, which meant that I got to lift with the women and the teenagers…the women and children. Ah well, if we were on a sinking ship, I would have made it out first!

It had been a very long drive from Geneva, Florida, to Fort Lauderdale. My sister and her boyfriend went along for the ride. Baby sis operated the camera at the meet.

Michael and Gail at 2010 USAPL FL State Meet

Michael and Gail at 2010 USAPL FL State Meet

That’s her voice you hear the loudest because it’s closest to the camera’s mic.

I only had her record the squat and deadlift attempts because my bench is never really worth recording and I was planning on playing it very conservatively on the bench for this meet. I’d not made any clear progress on it since my last meet and just planned to match my top weight from last time. Turns out I should have gone a little heavier. The 105 kg/ 231 was really, really easy.

I played it conservatively with my squats and went 5 kilos under my gym best, mainly because I wanted my last squat to be pretty and not get me all bent over. Squatted 418 on my last attempt and made it look pretty good. I matched my gym best on my second deadlift attempt and then bested that by 2.5 kilos on the last. I’d wanted to get in at least one pull over 500 lbs, but I might have done even better if I’d made the second attempt lighter and then went a bit higher on the last. Oh well, I’m not complaining about the 506.

I didn’t quite hit my targets of a 200 kilo SQ and 240 kilo deadlift, but as usual I still enjoyed myself thoroughly. I love powerlifting meets. I love lifting in competition. I love training and competing more than anything else outside of black pornograhy on the internet.

A real highlight of this meet was getting to meet 70sBig member and ridiculously strong deadlifter AJ. AJ’s about my height and currently just a few pounds heavier, but he is much, much stronger and a lot more pleasant to be around than I usually am.

I also got to see a few records set. April Shumaker came down from Minnesota and set an American bench press record on her second attempt…then broke that on her third! “Little Supergrrrl” powerlifter Maura Shuttleworth came down with April and her family and lifted strong and looked ridiculously cute doing it.

There were quite a few men and women competitors in their seventies. My heart swelled. Barbell training is as essential to a complete life as a good dog and it’s good to see people taking it up even in their later years. One of women in the Masters 70-79 division was the mother of another competitor at the meet in the men’s Masters 50-59. Her 50s-something son deadlifted well over 600 lbs and benched something over 500. The meet results aren’t up yet, but I believe those were also records of some sort.

Aftermath
Oh, my aching quads. Immediately after the meet, my hamstrings were singing and now two days later, my quads are burning. Upper body is feeling no pain because I just didn’t push the bench hard at all since I’d fail to make any measurable bench progress in the last cycle. I just matched my best bench from the last meet and left plenty on the platform. I’ve already dived right into linear progression with a fairly heavy bench day precisely because I didn’t tax my bench at the meet. But I did tax my squat and deadlift so even a light SQ x5x3 with 335 was fairly hard today. I’m hoping lots of meat and milk will sort me out soon. I’m going to take a few days off of squats, too, then hit 355 and go from there next week.

Next time we catch up with each other, I hope to have broken the 200-lb barrier.

Till then.

Mopping Up

Posted on by
23

“I’m hard yet soft, I am colored yet clear, I am fruity and sweet, I am jelly… what am I?”

There are a few things from last week and the weekend that need to be posted. A while back someone asked for a video of me power cleaning — I can’t imagine why, but here is my third (and last) rep of clean and jerking 150 kg last Tuesday that Eva filmed.

And now for the finale…

Pat and AC doin’ man stuff.

Pat and AC doin’ man stuff.



This.

This.


The Starting Strength Interview Series

Posted on by
94

PR Friday: Post weights lifted, gained, or eaten as well as pants ripped, girls lifted, and children tossed.

Some of you may remember me mentioning that Rip will be interviewing some interesting people to put on his Starting Strength website. There are two interviews uploaded — one with Shane Hamman, and another special edition with Eva Twardokens.

Shane at the 2004 Olympics

Shane at the 2004 Olympics


Shane and Eva are two-time Olympians — Shane competed in weightlifting in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics and Eva competed in downhill skiing in the winter Olympics in 1992 and 1994. Each interview focuses on the athlete’s particular sport, and Eva’s is quite useful since we are in the middle of the winter Olympics. Both interviews are conducted in a unique way that is not a monotonous, irritating question/answer session aimed at finding out how the interviewee “feels”. Take a gander and see how you like them.

I have never had the pleasure of meeting Shane, but Eva is a friend of mine, a sweetheart, a fiery competitor, and pretty damn strong. Nevertheless, she still succumbed to being pressed overhead…by me.


Shawn Gets Angry

Posted on by
51

A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from my childhood friend Shawn. He went to the University of Georgia for undergrad, and is now in law school. He lives in the Gwinnett County area outside of Atlanta. The subject of the e-mail was “You’re nothing if not a complete asshole”, and this is his story.
Note: All of you people who don’t like profanity are not going to like this.

I say you’re an asshole for the following reasons. To begin with, 3 years ago I was in search of a gym and of getting serious about training. I was completely blown away and baffled by the bitchiness of UGA’s “gym”. The basketball team and the football team both have SEPARATE buildings with strength training equipment and yet the “gym” for 40,000+ other students – as you saw – was equipped with 2 power racks and is all of 300 square feet – most of which is cluttered with treadmills.
When I was searching for a decent gym – you called from a sailboat and teased me into thinking there was a glorious gym opening up nearby…You got me man.

Here Shawn references when my professor prank called him from Key West posing as a gym owner in Athens, Georgia. As I recall, he was not amused.

Next, last week, I went to work out only to find out that Gold’s has closed it””s doors. Instead of an apology for no notice there was merely a letter saying our memberships were transferred to Bodyplex FITNESS ADVENTURE in motherfucking Grayson.

I went anyway. I was nothing if not disappointed. I weigh 215 lbs at 6’2”””” today, and there is absolutely no fucking reason I should be the biggest guy in the gym. Ever. At any time. In Bodyplex “fitness adventure” there is ONE power rack, which I assume should suffice for anyone wanting to squat and press, but forget deadlifting. There are 2 benches, and there are several benches for free weight exercise – however there are no free barbells. I attempted to deadlift, which I was probably doing wrong, when I was asked by an employee to “not bang the weights”. On top of this, I was attempting to bench 245 for 3 sets of 5. After my second set – I returned to my bench and there was a guy in some sort of superhero complete body spandex doing step ups or quasi-lunges on my mother fucking bench which was loaded and had my belt, keys, and humility beside it. I’ve always wanted to be in a sober fight, so I stopped him and said, “Hey man what the fuck?” and pointed to my bench. He said “Oh my bad bro, didn’t know you were using it.” After hearing this I had a small seizure and went back to working out – only to be interrupted by another employee. This employee walked up, leaned over while I was on my 2nd rep of 245 and said “Excuse me sir, you are going to have to keep it down.” I think we both know I left directly after saying, “What a bad ass gym”.

I came home to realize I have no gym to go to. As I perused the internet to find a decent and affordable power rack along with barbells, plates, and a bench, I find your video fucking TOUTING your ideal gym. Fuck bodyplex, and more importantly fuck gold’s gym for being complete asses to their loyal patrons. And further fuck LA Fitness for having a pool — the last thing I want is to pay $45 a month to swim in a pool of fat older people’s taint sweat.

I don’t actually think you’re an asshole, just jealous of your workout facility. Enjoy it, the closest strength training facility here is in Duluth and appears to be totally fagged-out since their website advertises the “300 workout!!”.

I’m building my own fucking gym. I’m using Rip’s advice from the book…