I will be coaching this weekend at the first (of many) Crossfit Football Certification. John Welbourn has a fantastic idea with this and I am honored to have been asked to be part of it.
–
Sean
Pure Strength
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Saturday May 23rd
10:30 am-2:30 pm
Crossfit Southbay
15711 Condon Av. #A3
Lawndale, CA. 90260
Pulling a barbell from the floor, along with squatting, is one the best ways to develop overall brute strength. It is also pivotal in learning how to do the Olympic lifts properly. However, most people are unable to properly pull a bar from the floor.
Spend the morning with world renowned Strength Coach and former USA Weightlifting National team member Sean Waxman of Pure Strength as he walks you through the progressions that will dramatically improve your Conventional Deadlift, Sumo Dead Lift, Clean Dead Lift, and Snatch Dead Lift.
Click here to register
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Saturday April 25th
10:30 am - 2:30 pm
Crossfit Southbay
15711 Condon Av. #A3
Lawndale, CA. 90260
Squatting, often called the “King of all exercises” is one of the most effective and efficient ways to build overall strength and stability in the body. However the squat is often performed incorrectly, thereby limiting its effectiveness and greatly increasing the chance of injury.
Spend the morning with world renowned Strength Coach and former USA Weightlifting National team member Sean Waxman of Pure Strength as he walks you through the progressions that will dramatically improve your Back Squat, Front Squat, Split Squat, and Lunge.
Click here to register
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Saturday June 20th
10:30 am - 2:30 pm
Crossfit Southbay
15711 Condon Av. #A3
Lawndale, CA. 90260
Lifting a barbell overhead is the best way to develop functional upper body strength. It is also a key component in complete torso development. However overhead lifting is often performed incorrectly, resulting in an increase of shoulder and lower back problems.
Spend the morning with world renowned Strength Coach and former USA Weightlifting National team member Sean Waxman of Pure Strength as he walks you through the progressions that will dramatically improve your Press (front and back), Push Press, Push Jerk, and Overhead Squat.
Click here to register
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Using Supportive Gear
The Problem
There is an age-old argument at every gym; to wrap or not to wrap. You will find equally passionate arguments on either side; However, I am here to help stop this argument in its tracks.
Using supportive gear has gotten out of control. I have seen people walking into the gym with their belts already on. If they weren’t outside lifting cars then the belt should have been in the bag!
I am not saying you should never use supportive gear, I am saying there is an appropriate time and a place for its use.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make, especially as a beginning lifter, is relying on belts, straps, and wraps. Although using them could initially raise your poundage, you could be hampering your performance down the road.
Supportive gear hampers the development of the structural support mechanisms of the body such as the ligaments, tendons, and the smaller support muscles of the joints especially the knees and back. If you use gear too often you will create an imbalance in your muscular development and greatly increase your susceptibility to joint and muscular injury. The supports do the job your body is supposed to do. The larger primary movers will get strong but the tendon the muscles are attached to, as well as the ligaments that hold your joints together, will not respond at the same rate. You will get to the point of having to don a belt and wraps for your warm-ups because you feel weak without them. Never mind lifting weights, what about real life? How are you going to lift groceries out of your car or your child in to a car seat? Are you going to take a couple of minutes and wrap up? This is an issue that has ramifications far beyond the gym.
The Solution
The first thing you can do to break your equipment addiction is decrease the amount of weight you are lifting by 10% to 20%. I know that is blasphemy however; some times you have to take one step back before you can take a giant leap forward.
Now that you are using lighter weight, there are two things you can focus on, proper technique and full range of motion. Making sure you are doing the exercise properly, assures that you are getting maximum muscular involvement. Doing an exercise in a full range of motion assures that your connective tissue is getting the work it needs in order to get strong. Connective tissue,(ligaments and tendons), get stronger when you stretch them under load. This happens when you perform an exercise in a full range.
Training this way will make your body strong all over, with no weak links.
Conclusion
Don’t burn your belt just yet. As I mentioned earlier, there is a correct time and method to using supportive gear. I like to follow these parameters:
1. A minimum of three years of serious training
2. Intensity range of 90%-100%+ (if you are doing 10 reps, then you are not in the 90%-100%+ range)
3. Rep range of 1-3 repetitions.
4. Only with squats, deadlifts, pressing movements and the Olympic lifts.
Once you have met those parameters, feel free to start using your gear. Here is some simple advice to help you get the most out of your equipment.
5. Knee wraps
a. Use standard wraps found at any sporting goods store. Gold line or Red Line triple thick wraps are unnecessary unless you are squatting three times body weight or more.
b. Do not wrap directly over your kneecap. This will prohibit your kneecap from tracking properly and cause knee irritation.
c. When your knees are wrapped properly, you will feel a nice spring out of the bottom of the squat.
6. Wrist wraps
a. I don’t like the standard wrist wraps found at the stores; they are usually too short. I prefer using knee wraps; cut in half or quarters (depending on your preference). Have the cut ends hemmed so they don’t fray. These will provide the wrist stability you will need for the heaviest pressing movements.
7. Belts
a. Use a four-inch all leather belt with a metal buckle. This will last forever. The six inch and above sizes do not provide any more protection and are cumbersome.
b. A belt will provide you with the increased intra-abdominal you will need to handle those big squats and deadlifts.
–
Sean
Pure Strength
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
If you step foot in almost any gym across America, including most high schools, universities, and professional sport teams, you will see exercise technique so wretched it will make your eyes hurt. So this brings us back to the original question; is good technique really important? If you ask the coaches doing the teaching they would most likely tell you “Of course it is.” Then they will proceed to tell you that everybody in here has a degree and is a trained professional. Anybody who manages a McDonalds and graduates from Hamburger U is a trained professional. It doesn’t mean I want him teaching me how to lift a barbell properly.
Generally most coaches learn technique from a book, magazine, or other unqualified coaches. The information they are getting is often convoluted and disseminated by people who have spent their lives in a state of atrophy, or even worse physical therapy. They then pass this “knowledge” on to you. It would be difficult to learn how to tie your shoes under these circumstances let alone a complex movement such as the snatch.
It’s Not Just What You Do, Its How You Do It.
I have trained in gyms and weight rooms across America for the past twenty-five years and I have come to one conclusion. Most trainers and strength coaches haven’t a clue as to what efficient technique looks like. I’m just talking about basic exercises; squat, bench, RDL, etc. I am not even talking about the Olympic lifts! Rounded backs, partial range of motion, improper bar trajectory, twisting torsos, and shifting hips are just a small sampling of the assault that my eyes have endured over the years. It is only getting worse.
Because strength and conditioning or “sports specific training” has exploded over the last fifteen to twenty years, there is a shortage of “certified” (and I use that term loosely) strength coaches. People have recognized this shortage and rushed out to create companies that for a price will certify anybody. Some companies require a four-year degree while others just require a heartbeat. However, both will give you a certificate proclaiming you as a certified professional.
It requires much more than book knowledge and a four year degree to become a highly qualified coach. It takes years of “lab” time. When I wanted to become a strength coach I sought out the best mentors I could find. I transferred to Cortland State because they had the best Physical Education program in the country. After graduating, I packed up my car and drove from New York to California and enrolled at Long Beach State’s Masters Program because Hall of Fame Strength and Conditioning Coach Dr. John Garhammer was teaching there. He is one of the top sport biomechanists in the world. I showed up at Van Nuys High School to learn how to be a weightlifter because that’s where Hall of Fame Weightlifting coach Bob Takano was training Olympic weightlifters.
I made a conscious decision 15 years ago to be a strength coach. I realized there is only so much you can learn from a book. If you truly want to learn how to do something properly, you need to get your hands dirty and sweat. There is no easy way, and there is no substitute for experience.
Yes, Efficient Technique is Important!
Why is technique important? Simply stated, performing exercises properly insures that you will receive the results the exercises are supposed to provide. Make no mistake, there is a right way and a wrong way to lift weights!
I feel better now, except my knee is a little sore from stepping up on this soapbox.
–
Sean
Pure Strength
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
I am proud to announce that VS Training is the official sponsor for the Nicaraguan Olympic and National Teams. I will be flying out to Nicaragua on April 4th to the “Copa Nicaragua Championships.” The Nicaraguan Olympic Federation has planned a press conference to make the official announcement. It is a very exciting time for VS Training.
–
Sean
Pure Strength
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
We live in a world of instant gratification. Where patience and progressive development are thought of as archaic concepts. We want it, and we want it now. The world of sports is not immune to this ugly reality. Coaches are constantly being fired for not producing championships right away. Teams mortgage their future and trade away their prospects for more seasoned players so they can win right now. There is one thing we can learn from the results of this attitude towards development; it doesn’t work. There are no short cuts to sustained success.
“A Journey of a thousand miles starts with one step”
Lao-tzu, the first philosopher of Chinese Taoism
The worlds of Strength & Conditioning and Weightlifting have had this instant gratification attitude creep into the depths of its psyche. Strength and Weightlifting Coaches have become fixed on the outcome and have forgotten about the process.
A coach is a teacher. We are not teaching our athletes how to find the coefficient of restitution for balls dropped from a height of 72 inches however, much like the aforementioned biomechanics problem, we are teaching them how to properly and effectively reach the correct solutions for their physical problems. The most effective method for solving any complex problem, is to identify the desired end result, then determine what steps are needed in order to reach said result. This goes for any problem, whether you are trying to figure out how high a ball is going to bounce after you drop it or how to get an athlete stronger and more powerful.
Putting a bar in an athlete’s hand and telling them to lift it with out proper instruction is not teaching; it’s butchery.
Proper athletic development is a process that not only takes time to occur but also takes a skilled coach to implement. The questions then become, what is the correct process and what is a skilled coach.
The Correct Process
Some definitions first:
Process- A series of actions or steps taken to achieve a particular end.
Series- A number of events of a similar kind or related nature
coming one after another.
If we combine these two terms we get: A process is a number of events of a similar kind or related nature coming one after another to achieve a particular end.
This is in essence what the process of proper athletic development should be. An athlete comes to you with a particular goal or “end.” It is then up to you to guide them thru the proper steps so that they achieve the desired goal.
Volumes have been written on the different types of systems that can be used for developing athletes. Unfortunately, this information has gone largely unread or ignored by many coaches involved in Olympic Weightlifting and Strength and Conditioning even at the highest levels. However, the scope of this discussion is not what system works best, but what part of the system is often overlooked.
Development in Olympic Weightlifting
I have been involved in Olympic Weightlifting as an athlete and coach for over fourteen years. I can say unequivocally that the VAST MAJORITY of the athletes I have seen have correctable technical flaws in their lifting technique that go uncorrected. More disturbing, many of these athletes have been taught incorrectly by so called qualified coaches. It doesn’t matter if you have comprised your training program using the NASA supercomputer, or had you’re equipment forged by the same craftsman that made Thor’s Hammer, if your athletes are not efficient with their lifting movements, you are depriving them of the full benefit weight training provides as well as increasing their chances of injury.
JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD
The ultimate goals of a Strength coach and a Weightlifting coach are the same, to elicit the best possible performance from their athletes. In Weightlifting it is seemingly easier to determine what a coach is doing is working. If your athlete lifts more than the next guy/gal, what ever you are doing is working. Lets examine this rational. According to this approach, whoever is on the medal stand at the National Championship or qualifies for an international team must have the best coach. This is not necessarily so if you take into consideration the genetic potential of the athlete. I will make the assumption that the genetics of the population of this continent are not dramatically different than those of other continents. Therefore the genetic potential of the US population is at least as great as other populations. However, as a country we do not perform anywhere near the level of other countries, and haven’t for quite some time. Than why is it our best athletes, who possess the same genetic potential as their international cohorts, cant compete at the international level? The first thing people look to is drugs. There is no doubt that drugs play a role in the landscape of Weightlifting. Would a systemized drug program propel us to the top of the Weightlifting world? The answer is absolutely no! Drugs will not solve the three most important and overlooked variables as it relates to Weightlifting success
1. The program design used to develop juniors
2. The loading parameters used on juniors.
3. Technical efficiency of the lifters.
These variables are being missed used due to lack of understanding of the process of proper athletic development. Many coaches in this country lack the physical science background that is required to understand the physiological effects training stress has on the biological and mechanical systems of the body. Couple that with inability to discern between proper and improper technique, and it is no surprise we perform as we do.
Program design and loading parameters
It first takes years of training with progressively higher volumes with sub maximal loads, using not only the classical Olympic lifts but basic weight training movements as well, to effect the necessary changes in the connective/muscle tissue and endocrine system needed to withstand the training loads required to excel at the highest levels of sport. It can takes up to four years to elicit the changes needed in order to move on to more specialized training. This crucial phase of development is called the Process of Achieving Sports Mastery or PASM..It is in this phase, the athlete “trains to get into shape to be able to train.” A wide variety of exercises should be implemented at low to moderate intensities. During this time the classical lifts and their variations are taught and perfected as well. The exercise distribution over the PASM period should start with a predominance of strength exercises (roughly 75%) such as squatting variations, pressing variations, pulling/posterior chain variations, as well as specific wrist, elbow, rotator cuff, and ankle exercises. During this time the athlete should be taught how to perform the Olympic lifts. The distribution of Olympic lifts in the beginning of the PASM period should be roughly 25% of the overall volume. This 75%-25% ratio should gradually begin to flip flop thru out the four year PASM period culminating with an athlete that is prepared to handle much a much higher training load (intensity x volume).
Two things should occur during this PASM period if the training is implemented properly. First, as mentioned earlier, the athletes physiology will change. Their muscles will be strong and balanced. Their bones will have thickened. Their actual connective tissue will have strengthened along with where it attaches on the bone. Their work capacity would have improved to the point where they would to be able to handle and recover from more intense training load.
Technical efficiency of the lifter
Second, the athlete will have created a “habit” According to motor control research; it takes approximately ten thousand repetitions of a movement to create a consistent, unconscious movement pattern. Over the four years the athlete will have completed approximately ten-thousand reps in the Olympic lifts and three or more times that in the strength movements. Their technique in all movements should be biomechanical efficient and consistent. At this point there should be little or no technical deviation on lifts in the upper intensity ranges.
However, if you examine the developmental method used by many Weightlifting coaches, it expresses none of the characteristics of PASM. Instead coaches rush their unprepared, under trained athletes to the competition platform. These athletes are often weak, unbalanced, underweight, and technically inefficient. Because of this poor implementation of PASM, athletes are not developing past their first 4-6 years of training. This is often due to the accumulation of chronic injuries, or they become limited by the biomechanical flaws in their lifting technique.
Next up: Athletic development in Strength and Conditioning… Where we are getting it wrong
–
Sean
Pure Strength
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
1. DO NOT buy any books or manuals that tell you how to loose fat, you don’t need them. If you already have, then you will be better served eating them for their fiber content than actually following them.
2. DO follow a training program that uses compound movements (squatting, deadlifting, presses, Olympic lifts) with progressively heavier weights. You must train hard in order to stimulate the anabolic hormones in your body. When you train this way muscle magically appears and the body uses a tremendous amount of calories; two very important factors involved with loosing fat. (Try Bill Star’s 5×5 workout.)
3. DO eat 6-8 times a day.
4. DO include a protein with each meal that either walks, flys, or swims. (no F$%@ing vegetable products unless you have the metabolism of a beef cattle.) Protein meals elevate metabolic rate.
5. Do include a low glycemic carb with every meal (<70 GI), This keeps insulin levels in check.
6. DO include a good fat with every meal (olive, high oleic safflower, CLA, flaxseed oil, ect.) This will further reduce your insulin response.
7. DO include a soluble fiber with every meal. This will lower the GI.
So to sum it up train hard and eat like an athlete, not a yoga instructor!
–
Sean
Pure Strength
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
What is this functional for…Doggie Style
Paraphrasing Dr Mel Siff from Facts and Fallacies Fitness, the term Functional Training came out of the scientific and therapy worlds from the terms “structure” or form referring to the “phenomenon of growth of the substance forming the organism, and function referring to the way in which the organism operated. “
If we apply these definitions to training for sport, structural training would be directed towards “enhancing, maintenance and growth of the various systems of the body, whereas functional training would refers to the way these systems operate and produce motor output.”
Out of this work the principle of form follows function emerged which we find today in many forms of Physical Therapy
So now these so called “Functional Training” experts are confusing training for healthy athletes with “functional training” Just because they are not using machines, balancing on a ball and training in multi-dimensional space does not necessarily make it functional. This is not how the functional process was ever defined and it is not an accurate description of the training processes that are intended to enhance athletic or sport performance.
What is more alarming is that these same Functional freaks have gone ahead and labeled some training functional while saying other training is nonfunctional.
Doesn’t function really come down to the requirements of the activity? If you need to rehab a torn labarum gotten while performing stupid human tricks on a swiss ball, than perhaps jerking from behind the neck would not be an appropriate choice of exercise. But does that make it a non-functional exercise? It makes it the wrong exercise for the job at hand.
That being said, it is a fact that the Olympic Lifts produce the highest power output in the human body. I would say that power is a coveted trait in sports, then why is it not included in the “functional training” arsenal. There are companies dedicated to “functional” training for athletes, yet if you take a look at the information they are producing, you will not find anything on using the Olympic lifts for power development. Are they really helping athletes become more functional?
All training is functional if it is applied correctly. As far as it applies to training athletes, if the conversation includes wobble boards, wrapping yourself in theraband, or any other physical therapy toys, then you are talking about rehab. If that is the case then get the hell out of my weight room, and go to the training room!
–
Sean
Pure Strength
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Throughout the month I will be showing you a high school athlete that I started working with a month and a half ago. This is his tenth meeting with me. During the first nine meetings I evaluated the range of motion of his joints, taught him how to prepare his torso for lifting weights, how to Back Squat, Press, Good Morning, Front Squat, Overhead Squat, RDL, and Push Press.
I spent twenty eight minutes teaching him how to perform the Hang Power Snatch! Don’t tell me learning the Olympic lifts take to long.
So why is it you are not using the Olympic lifts in your program. Don’t listen to functional training physical therapists acting like strength coaches when they tell you how to train an athlete.
Drop your big bouncy balls and pick up a barbell!
Part One
Part Two
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Erol Bilgin, competing in the 62-kilogram category, clinched the gold medal in the snatch contest and won two silver medals in the clean and jerk event and in the overall at the ongoing 21st European Men’s Weightlifting Championship in the Italian city of Lignano.
Bilgin lifted 135 kilograms in the snatch event and took the gold as he weighed less than his rival, Russian Sergei Petrosian, who won the silver. Moldovan Vladimir Popov won the bronze, lifting 130 kilograms.
The Turkish weightlifter won the silver medal in the clean and jerk contest by lifting 160 kilograms. His Russian rival Petrosian lifted 167 kilograms to win an open victory and grab the gold. The winner of the bronze was the Azeri weightlifter Zülfügar Suleimanov, who lifted 158 kilograms. Petrosian also broke the European youth weightlifting record with 167 kilograms.
In the overall, Petrosian clinched the gold with 302 kilograms; Bilgin won the silver with 295 kilograms, and Popov took the bronze with 284 kilograms.
Bilgin was given his silver medal by State Minister for Sports Murat Ba?esgio?lu and President of the Turkish Weightlifting Federation Hasan Akku?.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
A few weeks ago I was walking thru the parking lot to get to the weightroom at Long Beach State to train with Nomad Weightlifting Tribe when a flyer on a car caught my eye. I picked it up and started to read it. As my eyes gazed onto the page, I started to get a pain in my ears. The more I read the more the pain intensified. I then realized it was my head exploding! I quickly diverted my eyes and the pain subsided.
Below is the cause of this near fatal head trauma.
Please read at your own risk!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Eleven members of the Greek national weightlifting team — reportedly 5 men and 6 women - have tested positive for banned substances, the Greek Weightlifting Federation said on Friday.
Names of the athletes were not released pending confirmation of the tests from March 7, performed on 14 athletes at Athens’ Agios Kosmas training center. The federation said the tests were conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency on orders from the International Weightlifting Federation.
“In surprise out-of-competition tests run by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) on the orders of the International Weightlifting Federation, the A samples of 11 (out of 14) athletes turned out positive,” it said in a statement.
National team coach Christos Iakovou, 60, credited with building the 90’s “Dream Team” that won several medals at the Olympics and World Championships, had handed in his resignation and had been suspended pending the investigation.
The federation said it would test the B samples before setting up a special committee to investigate the issue affecting the majority of the team.
News reports further suggested that the majority of the 11 athletes implicated are senior level, and not members of the team that recently took part in the European Union Championship in Germany.
The team’s participation at the Beijing Games, where they were planning to send 5 men and 2 women, is now in serious doubt, according to a federation official speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Given the very large number of positive tests, and if the B samples are positive as well, then the team as a whole could be banned from competing in the Beijing Games,” the federation official said.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
LOS ANGELES, March 23 (Xinhua) — The U.S. weightlifting men’s team will be represented by two athletes on the Olympic platform at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the U.S. Olympics Committee (USOC) said on Sunday.
Powered by consistent performances by all eight men competing for the U.S. at the 2008 Pan American Weightlifting Championships and final Olympic qualifier, this weekend in Callao, Peru, the U.S. men’s team secured two Olympic slots.
“I am extremely proud of our team,” said Dennis Snethen, Interim Executive Director for USA Weightlifting.
“We accomplished our goal for this competition which was to secure the two available Olympic slots. All of our guys contributed to this success with consistent lifts in a high pressure meet. Now we move on to the Olympic Trials in Atlanta, Georgia in May where these teammates will now compete to see who the two Olympians will be.”
Canada also secured two Olympic slots and Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina each earned one Olympic slot a piece through their team’s performances at this important event.
The top eight U.S. men represented the USA at this critical event. The event was full of pressure for these eight individuals as U.S. representation on the men’s 2008 Olympic platform was dependent upon their combined performances.
Following the conclusion of the 2007 World Weightlifting Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in September, the U.S. men thought they had done enough to secure three Olympic slots as they sat in a 27th place combined finish from the results of the 2006 and 2007 World Championships.
This would have made the U.S. the final country to qualify slots for the Olympic Games. Christmas of 2007 was not kind to the USA men as the grinch (in the form of the International Weightlifting Federation website) visited, taking away the three Olympic slots that the team had thought they had secured.
The International Weightlifting Federation re-calculated the team standings following doping positives by athletes from other teams and, despite the fact that no one on the U.S. team tested positive, the U.S. men dropped one position in the overall team rankings, thus losing the three Olympic slots they thought they had earned.
The shift in order, due to doping positives in teams that finished above Team USA, caused a re-shuffling of points and the final mathematical breakdown moved Chinese Taipei above the United States leaving the U.S. men’s team as the first team not qualified for the Olympic Games.
The eight men that secured 2008 Olympic participation for the USA will move onto the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Weightlifting, May 16-17 in Atlanta, Georgia, where they will be vying with 22 other men for two positions and a chance to perform on the Olympic platform in Beijing.
For the eight men that represented the United States at the 2008 Pan American Weightlifting Championships, this event will count as their National Championships in regards to ranking going into the Olympic Trials and will be their secondary Olympic qualifying event.
Sean
www.PureStrength.com
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Posts
