Weightlifting Coaching Options

If you want to get better at a skill, you need of course practice.  Not only just practice, but good, skillful practice. Psychomotor skills, like weightlifting, are no different.  Because of its technical nature, frequent and accurate guidance is extremely beneficial.  Someone that has a mastery of the movement patterns in your ear is extremely beneficial and can greatly accelerate your understanding of the lifts.

On site Coaching

The best option (from my understanding) would be that live, in person, beside the platform, coach.  This should not come as a great shock to most people.  The Yankees, to the best of knowledge, didn’t win any championships from skyping their coaches once a month.  A good quality coach can give instant feedback on each of your lifts, individualize your programming, and can get a sense daily of your ability to train that session.   I have never had a coach in this sense at all.  Because of this, I believe that my learning process has been very s-l-o-w.  It has probably taken my twice as long to get where I am, because of all of the trial and error.  Good thing I didn’t quit my day job. 

Seminars (reference my last blog)

Weekend training can be very helpful from time to time, in the absence of at home coaching.  I would definitely spread them out over several months or years.  It takes time to process and experiment with the seminar coaches’ suggestions.  I wrote about my experiences with four different seminars at Weightlifting Seminar Reviews

Online Video analysis

If you choose to stay home and can’t get away, online video analysis can be very helpful.  There are several options out available.  I have contacted Mike Burgener several times and asked for some feedback on my lifts and he has always been extremely generous and prompt with his replies. 

Donny Shankle offers his services of video analysis on his website.  I have not contacted him for his help yet, but he offers help and asks for a donation in return.  It seems like a fair deal to me to offer a donation in return for assistance from a five time National Champion and World Team member. 

I chronicled my process of with Chad Vaughn’s assistance in a couple of blogs: My Coach is a Fool, and Chad Vaughn Follow Up.  I found his help very useful and worth the low price. 

Online Coaching

In the absence of an on-site coach, this offer seems like a very promising idea.  Travis Mash and The Attitude Nation have joined forces and started an online weightlifting team.  That is right, you could be a teammate of  ‘Jumping Jon North”.  There are three levels of membership, with commensurate increases in price and benefits.  Aside from being a team member, some of the benefits include:  video analysis, programming, access to the team gear, access to a group chat room with one of your coaches, and unlimited email access to your coach.  The monthly prices range from $35 to $100 per month.  If you are a garage lifter, like me, and don’t have a world-class coach to train under, this could be a super option.  Check it out over at Mash Elite Performance.  

Weightlifting Seminar Reviews

I have come a long way in this strength and conditioning stuff.  Like a bunch of lifters, I started training body part splits in a physique-building program.  Rocking the 1989 Cobra Gym tank top, my dad and I watched what the big guys in the gym did:  Monday was chest, Tuesday is back, etc. and followed suit. I progressed from this, through many phases in the weight-room, which has led to my latest and most enduring… weightlifting.  Below is a list of all of the formal training I have received in training classes for weightlifting.  

Mike Burgener (CrossFit)

I was introduced to the snatch and clean and jerk, like many, through CrossFit.  This led me to my first weightlifting seminar with Coach Mike Burgener in 2008.  I was still a “CrossFitter” just trying to figure out the movements, to improve my metabolic workouts.  Coach B ran a very regimented seminar because, as he explained, this was how he presented it for years to high school kids in his Physical Education classes.  Like most seminars, he started by teaching the snatch, probably because it is the most technical of the two (or three).  His presence was worth the price of admission.  He played drill instructor, but in his own playful/intense/motivating way.  If someone was caught not using a hook grip or we didn’t all yell “YES COACH” when he gave an order we were “punished” with a few burpees.  The experience was beneficial and a lot of fun. 

USA Weightlifting

In 2011, I devoted myself (at age 36) to weightlifting only, for my workouts.  A couple years later, in 2013 I attended the USAW certification program.  I am not going to name the instructor, because public humiliation is morally wrong.  But I will say that the instructor is not some rookie that just stepped on the scene.  He has been in the game for a long, long, decades long time and is widely recognized.  His footprints are all over the training center in Colorado Springs.  The presentation of the curriculum was terrible and not believable.  He reminded us many times, “the book says so and so, but I disagree with that, so just know it for the test”.  I didn’t care about some silly test, I wanted to snatch more!  Much of the time was spent talking about how CrossFitters didn’t know how to lift weights properly, without giving any appreciation to them for doubling the membership and recognition of his silly, impotent organization.  While we went through the lifting progressions, he would consistently call people out and publicly ridicule them in front of the class.  I teach and coach for a living tough guy, and you are no coach and definitely not a teacher.  The only redeeming part of the whole thing was the unique stories he had because of his extensive time around the sport.  Otherwise, it was a miserable two days with a seemingly miserable man. 

Don McCauley

The next seminar on my growing list of weightlifting classes was a Catapult Clinic with, now assistant coach for Team Muscle Driver USA, Don McCauley.  I had heard mixed reviews on Coach McCauley, but I found him to be a very good coach and very open to help.  Read more on my post devoted to this seminar:  I am a Human Catapult.

Jon and Jessica North (The Attitude Nation)

Last but definitely not least, was my Attitude Nation Seminar.  I attended this one just last month at Old School Weightlifting.  I got there early, as I tend to do, and started stretching out a bit.  Jon a Jessica rolled in on time and took a look around the place with the owner of the gym.  After a few minutes Jon North was introduced and away we went.  He spoke for about a half hour or so on his philosophy and his background.  He talked very passionately about dropping out of college to lift weights, living in a Dodge Neon with his wife, and his prior addiction to crystal meth.  The line of the day was when thanked us all for paying a former drug addict, college dropout $200 dollars to learn how to lift weights.  It was the best $200 I have ever spent on training.  The teaching progression was easy to grasp, and we were given ample time to work on all of the positions.  Jon’s passionate and coffee fueled instruction was complemented well by his very talented wife Jessica as well.  They handed the teaching baton off seamlessly throughout the long morning of lifting.  After working on positions all morning, we had a little fun and maxed out on the snatch.  The energy drinks were flowing and the techno music was loud.  It was a blast!  The afternoon was more of the same for the clean and jerk.  Going into this seminar, I was a big fan of Jon’s, but I wasn’t sure how the class might be presented.  I told Jon and his wife Jessica that of the four weightlifting classes I had been to, that this one was head and shoulders above the rest.  They were great instructors, delightful people, and provided an enthusiastic environment where you just want to lift more weight!  And let’s be honest, all us lifters want to do is lift more weight!!!

Old Gold's Greatest Hits

While I am no Stephen King or John Grisham, I have written a few blogs that I am particularly proud of.  If I can modestly say this, some of the messages, if taken to heart, can be life changing.  Some of the concepts were certainly big for me to wrap my head around.  So with that being said here are, to date, a few of my favorite posts.  Enjoy.


Loser Talk
If you are tired of listening to the pathetic sour-mouthed blathering of some in your circle, this is the post for you.  If you are busting your rear, and losers from the proverbial bleachers of life are booing you, you will enjoy this read.


Failure is Worth It
Get in the game without fear.  If you are really going to be successful, you are going to have to try a bunch and fail a bunch.  Study, work very hard, and be a free thinker that is not afraid to look foolish.  This is what makes a winner.


Pull the Trigger
This post is a good addition to the the Failure post above.  Those of you that are frozen by fear of making the wrong decision should definitely give this one a read.

Gratuitous Weightlifting Video

Thing You Should Read/Watch

The CrossFit Open started several weeks ago, and if you like to see fit people in board shorts and tattoos do some amazing physical feats, tune in.  After a few weeks of online competition, they whittle down the field to each region's best men and women.  From there to southern California to find the fittest male and female on Earth.  

Dan Bell is a technical weightlifting coach.  His latest post is entitled Jerk Dip and Drive.  It is well worth a read if you are having trouble with the last movement in weightlifting.   

For all of you Donny Shankle fans, he recently began a Youtube channel of his own.  He is coming back from a freak accident.  He dislocated his shoulder during a snatch (extremely rare).  The series of videos is in essence the story of his ongoing climb back up the hill toward heavy weight.  These are certainly not the type of videos that you watch, unless you are a weightlifting fan... they are not the most exciting.  However, they are educational. 

Lastly, after coming out of retirement and putting on a show at the Arnold Classic, Jon North just hit 160 kg in the snatch for the first time in quite some time.  (352 pounds!!!)  This is how a competition should look.

Jon at the Arnold

Jon hitting 160

Why Me?

If you have been alive for more than a few minutes, you have probably either uttered or thought these words: “why me?”  It usually follows some form of “bad luck” or unfortunate occurrence. You are driving back from a friend’s house in the rain and your tire goes flat.  Why me?!  What about that Christmas-time flu?  Gifts are being opened and you are trying to keep your eggnog down.  Why me?!  Since this blog is dedicated to things related to training, I feel compelled to provide an example from that facet of life.  Last November, I was poised to lift in a weightlifting meet that I had been exclusively training for, for almost a year.  Six days out I was doing some light lifts and strained my hamstring and had to sit it out.  Why me?!  I think you get the point, so I will move on.  There are some fundamental flaws in this line of thinking.  The first mistaken notion is that you have it worse than everyone else… wrong.  We are all engaged in this relentless push through life.  Do some have it worse than others through no fault of their own, sure.  But it is not you.  You were probably not born in the concentration camp that is North Korea, or had to fight off sharks in the Pacific with just a toothbrush.  Someone always has it worse than you.  The second flaw in this mindset is that it is typically used as a one-way street.  Have you ever had something that is “too good” for you?  Have you ever gotten the lucky parking spot, or just missed being in a wreck, or caught Smokey and the Bandit right at the beginning?  Upon seeing Burt Reynolds lying in the hammock, or swerving out of a car accident, did you ask, why me?  You probably did not.  Most of us don’t think this way, but it is a good practice.  You see, in this life (to use a cliché) you have to take the good with the bad.  Unfortunately we all get to share both of them.  Do you deserve the good stuff more than the bad stuff?  Probably not.  So try it on for size, the next time you don’t get a flat tire in the rain, or don’t get the flu, or do get to lift in the big meet, try asking the question: why me, why am I so lucky?  

The Back Squat Conundrum (High bar vs Low Bar)

There is a huge argument about why the US doesn’t compete that well at the world level in weightlifting.  This is a broad subject that I will wade into another time.  In the meantime, I will touch on one aspect of the equation.

Weightlifting, like other strength sports, requires technique proficiency and… strength.  Arguably the best strength building movement for weightlifting, aside from the movements themselves, is the back squat.  This is where, for some reason, controversy begins.  How should I squat?  For those that don’t know, there are typically a couple of different bar placements that are used: the high bar and low bar positions. 

Low Bar Back Squat

 High Bar Back Squat

As you can see, the high bar version allows for a more upright torso and more depth.  So why back squat?  Answer… to get the hips strong for the snatch, and more so the clean, and to some extent, the jerk.  The easy way to examine which version of the back squat more closely mimics the positions of the lifts.

Snatch

Clean

The dip of the Jerk

As you can see, an upright torso is a must to lift maximum weight in weightlifting.  Therefore, if you have to spend precious time and energy squatting, it makes a lot of sense to work similar positions to those of your barbell sport.  There is no question that low bar back squatting with its limited knee flexion will make your hips stronger.  Its limitations are its lack of depth and upright posture.  This is why the high bar version, with its depth and upright posture will carryover better to the sport of weightlifting.  

Things You Should Watch

Rich Froning looks like a guy that has worked on his technique.  He is also the fittest man on Earth two years in a row.

This is two great minds in the world of human movement: Gray Cook and Kelly Starrett.