Life is Relentless, Be Consistent

I have been training for a meet coming up in June for about seven months now.  I wrote last post about the lack of sleep and other barriers that I had been dealing with, that affects training.  This is not to rehash my "troubles", because quite frankly, I have a great life.  I have a wonderful wife and two beautiful boys that luckily favor their mother.  My life is sweet.  However, my setbacks are worth looking at from a more macro view.  So far this seven months of training, I have had a handful of nights  without broken or inadequate sleep.  Sleep deprivation and young children go hand and glove.  Additionally, I have had some job related goals that have interfered with training and brought about some knee troubles.  I bombed out of my first meet, got food poisoning and lost ten pounds, and have dished out more antibiotics to my family in the past 5 months than I thought was possible.  Life is without a doubt, relentless.  My life is not difficult by any stretch of the imagination, but it continually provides me with opportunities to sit in a corner and suck my thumb and pout (which I have done on occasion).  I am now one month out from old man Pan American Weightlifting Championships and am not exactly where I had hoped I would be.  So do I go to the pouting corner, or do I keep pushing forward.  Obviously if I was just going to give up, I probably would not write about it because that would be a pretty crumby lesson.  The best advice I can give to anyone that has a goal and runs into roadblocks (and we all do) is to lace up the shoes, pull the belt tight and put more chalk on your hands. If you quit, you will never know how great you can be.  I want to see how great I can be... not now, but over decades.  As hard as it is to do, you have got to play the long game in life.  No matter how many bloody noses life deals you, keep showing up to fight every day and eventually you will see how great you can be.  Slam bars!!!

Old, No Sleep, Bad Technique

This is a description, albeit exaggerated, of my current training status.  While forty years old is young in the grand scheme of things, in weightlifting it is rather aged.  Especially if your training age in the sport is only about 3 or 4 years... without a coach.  I also have a three year old son at home with a five month old brother waking up a couple of times per night still.  Four or five hours of broken sleep + a 40 year old back + squatting three times per week, sometimes creates zombie status for me.  I knew intellectually how important sleep was to training, but now I have first hand knowledge of how a rigorous training plan is not compatible with sleep deprivation.  I recently tried out an online training program from California Strength, which really was beneficial.   Lots of squatting, position work, and a bunch of overhead work really brought about gains in strength, despite my domestic challenges.  There was quite a bit more volume than I was used to, but I tried the beginner's program in its entirety.  I came to realize a few things.  This would be easier if I was 20, had no responsibilities, and could sleep 10 hours a night... like your typical Occupy Wall Street participant, only without the Marxism.  After giving it a go for several weeks, I whittled back the volume by probably half and still made gains in my strength.  I could certainly continue pressing through the volume, but I have other obligations that are more important.  So take it from me, stay young, sleep all you can and but keep training.  Now some cool videos.

Junior and Youth Weightlifters are Strong

Just take a look at some of these young people and the amount of weight they move... unreal.

CJ Cummings is a 150 lb freak athlete.  At 14 years old he is breaking records for school age kids and beating 25 year old men.  This is an American youth record and darn strong.  156kg (343lbs) from ground to overhead... unreal.

Mattie Rogers breaking a snatch record for juniors.  She snatches 91kg (200lbs) at a bodyweight of 138lbs.

Catching the Snatch and the Clean

Last time we discussed the pulls for the snatch and the clean from my rookie perspective. This time we will discuss the all important catch positions, without which, you really cannot put your best weight overhead.   

Snatch

There are a couple of ways to catch a snatch or clean.  One of them is the split position, which looks like an exaggerated lunge.  A bunch of old school lifters did it decades ago, but no top shelf lifters of today do it below about the age of thirty.  The most effective way to catch as much weight as possible is in a very deep squat. For the snatch, you should shoot for having the armpits facing forward (arms fully externally rotated), which will create the most stable shoulder position. Additionally your torso should be as upright as possible, which is usually improved by better mobility in the hips.  Since most people struggle with a valgus knee position while squatting (knees caving inward) a cue to shove the knees out so that the thighs are in alignment with feet is very helpful.  If all of this lines up well, then the bar should be lastly positioned behind the head where the weight is really supported by the upper back and not stressful on the shoulders. 

Clean

The clean has a lot of the same properties as the catch of the snatch.  The squat should be as deep as possible unless you are a splitter, in which case you aren’t going the medal in the Olympics. The squat should be almost identical with the torso upright and the thighs tracking over the feet.  The bar should be sitting on the meaty part of the shoulders and shoved all the way back into the throat with high elbows.  The hands do not support the weight at all, but are only there to keep the bar pushed back a bit and ready to transition the overhead jerk position. 

So there you have it.  We discussed the pull last time, and this time we worked on how to catch the bar after you pulled as hard as you possibly can.  So go out there find a coach, video yourself, watch the greatest lifters in the world online, take seminar, and by all means snatch clean and jerk and squat.  

Here is what they look like put together to perfection!

An Amateur's Look at the Weightlifting Pull

Weightlifting, like any sport with a need for technical proficiency, has certain positions that seem to be critical.  To clarify, I am not a guru of the sport, but rather a late arriver to the game that has studied it quite a bit in my short time.  If you a want more geeky analysis, seek out actual experts.  I am going to give the novice a few things to look for, from a positional standpoint, to really keep an eye out for.  Use a video camera, in lieu of a good coach, and try to make certain you hit these positions.   In this first installment I will break down the pull from my perspective. 

Pull

Start Position – the start position can vary.  I have seen and tried with my shoulders starting behind the bar from the floor, over the bar, and ahead of the bar.  For the most part, everyone eventually gets to where their shoulders are just ahead of the bar as the weights comes off of the floor.

Below the knee - As the bar is just below the knee, as is true for any pull, the back must be straight.  Additionally the shoulders should be in front of the bar with your weight clearly off of your toes.

Hip - When the bar gets to the hip (or high thigh for clean), this is called the power position.  You should still be off the toes and the shoulders should have moved to where they are now behind the bar slightly.  At this point, the bar should clearly be in contact with the body.  The knees will be bent after having straightened prior.  This is referred to as the double knee bend.

Finish - The final portion of the pull up is called the finish position.  At this point there should be maximum extension of the hips and knees. Some lifters end up on their toes while some don’t.  Additionally the shoulders should be well behind the bar.

Pull under - The last of the pulling is actually where a change of direction takes place.  As the bar reaches its maximum height at full extension, the lifter will now quickly pull himself under the bar to try and beat it back down.  To clarify, this is a pull of the lifter down as opposed to a continued pull of the bar up.  Make sure that the bar is still over your base of support (feet) and not out front of it.

Next time we will find out how to catch the bar after the beautiful pull.  Again, this is just an amateur’s look at the pull in weightlifting.  Just as a quick reminder, the American Weightlifting Federation's kick off meet will be live steamed from Las Vegas on January 16 - 18 with a whole batch of big name competing.  Don't miss it.

Things To Read / Watch

Competition is a wonderful thing.  It is one of the many reasons that capitalism is the greatest system of economics/society that exists.  For many years, USA Weightlifting has been the only weightlifting federation in the U.S.  A Quasi-excommunicated top level lifter, Jon North has now brought this to an end.  He and a few others have founded The American Weightlifting Federation.  If you have been to a USAW competition, you have to be a real fan not to have fallen asleep occasionally.  The AWF is bringing a DJ, your choice of music to lift to, and more of a "party" atmosphere.  Hopefully this will push USAW to improve the environment of its venues.

The American Open was this past weekend and there were some great lifts, even if a few lifters missed the Washington DC meet.  Jared Fleming made a great comeback in the 94kg class by winning gold in the snatch, c & J, total and won best male lifter at the competition.

Appropriate Post Revisited

I have been out of commission for a few weeks due to the birth of my second son, so I have not had a bunch of time to write a blogpost.  So with that being I am going to link to a blog I wrote quite some time ago called Just Pull the Trigger.  It is one that a lot of people (including myself) need to read now and again.  It deals with the extremely paralyzing "indecision".  In the future I am going to go into detail about some programs that I have been tinkering with, to improve my lifting.  But since I am here I might as well post a weightlifting video.  This is Ilya Ilyin in the 2014 World Championships just a couple of weeks ago.  This man recently moved up weight classes, and set a world record in the clean and jerk to win yet another world championship.

242kg (532 lbs)