It’s not. It’s seems much more technical to me
As far as I understand it (and I’ll probably dig deeper after I write this), it’s seems to be a push press that starts with a backbend rather than knee bend.
I’ve always done them with a knee bend first, but I may be doing them wrong.
Couple of thoughts: firstly, lifters all over the world do focus on getting strong. The other thing is, in those videos the bloke is front squatting with a killer weight: back rounding, slow and grinding. It’s no wonder it isn’t helping his lifts to compete with the European and Asian lifters. Anything where the smoothness disappears shows that it’s not a great help in my opinion. You should be aining for power and getting at least the feeling of adding momentum to the weight if you’re trying to improve your lifts.
That said, I’m not sure from what I’ve seen that techbique is that great here and in the USA. Even videos of training, it seems people are using poor balance in the lifts, and the bar doesn’t sit right. When I trained in Varna, Bulgaria yonks ago, people missed lifts in training (a lot) with massive weights, but their technique was pretty much second nature. I think here in the west the emphasis on training techniqueis a good thing, but some of the cues I’ve seen coaches give don’t quite sit right with me.
Joe, no matter who you are, there will be a weight which you can’t squat with good form. Either you’ll get buried or you’ll fight through it. Ian Wilson’s leg strength is transferring over to his classic lifts. His clean strength is going up right along with his squat strength. He recently hit a 250kg front squat at 101.6kg, and also just hit a 202.5 clean and jerk in training, which was a personal record for him. Watching him squat submax weights, his form looks just fine.
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Well, I was really just going by experience, both mine and those I’ve trained with, not all weightlifters of course. Some sprinters and field athletes too. Just that doing slow, grindy type lifts tends to slow up progress more, and takes loger to recover from makig you feel sluggish for a while after in training.
I think most people only do the slow grindy lifts in order to see where their strength ceiling is and program accordingly.
Probably yeah. I always found speed a very useful indicator.
Couple of interesting points IMO, Pisarenko and Akexeeyev had front squats virtually the same as their cleans. Bear in mind Pisarenko clean and jerked 265@123! There’s a great article (and many others!) on sportivny called
Concerning the “Russian
Squat Routine”
That touches on a few key points related to this thread.
Damned right ! Well said. why the hell shouldnt you train both at the same time at least?
i dont know if it is because im from Europe but what i have read here is quite stupid. Does not “matter” how can you squat, the only important thing is how much can you snatch/clean. Because if you have a lack of techique and you are focussing only in power you will fail.
Strength without technique is nothing. Well yes, it will be a lot of youtube training videos doing “gold medals”, but behind it there are 30 fails (and more things: winks winks).
Technique is everything. All rusian/chinese kids are technique monster kills. And because of it the can lift monster weights when they train strength.
Hello
A number of years ago an individual that translates Soviet
weightlifting texts told me over the phone that technique
learned when one is relatively weak is typically more effective
than when one is strong because the lifter does not have the
tendency to “muscle up” the lift.
Strength is integral…there’s no doubt about it. A brutally strong lifter can have questionable technique at times and complete lifts. Although, I feel this is more applicable in powerlifting…i.e. No matter how strong a lifter is (within reason), not having solid technical foundation will DEFINITELY impede on their ability as a weightlifter and cause for a lot of missed lifts that MAY have been made by less strong lifters, of which happen to have much more consistent, perfected technical prowess.
It seems as though it’s popular to discuss the US team’s reason for not being elite on the world stage and I do find the conversation somewhat interesting at times. However, it’s not as complex as many want to make it out be nor is it as cut and dry (one single reason) as some may want to make it out to be either. There are multiple reasons that the US does not perform on the world circuit like some other super teams. Here are my thoughts:
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IMPORTANCE OF AMATEUR SPORTS HERE VS THERE. Pretty self-explanatory in the sense that most eastern bloc countries and many developing nations tend to have a greater focus of importance on amateur sports. The money isn’t there in professional sports (or professional sports don’t exist). What you end up getting are professional amateurs…oxymoron…but, if you understand what I’m alluding to…it’s really not much of an oxymoron after all. The support system that athletes have in a country like Russia or in a country like China is NIGHT AND DAY compared to the lives of weightlifters in the US. Many of our up and coming lifters work full time jobs, pay for all of their own equipment and pay gym dues. They don’t have access to saunas and massages every day nor is their nutrition being taken care of on top of that.
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NEGLECTING BRUTE STRENGTH. Yes…this is where I do agree with your original sentiment of this thread. Sometimes, coaches in this country are a bit too conservative with how they train athletes here with regards to raw strength. Back squatting very heavy and often is valued more in other countries. Bodybuilding work is done quite a lot in both China and Russia. In fact, the russian system employs quite a lot of powerlifting and general strength movements in various rep ranges. Obviously, Bulgarians popularized hitting very heavy back squats VERY often…everyone talks about that nowadays. Bulgarian style has become a pretty common catch phrase.
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DRUG USAGE AND ACCEPTANCE. I’m not going to be that guy that blames our poor showing to drugs primarily. I know first hand that there are a lot of up and coming, good weightlifters who are on test year round and probably other compounds if the situation permits. And, I think we’d all be a bit naive to think that the more well-known, top-tier guys aren’t using assistance. The difference is in how you have to go about doing it here vs how you PROBABLY (I say probably because I don’t know definitively) go about using in some of the other countries. That is not to say that lifters in eastern bloc countries, or in asian countries etc are walking around openly jabbing their asses…but, I would suffice to say that there is more of an unspoken tolerance, understanding etc that it is part of the sport and something that is done by most. Whereas in the states…it’s like we have to pretend that it should never happen and rarely happens, if at all.
Disclaimer: I’m a Canadian talking a bit about the US here.
[quote]facko wrote:
- IMPORTANCE OF AMATEUR SPORTS HERE VS THERE. Pretty self-explanatory in the sense that most eastern bloc countries and many developing nations tend to have a greater focus of importance on amateur sports. The money isn’t there in professional sports (or professional sports don’t exist). What you end up getting are professional amateurs…oxymoron…but, if you understand what I’m alluding to…it’s really not much of an oxymoron after all. The support system that athletes have in a country like Russia or in a country like China is NIGHT AND DAY compared to the lives of weightlifters in the US. Many of our up and coming lifters work full time jobs, pay for all of their own equipment and pay gym dues. They don’t have access to saunas and massages every day nor is their nutrition being taken care of on top of that.[/quote]
Swimming, gymnastics, track and field, wrestling, are all amateur sports for which the US has a vast development system through collegiate athletics and incentives in terms of scholarships, and are all sports in which the US has success on the world stage, just to name a few. Whatever problems exist for weightlifting the US, they are not correlated with problems for amateur sport in general. And I see what you’re getting at with the “professional amateurs” moniker but really, weightlifters in some foreign countries are just professionals; they train full time and are compensated for their performance. You don’t perform, your support gets pulled.
[quote]facko wrote:
2. NEGLECTING BRUTE STRENGTH. Yes…this is where I do agree with your original sentiment of this thread. Sometimes, coaches in this country are a bit too conservative with how they train athletes here with regards to raw strength. Back squatting very heavy and often is valued more in other countries. Bodybuilding work is done quite a lot in both China and Russia. In fact, the russian system employs quite a lot of powerlifting and general strength movements in various rep ranges. Obviously, Bulgarians popularized hitting very heavy back squats VERY often…everyone talks about that nowadays. Bulgarian style has become a pretty common catch phrase.[/quote]
What do you mean by “the russian system employs quite a lot of powerlifting”? Are you getting your information on the “russian system” from somewhere other than Klokov videos?
And while the term Bulgarian training or Bulgarian style has come to mean any sort of training at high intensities, I thought the origin of it came from Abadjiev’s philosophy to eventually have the highest level athletes only doing max snatch workouts, max clean and jerk workouts, max front squat workouts, and dbol. Broz does his own thing, influenced heavily by Krastev, who had his own ideas on what Abadjiev did.
I said it before in this thread, but I’m not aware of any half decent weightlifting gyms or coaches who aren’t actively trying to get their lifters stronger. I’m just not convinced putting a premium on strength at the expense of training the lifts is the answer.
[quote]facko wrote:
3. DRUG USAGE AND ACCEPTANCE. I’m not going to be that guy that blames our poor showing to drugs primarily. I know first hand that there are a lot of up and coming, good weightlifters who are on test year round and probably other compounds if the situation permits. And, I think we’d all be a bit naive to think that the more well-known, top-tier guys aren’t using assistance. The difference is in how you have to go about doing it here vs how you PROBABLY (I say probably because I don’t know definitively) go about using in some of the other countries. That is not to say that lifters in eastern bloc countries, or in asian countries etc are walking around openly jabbing their asses…but, I would suffice to say that there is more of an unspoken tolerance, understanding etc that it is part of the sport and something that is done by most. Whereas in the states…it’s like we have to pretend that it should never happen and rarely happens, if at all. [/quote]
Weightlifting is a doper sport, and that certainly isn’t going to change anytime soon. Have to wait a few weeks after worlds every year to see who tested positive (at worlds last year there were at least 2 winners who tested positive, though I think the administrative process on that is still ongoing). Hell, up here in Canada we had a couple national medallists (one of whom has been competing internationally for us for years) test positive out of competition last summer, and there’s been a couple others over the last few years.
Any way you slice it, the drug situation isn’t likely to change anytime soon, but there are other ways to promote and grow the sport and foster the talent of the future without trying to change the national attitude about performance enhancing drugs.