Another thing to take into account is that Travis is no kid anymore. I would guess he is in his mid-30s. Most of these guys make their first step onto the platform at the Olympics by their mid-20s. That’s one interesting thing about this sport compared to powerlifting. The many of the greatest powerlifters have done their best after age 35, 40, even 45. WRs in weightlifting seem to be coming from guys that still get carded at bars. Never say never, but my hunch is that a guy who isn’t hitting soem crazy numbers by his late 20s ain’t going to Olympics.
[quote]undeadlift wrote:
I remember Louie Simmons saying that if he trained oly lifters, he’d turn them into WR holders. I’d like him to train Travis and see what happens. Let’s see how good chains and bands can be for oly lifts.[/quote]
I think Louie Simmons is kind of like the proverbial man with a hammer who sees nothing but nails. I remember his opining that the shortcomings of US weightlifters on the international platform have to do with a training model that overvalues technique and undervalues strength. I think he has a point to some extent- but I think his point misses the point.
In the little bit I have trained in weightlifting, I have found that the foundation I have laid from years of heavy squats, GMs, and deads has done little to nothing for me in WLing. Guys that are weak, young and fast p-own me all the time in the gym. The sport has little to do with strength. Sure- I can’t hurt a WLer to be stronger- but it may not do shit for his two-lift total.
[quote]Pinto wrote:
Another thing to take into account is that Travis is no kid anymore. I would guess he is in his mid-30s. Most of these guys make their first step onto the platform at the Olympics by their mid-20s. That’s one interesting thing about this sport compared to powerlifting. The many of the greatest powerlifters have done their best after age 35, 40, even 45. WRs in weightlifting seem to be coming from guys that still get carded at bars. Never say never, but my hunch is that a guy who isn’t hitting soem crazy numbers by his late 20s ain’t going to Olympics. [/quote]
Indeed. Most OLifters burn out as it is hard to keep that level of intensity in training as you age. Most start young, as in sub 10yrs and then they are smashing out ridiculous weights by thime they are 16.
In the Eastern European countries, they have a bunch of kids that Snatch 2X BODYWEIGHT and they are BARELY 16!
There was one guy that was 38 that medal at the 07 Worlds in fact. But everyone are mainly in their 20’s. But you don’t find many lifters in their late 20’s medalling.
[quote]Pinto wrote:
undeadlift wrote:
I remember Louie Simmons saying that if he trained oly lifters, he’d turn them into WR holders. I’d like him to train Travis and see what happens. Let’s see how good chains and bands can be for oly lifts.
I think Louie Simmons is kind of like the proverbial man with a hammer who sees nothing but nails. I remember his opining that the shortcomings of US weightlifters on the international platform have to do with a training model that overvalues technique and undervalues strength. I think he has a point to some extent- but I think his point misses the point.
In the little bit I have trained in weightlifting, I have found that the foundation I have laid from years of heavy squats, GMs, and deads has done little to nothing for me in WLing. Guys that are weak, young and fast p-own me all the time in the gym. The sport has little to do with strength. Sure- I can’t hurt a WLer to be stronger- but it may not do shit for his two-lift total. [/quote]
Well thats where your wrong. Your issue was the lack of technique. If you had 7000hrs (a number somehow recognised with being an ‘elite’ OLifter) you would be able to utlise your strength to lift more weight.
At the top level it comes down to speed, balls and strength. Technique by 5000hrs+ won’t improve much. If the Jerk was in front you bottled it a tiny bit and thats why you failed it. You have been doing this for 7000hrs+ and you miss it. You bottled it a bit because the weight was f0cking heavy. If it went behind, you didn’t bottle it, but had the wrong path for the bar.
I gurantee if you put down 4000-7000hrs of training and you had even an okay coach for most of that time your technique should be pretty solid. Few technical if problems.
My little bro started at 12yrs old. Now he is nearly 13 and has done 38/48kg @ 44.6kg. He use to train 2x a week but, trains 3x a week now. He Cleaned 50kg but missed the Jerk. Front squats 55kg for 6reps also! He is an Olympic hopeful if he keeps up with his training. He is already British no1 for his age and weight class.
Koing
[quote]Koing wrote:
Indeed. Most OLifters burn out as it is hard to keep that level of intensity in training as you age. Most start young, as in sub 10yrs and then they are smashing out ridiculous weights by thime they are 16.
In the Eastern European countries, they have a bunch of kids that Snatch 2X BODYWEIGHT and they are BARELY 16!
There was one guy that was 38 that medal at the 07 Worlds in fact. But everyone are mainly in their 20’s. But you don’t find many lifters in their late 20’s medalling.
Well thats where your wrong. Your issue was the lack of technique. If you had 7000hrs (a number somehow recognised with being an ‘elite’ OLifter) you would be able to utlise your strength to lift more weight.
At the top level it comes down to speed, balls and strength. Technique by 5000hrs+ won’t improve much. If the Jerk was in front you bottled it a tiny bit and thats why you failed it. You have been doing this for 7000hrs+ and you miss it. You bottled it a bit because the weight was f0cking heavy. If it went behind, you didn’t bottle it, but had the wrong path for the bar.
I gurantee if you put down 4000-7000hrs of training and you had even an okay coach for most of that time your technique should be pretty solid. Few technical if problems.
Koing[/quote]
Do you think it is really injuries or is it more a loss of speed and agility? I have seen first-hand elite powerlifters getting stronger (both in and out of lifitng gear) through their 30s and 40s in spite of periodic and repeated injuries.
You’re right about my technique. It sucks total ass. The 7000 hrs thing is pretty scary. Assuming two hour workouts, four times a week, 52 weeks a year, that’s a bit less than 17 years. If I start now and quit this powerlifting stuff, I guess I could be there by the time I am 50! Awesome fucking lifting by your little bro, by the way, he’s got some freaky protential.
[quote]Pinto wrote:
Another thing to take into account is that Travis is no kid anymore. I would guess he is in his mid-30s. Most of these guys make their first step onto the platform at the Olympics by their mid-20s. That’s one interesting thing about this sport compared to powerlifting. The many of the greatest powerlifters have done their best after age 35, 40, even 45. WRs in weightlifting seem to be coming from guys that still get carded at bars. Never say never, but my hunch is that a guy who isn’t hitting soem crazy numbers by his late 20s ain’t going to Olympics. [/quote]
just to be devils advocate : norbert Schemansky, first man (and american) to get 4 medals in the olympics did some of his best lifts past his 40’s! And he had back surgeries as well.
The guy who won the 69kg class in 2007 was 38 or so.
but koing is right, most of these elite lifters start at young ages. Willy Moser (James Mosers brother) is lifting now at like 10 years old. Pete Musa started when he was young (8 or 9) and he is know the top 69kg lifter for his age (16) and in the top 6 among the seniors!
and to give you a good point, Suleymanglu jerked 3x bw at the age of 15 or 16.
I think Louie is full of himself with that statement. Rarely do you EVER see an elite lifter, even an American miss a lift because he got pinned or couldn’t pull the weight high enough. Generally if a lifter can rack the bar on either lift, they can stand up with it. Hell, I saw a fellow lifter miss snatching 125kg today 7 or 8 times. All mental.
[quote]romanaz wrote:
I think Louie is full of himself with that statement. Rarely do you EVER see an elite lifter, even an American miss a lift because he got pinned or couldn’t pull the weight high enough. Generally if a lifter can rack the bar on either lift, they can stand up with it. Hell, I saw a fellow lifter miss snatching 125kg today 7 or 8 times. All mental. [/quote]
The mental aspect is huge yes. But here’s one way to think of it:
I want to clean 250 pounds.
If I can squat 3000 pounds, then a)I will be very mentally confident and b) Mental confidence/concetration won’t matter much as I am ridiculously strong and can “brute strength” the weight up more.
If I can squat 300 pounds, then a) I won’t be very mentally confident as I can barely lift more than that, and b) I better get my form PERFECT every time or else I will miss the lift, because I have the bare minimum strength it takes to clean 250 pounds.
Yes, I know it’s a ridiculous exaggeration…
Edit: I am not trying to say I’m right and you’re wrong. Just putting forth what I think is a good argument for strength in OL.
most people are limited by their pull strenght over squat strength, or as far as I see thats how it goes.
If a guy can squat 500lbs, he should imo be able to muscle his way to 250 or even 300 for a clean.
[quote]Hanley wrote:
Exactly. As much as I admire Louie, I think saying that is an incredibly arrogant thing to say. Maybe he has some grand plan as to how to refine training and make it more effective, but there’s really a hell of a lot less scope for ME lifts and cycles within Oly lifting than there is powerlifting.
The majority of misses that I’ve seen occur is because the bar is out of position when a snatch is caught or a jerk is driven upwards. It doesn’t seem to be an issue of not being able to pull or push the bar high enough. I don’t see how bands and chains will solve that problem. Maybe someone can explain…?[/quote]
Have to disagree with you and Pinto here, Hanley. In my case, I dont clean regularly. It’s a fun lift, but rarely if ever in strongman do you see a traditional olympic clean. My technique is self-taught, for whatever that’s worth. (I’ve always been puzzled when I hear how difficult it is to learn the lift. Grab bar - pull really friggin - come under teh bar right as it reaches the top. My technique istn perfect: i dont get my hips through at the top, Maybe my shoulders arent in the righ tplace, or my "first pull doesnt put me in teh proper position, blah, blah, blah, but this isnt rocket science) Anyway, point being that my best clean used to be 250. I did NO cleans (to be fair, i was doing a fair bit of continental cleans with a mixed grip on axle presses) for over a year, but made big improvements in my deadlift. The result was a 50 lb PR and a 300 lb clean. Ironically my biggest gains in other lifts come when i focus on those lifts but with this “highly technical lift” I walked away from it for months and all of a sudden - voila.
I think a lot of the problem too are the peopel who just dont get Westside ideas. I read a kids post that said somethign to the effect of “I train westside-style (only style because I dont have chains and bands.)” Chains and bands arent friggin westside. As Dave Tate has written on more than one occasion, guys were getting strong at westside before the chains and bands ever got there. My point in all this is that it sbeen a while sinc ei read louies “If I trained OLers” article, but I dont think he ever advocates bandsa and chains on the classical lifts. I must admit, travis’ usage of the chains and bands does surprise me. The point of the chains and bands is to allow a PLer to accelerate fully through a lift that he would normally have to decelerate and stop - instead having the increased resistance from the bands/chains do the decelerating. With cleans and snatches you are already trying to acclerate throughout the lift and it’s gravity that decelerates it and brings it to a stop
You know all these crazy young kids pulling numbers like this is making me wonder about the possible damaging effects of early specialization. the Soviets and a number of other east europeans wrote about the dangers of early specialization in weightlifting or any other sport. They started light lifting around 12, but never specialized in the competitive lifts then, instead emphasizing gymnastics and a variety of movement patterns. They studied the effects of jumping to specialize early in life and concluded that it lead to early burnout and stagnation past 18-23-ish, whereas the later specialization led to achievement of high sport results past 30.
This really makes me wonder if that is one of the problems facing USA weightlifting–early burnout via specialization too soon.
[quote]Hanley wrote:
romanaz wrote:
undeadlift wrote:
I remember Louie Simmons saying that if he trained oly lifters, he’d turn them into WR holders. I’d like him to train Travis and see what happens. Let’s see how good chains and bands can be for oly lifts.
I can see chains and bands good for the squats and pulls, but not for the full lifts. Snatching against bands just looks wrong and dangerous. Good idea, but needs refinement.
Exactly. As much as I admire Louie, I think saying that is an incredibly arrogant thing to say. Maybe he has some grand plan as to how to refine training and make it more effective, but there’s really a hell of a lot less scope for ME lifts and cycles within Oly lifting than there is powerlifting.
The majority of misses that I’ve seen occur is because the bar is out of position when a snatch is caught or a jerk is driven upwards. It doesn’t seem to be an issue of not being able to pull or push the bar high enough. I don’t see how bands and chains will solve that problem. Maybe someone can explain…?[/quote]
My point exactly. If chains and bands work well for PL, it doesn’t mean it can do the same for oly lifts. I don’t get why Travis is using chains in his oly lifting. These things simply wreck form, a very important part of oly lifts. I also don’t get why Louie would assume that his expertise would carryover to oly lifting.
In any case, if Louie, Travis or anybody finds an effective way to increase proficiency in oly lifts using chains or bands, that would be really interesting.
[quote]KBCThird wrote:
I dont think he [Louie] ever advocates bandsa and chains on the classical lifts.[/quote]
I think he did. In his seminar thingy, he mentioned about Travis using chains and bands in oly lifting. It seems like he’s supporting the strategy.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
You know all these crazy young kids pulling numbers like this is making me wonder about the possible damaging effects of early specialization. the Soviets and a number of other east europeans wrote about the dangers of early specialization in weightlifting or any other sport. They started light lifting around 12, but never specialized in the competitive lifts then, instead emphasizing gymnastics and a variety of movement patterns. They studied the effects of jumping to specialize early in life and concluded that it lead to early burnout and stagnation past 18-23-ish, whereas the later specialization led to achievement of high sport results past 30.
This really makes me wonder if that is one of the problems facing USA weightlifting–early burnout via specialization too soon.[/quote]
good point with early specialization. The Russians don’t start kids off as early as some other countries, like Turkey or Bulgaria. Hence why the top 77kg lifter is fresh out of high school w/ a 202.5 CJ in 2004 Olympics while a Junior!
[quote]KBCThird wrote:
Have to disagree with you and Pinto here, Hanley. In my case, I dont clean regularly. It’s a fun lift, but rarely if ever in strongman do you see a traditional olympic clean. My technique is self-taught, for whatever that’s worth. (I’ve always been puzzled when I hear how difficult it is to learn the lift. Grab bar - pull really friggin - come under teh bar right as it reaches the top. My technique istn perfect: i dont get my hips through at the top, Maybe my shoulders arent in the righ tplace, or my "first pull doesnt put me in teh proper position, blah, blah, blah, but this isnt rocket science) Anyway, point being that my best clean used to be 250. I did NO cleans (to be fair, i was doing a fair bit of continental cleans with a mixed grip on axle presses) for over a year, but made big improvements in my deadlift. The result was a 50 lb PR and a 300 lb clean. Ironically my biggest gains in other lifts come when i focus on those lifts but with this “highly technical lift” I walked away from it for months and all of a sudden - voila.
I think a lot of the problem too are the peopel who just dont get Westside ideas. I read a kids post that said somethign to the effect of “I train westside-style (only style because I dont have chains and bands.)” Chains and bands arent friggin westside. As Dave Tate has written on more than one occasion, guys were getting strong at westside before the chains and bands ever got there. My point in all this is that it sbeen a while sinc ei read louies “If I trained OLers” article, but I dont think he ever advocates bandsa and chains on the classical lifts. I must admit, travis’ usage of the chains and bands does surprise me. The point of the chains and bands is to allow a PLer to accelerate fully through a lift that he would normally have to decelerate and stop - instead having the increased resistance from the bands/chains do the decelerating. With cleans and snatches you are already trying to acclerate throughout the lift and it’s gravity that decelerates it and brings it to a stop[/quote]
I think you raised a good point and I have experienced this myself. Over the last three or four years, I’ve gone from squatting 400 in belt/wraps and pulling 500 to squatting 600 and pulling 700. Along the way, I seldom trained cleans (or snatches). However I went from a 185 C&J to a 275 C&J. Sounds good right? However, I know guys that started training WLing in earnest three of four years ago that still can’t pull 500, but are par with me on their C&J. Also, to add 200 lbs to each powerlift (and 90 to my C&J), I had to gain about 50 or 60 lbs. These WLer kids are still stickmen that have made small gains in weight. Getting big and strong has helped my o-lifts, but it has been a rather inefficient way to get there.
I liken this to shirted vs. unequipped benching. Training your raw bench will make you strong- but it will be an inefficient way of training your shirted bench. Training your shirted bench should involve pretty much putting on a shirt every week hand honing your technique- learning the groove, learning to touch, learning to set up right every time. Rotating various raw ME bench lifts and doing speed work has proven not be the ticket to a freaky equipped bench for most lifters.
[quote]Pinto wrote:
I think you raised a good point and I have experienced this myself. Over the last three or four years, I’ve gone from squatting 400 in belt/wraps and pulling 500 to squatting 600 and pulling 700. Along the way, I seldom trained cleans (or snatches). However I went from a 185 C&J to a 275 C&J. Sounds good right? However, I know guys that started training WLing in earnest three of four years ago that still can’t pull 500, but are par with me on their C&J. Also, to add 200 lbs to each powerlift (and 90 to my C&J), I had to gain about 50 or 60 lbs. These WLer kids are still stickmen that have made small gains in weight. Getting big and strong has helped my o-lifts, but it has been a rather inefficient way to get there.
[/quote]
Oh, for sure. Let me clarify, I’m not saying that a guy who can pull 600 will be a better OLer than a guy who can pull 500, not necessarily anyway. But I do believe that for MOST people, if you can improve their base levels of strength, that will translate into them being better OLers THAN THEY THEMSELVES HAD PREVIOUSLY been. Those guys who were still pulling 5 and beating you at the O-lifts when you were pulling 7 - for any variety of reasons, better explosiveness, flexibility, a higher awareness of where their body is positioned at different times during the lift - I’d like to see how they could do when if they got their pull up to 6 or 7.
Undeadlift - I was originally referring to the article that louie himself wrote. I do vaguely remember Louie mentioning travis on the NTCA video, and actually, I just remembered that on one of the westside videos - I think the reactive method - louie advocates reverse band cleans (since I’m guessing a good segment of the viewing population was probably S&C coaches.) However, what I this misses the point on is that Louie is always willing to try new stuff - throw it against the wall and see what sticks. How much of the earlier westside articles sound like what they do today? The framework is still there, but a LOT has changed - lower %s in the DE lifts, less GM work for a max, more rep work … this is of course all supposition, but I htink that if Louie gave the bands a shot and they werent working, he’d ditch em and try something else, rather than continue to bang his head against teh wall
[quote]Pinto wrote:
Do you think it is really injuries or is it more a loss of speed and agility? I have seen first-hand elite powerlifters getting stronger (both in and out of lifitng gear) through their 30s and 40s in spite of periodic and repeated injuries.
You’re right about my technique. It sucks total ass. The 7000 hrs thing is pretty scary. Assuming two hour workouts, four times a week, 52 weeks a year, that’s a bit less than 17 years. If I start now and quit this powerlifting stuff, I guess I could be there by the time I am 50! Awesome fucking lifting by your little bro, by the way, he’s got some freaky protential.
[/quote]
It’s speed dropping down in your late 20’s and early 30’s. You can get stronger but your speed drops and few people manage to retain it.
I don’t think it’s much to do with losing flexibility. Once you have good flexibility and keep training you stay supple. It would take quite a long time of inactivity to lose your flexibility.
It’s much like World Class sprinters. You don’t get many after the late 20’s.
BUT that isn’t to say you can’t lift PB’s past your 30’s. The Elite guys started when they were young and probably reached their maximums before their speed affected them. But for most guys you can lift well in to your 40’s imo and should be hitting PBs. You will just have to train less and have longer recoveries. I think I can hit Pb’s in to my late 30’s but I only started at 15. My little bro started at 12 and should be okay. It is a long time to commit 20yrs of training!
Koing
[quote]romanaz wrote:
Pinto wrote:
Another thing to take into account is that Travis is no kid anymore. I would guess he is in his mid-30s. Most of these guys make their first step onto the platform at the Olympics by their mid-20s. That’s one interesting thing about this sport compared to powerlifting. The many of the greatest powerlifters have done their best after age 35, 40, even 45. WRs in weightlifting seem to be coming from guys that still get carded at bars. Never say never, but my hunch is that a guy who isn’t hitting soem crazy numbers by his late 20s ain’t going to Olympics.
just to be devils advocate : norbert Schemansky, first man (and american) to get 4 medals in the olympics did some of his best lifts past his 40’s! And he had back surgeries as well.
The guy who won the 69kg class in 2007 was 38 or so.
but koing is right, most of these elite lifters start at young ages. Willy Moser (James Mosers brother) is lifting now at like 10 years old. Pete Musa started when he was young (8 or 9) and he is know the top 69kg lifter for his age (16) and in the top 6 among the seniors!
and to give you a good point, Suleymanglu jerked 3x bw at the age of 15 or 16.
I think Louie is full of himself with that statement. Rarely do you EVER see an elite lifter, even an American miss a lift because he got pinned or couldn’t pull the weight high enough. Generally if a lifter can rack the bar on either lift, they can stand up with it. Hell, I saw a fellow lifter miss snatching 125kg today 7 or 8 times. All mental. [/quote]
The 69kg class guy is Guozheng Zhang and he was 36 or 37. I can’t remember what month the Worlds were in.
Hopefully I’ll see him win the Gold again in Beijing! One of my favorite lifters 
At the 2007 Worlds this guy in the 85kg class came 2nd. He was 38!
Suley was special and a complete freak show!
Koing
[quote]KBCThird wrote:
Hanley wrote:
Exactly. As much as I admire Louie, I think saying that is an incredibly arrogant thing to say. Maybe he has some grand plan as to how to refine training and make it more effective, but there’s really a hell of a lot less scope for ME lifts and cycles within Oly lifting than there is powerlifting.
The majority of misses that I’ve seen occur is because the bar is out of position when a snatch is caught or a jerk is driven upwards. It doesn’t seem to be an issue of not being able to pull or push the bar high enough. I don’t see how bands and chains will solve that problem. Maybe someone can explain…?
Have to disagree with you and Pinto here, Hanley. In my case, I dont clean regularly. It’s a fun lift, but rarely if ever in strongman do you see a traditional olympic clean. My technique is self-taught, for whatever that’s worth. (I’ve always been puzzled when I hear how difficult it is to learn the lift. Grab bar - pull really friggin - come under teh bar right as it reaches the top. My technique istn perfect: i dont get my hips through at the top, Maybe my shoulders arent in the righ tplace, or my "first pull doesnt put me in teh proper position, blah, blah, blah, but this isnt rocket science) Anyway, point being that my best clean used to be 250. I did NO cleans (to be fair, i was doing a fair bit of continental cleans with a mixed grip on axle presses) for over a year, but made big improvements in my deadlift. The result was a 50 lb PR and a 300 lb clean. Ironically my biggest gains in other lifts come when i focus on those lifts but with this “highly technical lift” I walked away from it for months and all of a sudden - voila.
I think a lot of the problem too are the peopel who just dont get Westside ideas. I read a kids post that said somethign to the effect of “I train westside-style (only style because I dont have chains and bands.)” Chains and bands arent friggin westside. As Dave Tate has written on more than one occasion, guys were getting strong at westside before the chains and bands ever got there. My point in all this is that it sbeen a while sinc ei read louies “If I trained OLers” article, but I dont think he ever advocates bandsa and chains on the classical lifts. I must admit, travis’ usage of the chains and bands does surprise me. The point of the chains and bands is to allow a PLer to accelerate fully through a lift that he would normally have to decelerate and stop - instead having the increased resistance from the bands/chains do the decelerating. With cleans and snatches you are already trying to acclerate throughout the lift and it’s gravity that decelerates it and brings it to a stop[/quote]
Granted it has worked for you so far. I don’t think the lifts are that hard either. I think an astute person that can read and do some research could have fairly good form without a coach. But I haven’t had to do that. I’ve had coaching from the get so so I can’t comment about how hard it is actually to learn with no coach.
You can clean 300lbs which is a rock solid figure. But can you Jerk it? Do you think you’d be able to keep getting stronger and keep lifting more? Say 1.8x C&J? That is a fairly typical number for a solid lifter imo. It would he hard to compete later on if your technique was more refined.
At the higher levels getting stronger doesn’t add much.
This guy front squats 200kg for 5 easy reps. F0ck knows what his best 1 or 3rm is. He can ‘only’ C&J 180-185Kg @ 69Kg. His technique is sharp. Pretty textbook apart from his insane wide grip on the Jerk. Getting much stronger for him, won’t make him C&J more. He is coming to the limits to what has been done in the history of weightlifting!
Koing
[quote]romanaz wrote:
most people are limited by their pull strenght over squat strength, or as far as I see thats how it goes.
If a guy can squat 500lbs, he should imo be able to muscle his way to 250 or even 300 for a clean. [/quote]
If a guy can back squat ~ 230kg he should be front squating at least 190Kg for 1RM, about 170kg for 3reps and be C&J 170Kg!
Koing
[quote]KBCThird wrote:
Pinto wrote:
I think you raised a good point and I have experienced this myself. Over the last three or four years, I’ve gone from squatting 400 in belt/wraps and pulling 500 to squatting 600 and pulling 700. Along the way, I seldom trained cleans (or snatches). However I went from a 185 C&J to a 275 C&J. Sounds good right? However, I know guys that started training WLing in earnest three of four years ago that still can’t pull 500, but are par with me on their C&J. Also, to add 200 lbs to each powerlift (and 90 to my C&J), I had to gain about 50 or 60 lbs. These WLer kids are still stickmen that have made small gains in weight. Getting big and strong has helped my o-lifts, but it has been a rather inefficient way to get there.
Oh, for sure. Let me clarify, I’m not saying that a guy who can pull 600 will be a better OLer than a guy who can pull 500, not necessarily anyway. But I do believe that for MOST people, if you can improve their base levels of strength, that will translate into them being better OLers THAN THEY THEMSELVES HAD PREVIOUSLY been. Those guys who were still pulling 5 and beating you at the O-lifts when you were pulling 7 - for any variety of reasons, better explosiveness, flexibility, a higher awareness of where their body is positioned at different times during the lift - I’d like to see how they could do when if they got their pull up to 6 or 7.
Undeadlift - I was originally referring to the article that louie himself wrote. I do vaguely remember Louie mentioning travis on the NTCA video, and actually, I just remembered that on one of the westside videos - I think the reactive method - louie advocates reverse band cleans (since I’m guessing a good segment of the viewing population was probably S&C coaches.) However, what I this misses the point on is that Louie is always willing to try new stuff - throw it against the wall and see what sticks. How much of the earlier westside articles sound like what they do today? The framework is still there, but a LOT has changed - lower %s in the DE lifts, less GM work for a max, more rep work … this is of course all supposition, but I htink that if Louie gave the bands a shot and they werent working, he’d ditch em and try something else, rather than continue to bang his head against teh wall[/quote]
A good OLifter with a min of say at least 1.5k hrs will lift more if they are stronger. Theres no doubting that if a lifter was stronger they would lift if their technique was up to a level that they were consistent.
Koing
[quote]Koing wrote:
KBCThird wrote:
Hanley wrote:
Exactly. As much as I admire Louie, I think saying that is an incredibly arrogant thing to say. Maybe he has some grand plan as to how to refine training and make it more effective, but there’s really a hell of a lot less scope for ME lifts and cycles within Oly lifting than there is powerlifting.
The majority of misses that I’ve seen occur is because the bar is out of position when a snatch is caught or a jerk is driven upwards. It doesn’t seem to be an issue of not being able to pull or push the bar high enough. I don’t see how bands and chains will solve that problem. Maybe someone can explain…?
Have to disagree with you and Pinto here, Hanley. In my case, I dont clean regularly. It’s a fun lift, but rarely if ever in strongman do you see a traditional olympic clean. My technique is self-taught, for whatever that’s worth. (I’ve always been puzzled when I hear how difficult it is to learn the lift. Grab bar - pull really friggin - come under teh bar right as it reaches the top. My technique istn perfect: i dont get my hips through at the top, Maybe my shoulders arent in the righ tplace, or my "first pull doesnt put me in teh proper position, blah, blah, blah, but this isnt rocket science) Anyway, point being that my best clean used to be 250. I did NO cleans (to be fair, i was doing a fair bit of continental cleans with a mixed grip on axle presses) for over a year, but made big improvements in my deadlift. The result was a 50 lb PR and a 300 lb clean. Ironically my biggest gains in other lifts come when i focus on those lifts but with this “highly technical lift” I walked away from it for months and all of a sudden - voila.
I think a lot of the problem too are the peopel who just dont get Westside ideas. I read a kids post that said somethign to the effect of “I train westside-style (only style because I dont have chains and bands.)” Chains and bands arent friggin westside. As Dave Tate has written on more than one occasion, guys were getting strong at westside before the chains and bands ever got there. My point in all this is that it sbeen a while sinc ei read louies “If I trained OLers” article, but I dont think he ever advocates bandsa and chains on the classical lifts. I must admit, travis’ usage of the chains and bands does surprise me. The point of the chains and bands is to allow a PLer to accelerate fully through a lift that he would normally have to decelerate and stop - instead having the increased resistance from the bands/chains do the decelerating. With cleans and snatches you are already trying to acclerate throughout the lift and it’s gravity that decelerates it and brings it to a stop
Granted it has worked for you so far. I don’t think the lifts are that hard either. I think an astute person that can read and do some research could have fairly good form without a coach. But I haven’t had to do that. I’ve had coaching from the get so so I can’t comment about how hard it is actually to learn with no coach.
You can clean 300lbs which is a rock solid figure. But can you Jerk it? Do you think you’d be able to keep getting stronger and keep lifting more? Say 1.8x C&J? That is a fairly typical number for a solid lifter imo. It would he hard to compete later on if your technique was more refined.
At the higher levels getting stronger doesn’t add much.
This guy front squats 200kg for 5 easy reps. F0ck knows what his best 1 or 3rm is. He can ‘only’ C&J 180-185Kg @ 69Kg. His technique is sharp. Pretty textbook apart from his insane wide grip on the Jerk. Getting much stronger for him, won’t make him C&J more. He is coming to the limits to what has been done in the history of weightlifting!
Koing[/quote]
Koing - not sure whether you agree with my point. In this post you seem not to, but in the next post where you quote me it seems you do? I must be misunderstanding something.
But to answer your questions. Yes, I could jerk it. I’ve continentaled 320 on an axle from the floor and split jerked it. My 300 clean was not followed by a jerk, but seeing as continentals usually take more out of me, I’m guessing I could.
If I wanted to compete, I would for sure work on my technique. 1.8xBW is nowhere CLOSE to where I am now (i did both the 300 and the 320 at a bw of 105kg) so given that my technique is my weak point, that’s what i’d work. I think it’s fair to say tho that there are guys for whom technique is not the weak point. Not that they arent strong, but they could afford to focus on their strength.