[quote]Sneaky weasel wrote:
With all the special exercises he proposes, relatively little time is left for performance of the actual competition lifts. I understand that he doesn’t view this as a problem, but in a sport as skill-based as Olympic Lifting, constant practice is hugely important. Additionally, the less CNS-intensive nature of the exercises enables more frequent practice, whereas powerlifting requires more variety to reduce the risk of overtraining. I think Louie has some good points here, especially that American lifters need to be a lot stronger than they are, but his methodologies most certainly do not guarantee increased results in the competition lifts. It just seems back-asswards to me that he would take principles originally derived from Olympic lifting, apply them to powerlifting, and then try to apply those principles back to Olympic lifting. Does this strike anyone else as weird? [/quote]
I actually don’t think what Louie’s is saying is that outlandish.
The bottom line is that the American OLer is weak, comparatively speaking.
Part of the problem is that the developmental teams (or lack there of) at the youth level is ultimately the problem here. There is no system of development. OLing is not a popular thing to get into like it is in these other countries, so we don’t have out best athletes competing in lifting like other countries do. Because of this, I feel it’s sort of frivolous to worry about what these countries are doing with their workouts because it really isn’t all that applicable. I have a buddy that coaches football (Gridiron) in Europe. I asked him about what he installed, etc, and his basic answer was that it was like coaching a High School team with slightly better athletes, so you can’t install complicated reads and things of that nature. Same thing may have to apply here. Get strong first and worry about everything else second.
Lifters in other countries are doing essentially what Louie is recommending for about the first 3-5 years of training anyway (at very young ages I might add). Once they build their general prep up, they start to focus more on contest lifts.
One thing to take note, as lifters strength qualities change, so do the workouts. Westside is getting much more specific now than it ever has been in the past. Currently, the lifters are training in gear just about all the time, and with near contest heavy weights, all the time. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like how the Bulgarians went about lifting, basically the contest lifts plus a few other lifts, and that’s what Westside is currently doing. I would bet that as the lifters adapted, so would the workouts change.
Bottom line is that there could be worse things than giving Louie at least a crack at helping things out.