Program Chatter: Junior National Medalist Follow up

Junior Nationals Recap

So last month I had the pleasure of coaching a lifter through her first nationals. You can recap what we had done with this athlete up to this point here. It was a great experience for her to be able to travel, compete, and spoiler alert: come away with a bit of hardware.

The lead up:

Prior to the nationals, we went to a State Championship meet and competed as a 49 kg lifter. Her performance at states (54/74) earned her an invite to represent team Florida Elite at Junior nationals, which she accepted. She was so happy to have earned an invite and pushed really hard in training leading up to Nationals.

The program:

To prepare for Nationals, we went to a 3 day per week training schedule, consisting of a moderate, light, and heavy day. We added in more jerk volume as her clean and progressed to a point where making the jerk after a max effort clean wasn’t sure thing like it had been in the past, and spent a lot of time on positional work.

Heavy Day:

• Snatch: Build to Heavy Single for day

• Clean + jerk: Build to heavy single

• Back Squat: Build to heavy triple, then 2x3 @ 90% best on day

• Lower body/hamstring focused accessory.

Moderate day:

• Jerk from blocks: build to heavy single.

• Tempo Snatch + Overhead Squat: 4/5x2+1 @ 85-90% best snatch from last 7 days.

• Tempo Clean + jerk: 4/5x2+1 @ 85-90% best clean and jerk from last 7 days.

• Clean Pull: 3x3 @ 100-105% best clean from last 7 days.

• Upper body accessory (She did a lot of free standing handstand pushups. I had to tell her to cut it out a week before Nationals).

Light Day:

• 3 Position Snatch (top down: power, knee, float): 4x1+1+1 @ 75-80% best snatch in last week.

• 3 Position clean (top down: power, knee, float) 4x1+1+1 @ 75-80% best clean in last week.

• Snatch pull: 3x3 @ 100-105% best snatch in last week.

• Front Squat: build to 2 RM, then 2x2 @ 90% best on day.

The Training result:

Coming into this 5 week training block, her best lifts in training improved as followed:

• 59 kg snatch -> 63 kg snatch (6% improvement)

• 74 kg clean and jerk -> 82 kg clean and jerk (11% improvement).

• 74 kg x 4 back squat -> 102x2 kg back squat.

• 72 kg x 3 front squat -> 85x2 kg front squat

We knew we would need to add in some strength volume, hence the drop sets on squatting, but we still had to be mindful of managing expectations to keep her stress level in perspective. We had deloads in weeks 1 and 5 where we didn’t perform the drop sets, removed a set from all the technical work and pulls, and cut back on accessory volume as well. While I’m very proud of the massive progress she made in her lifts, I’m more proud of the progress she made in managing her stress effectively. I believe that was the biggest contributing factor in the progress on the platform.

Meet Recap:

So 1 week out from competition her bodyweight 51-52 kg. While a large cut, it was manageable. Coming in she had a lot of nerves about competition, to the point of having a minor PNES seizure the night before the meet. We put her goals in perspective to help manage her performance anxiety:

• Get a total

• Get a PR total

• Secure best podium position we could.

She managed to diet down to 50-51 kg the week of the meet and we used a sauna cut to get her to weigh in on meet day at 49.8. There was a lifter registered in our session who had competed the day before in the youth category and put up a great 134 total that we knew was likely a podium total.

Warming up for snatch, her pulling strength wasn’t at its peak. A little around the knee and a little forward, but she powered up to her opener in the warm up. So we head out for her first snatch, and she demolishes it. 55 kg was 3 whites and looked like a toy. We stuck to our plan and called a small 3 kg jump. Her first attempt at 58 was a little slow past the knee, and she made up by sliding onto her toes early, but missed the lift forward. We elected to stay at 58 kg to get our best possible position headed into clean and jerk, gave her a little pep talk to remind her to stay back and be patient in her pull. She walked up for her last snatch attempt and put it behind for a no lift. So we were sitting in bronze medal position with her opener after snatches.

We had said in training the whole block: Snatches are for show, clean and jerks are for the dough. She took a little walk after coming off the platform, got herself right and came back with a fire for clean and jerk.

Warming up, the bar was flying. The speed, the sound, the power and technique was there, so we bumped her opener up to a sure podium lift at 74. She is ready to go out for her opener, and there’s a technical stoppage. The lifter before had been given a down signal for an elbow touch on her clean and didn’t complete her last clean and jerk. The jury took 4 or 5 minutes to debate, before eventually giving the lifter the attempt back, and a 2 minute clock. The whole time my athlete is sitting, breathing, focusing, ready to perform. We knew we couldn’t sneak back to the back to take an extra warm up because we did not know what the outcome of the tech stop was going to be. The only thing we could do was take 4 or 5 squat jumps before heading out for her opener.

She went out and smoked her first lift to get on the board at 74, which was gold medal position in the clean and jerk and silver medal position overall. At this point I knew there was 1 attempt from other lifter to go, and I knew we just opened at 90%. I believed my lifter had enough left in the tank to make an aggressive jump to 78 kg to tie for gold overall. The other lifter went out and made a great clean at 76, but the jerk didn’t stay up, so we had 2 attempts left. At this point we were the only lifter with attempts left, so I elected to go for the win at 79. Knowing my lifter, she sometimes needs multiple attempts at her top weights to get them. She goes out for her second clean and jerk, and gets pinned in the clean. She came off unfazed, knowing she had just let it crash a little. I tell her she just needs to keep pulling until that bar is on her shoulders. She’s strong enough to make this, so lets go win the thing. She comes out for her last clean and jerk ready to go, pulls it super high and makes the clean, but it was still a tough recovery. Standing for the jerk, she took a false dip at which point I knew the lift was no good.

For her first national level meet, I was super proud of how she performed. She walked away with a 2/6 performance that gave her a bronze medal snatch, gold medal clean and jerk, and silver medal total. I made aggressive calls for her to try and put her in a winning position, and she never backed down. In hindsight, we might have been better off opening even more conservatively. She put her best effort in and left everything she had that day on the platform. The grit, determination and resiliency she displayed are what I’m most proud of as her coach. The total, the pr, the medals are nice, but seeing the personal growth she’s undergone this year and what she’s learned from weightlifting is something that’s more valuable than any total.

Program Chatter 3: Where we can't work an athlete into the dirt

Welcome to the third installment of program chatter. This is going to be a long post as I’ve had about 7 months to work with an athlete with a unique condition that prevents the athlete from taking on too much generalized stress. As a coach, part of our jobs is to strategically apply mechanical stress to the athlete to create positive adaptations in muscular strength and coordination, so her condition means that we have had to be very judicious with adding in sets, reps, or exercises.

Athlete Info:

19 year old female whose weight would fluctuate between 46-50 kg with diagnosed PNES (Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures). She had an athletic history of winning a district 200m dash as a sophomore in high school, early childhood participation in gymnastics, and dance through all of middle, and high school, and had qualified for USAW Nationals previously as a youth athlete. During her prep for youth nationals, she had taken a jerk from the blocks at above the American Record for her age/weight class at the time. She had taken 2 years off of organized sports as she learned how to manage her PNES, which she noticed she would have more convulsions and seizures during stressful times in her life: Finals, job hunts, break ups, etc. She has since been pursuing weightlifting as a sport for about 8 months and in that time has managed to qualify for USA Weightlifting Junior National Championships.

Program 1:

To begin, we started practicing the sport of weightlifting 1 day a week, doing as little as was necessary to create improvement as measured by her Snatch and Clean and Jerk from week to week. A typical training session for this time would look like:

• Tempo Snatch x2 + 1 Overhead Squat - build to heavy complex for day

• Snatch - 4 attempts to heavy single

• Tempo clean x2 + 1 Jerk - Build to heavy complex for day

• Clean + Jerk - 4 attempts to heavy single

• Back or Front Squat: We would work up to a rep max. Typically 8/6/ or 4 depending on week.

• Core Accessory.

She was able to consistently add kilos to her lifts using this schedule from week to week and over the course of 7 weeks went from 38 snatch/50 clean and jerk to a 48/63. The following three weeks her numbers were stagnant or lower so we then added in a second day per week.

Program 2:

During this phase of training we wanted to not push her into the dirt, so we would have a heavy and a moderate day. Her biggest technique issues were getting early to the toes in her pull, and an inconsistent receiving position on snatch, so lots of halting and tempo lifts were used and extra overhead squats. A typical week would look like:

Day 1:

• Snatch + overhead squat: Build to Heavy Complex

• Clean + Jerk: Build to heavy complex

• Front Squat - Build to a Rep Max (5 or 3 depending on how far out

• Push and Core Accessory

Day 2:

• Halting Snatch x2 + Overhead Squat x1, or Halt Snatch + Snatch + Overhead squat depending on proximity to competition. Load would be 80-90% of Best Recent Heavy Single (BRHS).

• Halting clean x2 + Jerk x1, or Halting Clean + Clean + Jerk depending on proximity to meet. Load was 80-90% BRHS.

• Back Squat Build to a Rep Max (6 or 4 depending on how far out)

• Pull and Core Accessory.

After 10 weeks of this she won her weight class, and the best Junior Lifter Award at a local meet and in the process managed to qualify for USA Weightlifting Junior Nationals. Following that meet, she had a job change and some personal life stress, and had a few more frequent PNES episodes, so we took about 4 weeks off of training. Coming back she knew she wanted to push for a big total at Junior Nationals, and compete in her state championship meet to enjoy time with weightlifting friends. So far in her prep we have been running 3 days per week most weeks, with the exception of some 2 day week deloads when she felt that she needed it.

Program 3:

Day 1:

• Tempo Snatch + Overhead squat. Reps have varied based on phase, but in general we’ve based the load for this off of 85-90% of a control exercise from the previous week. Typically Snatch x 2 or Snatch.

• Tempo Clean + Jerk. Same concept as snatch. Getting in practice reps at sub maximal weights to develop timing, positional strength, and balance.

• Front Squat. Work up to a Rep Max Based on phase.

• Upper body and core accessory

Day 2:

• 3 Position Snatch (top down) - 75-80% of control exercise. Enough sets to feel balance and rhythm.

• 3 Position Clean (top down) - 75-80% of control exercise.

• Snatch Pull - 3x3 @ 95-105% BRHS

• Clean Pull - 2x3 @ 95-105% BRHS

• Core accessory

Day 3:

• Snatch - Control exercise for snatch movements. Either a double or single depending on phase.

• Clean + Jerk or Clean + Front Squat + jerk - Control exercise for week. Either doubles, 2+1+1, or 1+1 depending on phase.

• Back Squat. Work up to heavy rep max depending on phase.

• Lower body and core accessory.

Don’t want to give away too much of how her states/nationals prep is going but we feel pretty good about her chances to really improve on her numbers and push for some state records in snatch/clean and jerk for the 49 kg class, and possibly get her senior national qualifying total out of the way this year before she ages up. It is important to note she has still had PNES episodes while doing this, but their frequency has not increased relative to before she returned to weightlifting. I am not a medical professional and I’m not going to comment on why that is, but as her coach I’m just super proud that she gets up and keeps fighting to the best of her ability every day.

Want to start your own journey into weightlifting?

Program Chatter 2: Where we leave our favorite tool at home.

Welcome to the second edition of Program Chatter! This is our ongoing series talking about programs we’re creating for athletes. I’ll shoot you straight: I love the barbell. Squats, deadlifts, bench, cleans, snatches, jerks. It’s such a simple and effective tool for creating positive physical and mental adaptations. So what do we do when that tool isn’t in the athlete toolbox or goals for the time being? We work without it. So lets talk about this program:

Athlete 1

Background Info:

25 year old female, ~75 kg. 2 years of crossfit, 2 years of weightlifting experience, but hasn’t trained consistently in about 1 year. She has tracked macros for 3 years. History of wrist pain that has improved with extensor strengthening and shoulder stability work in past. History of back pain that has improved with core/hamstring strengthining in the past. S

Goals

Short term: 5 dips, 5 pullups.

Long term: Lose 6 more lbs very gradually, get better at bodyweight movements like: 10 pullups, 10 dips, 10 pistol squats each leg. Return to regular strength training.

Roadblocks:

To quote the athlete she is struggling because: “Being lazy, not wanting to spend the money.” Upon further questioning it was, the gym she would like to go to is about a 20-30 minute drive from her house and the opposite direction of her work. She’s also saving for her first home purchase so she’s trying not to spend a lot on gym memberships. She does have a membership at a facility slightly closer that doesn’t have barbells or gymnastics rings, but it is closer and available so that’s where we’ll start. To me that doesn’t come acrossed as someone who is lazy, but as someone struggling to balance new priorities with old passions, so we’re going to write a plan that is simple, time effective, and can be done when she has time for it.

Plan Outline

So with improving bodyweight movements, we want to build general strength because it will be easier to do a pistol squat if your legs are stronger, and specific strength because even if you’re legs are very strong your balance can still be terrible. What this works out to will be breaking the movements down into specific components to work on what the athlete is struggling with, and coupling that with general pressing. pulling, lunging to build general strength. Our schedule is going to include 4 training sessions per week to start to allow her time to build her work capacity back up. Lets outline an example below:

Day 1 (upper body)

1. 12 minute EMOM. Minute 1: Bench Dips x 10. Minute 2: 3 count eccentric Pullup x 5 (jump asssist if needed).

2. 4 Supersets of 5 DB Shoulder, 8 Lat Pulldowns

3. 4 RFT: 12 pushups, 12 ring rows, 50 m farmer carry.

4. 15 rounds of: 30 seconds fast, 30 seconds moderate on exercise bike

   Day 2 (Lower Body)

   1. Pistol squat to bench - 4 sets of 10 each leg

   2. 4 Supersets of: 10 DB russian Step ups each leg, 10 Hip thrust

   3. 4 RFT: 10 KB Swing, 15 V-Ups, 25 m walking lunge

   4. 2000 m row

Day 3 (upper body)

1. 3 rounds: Max Rep Dips, 60 second plank

2. 3 Rounds: Max Rep Pullups, 30 second side plank each side

3. Superset of 5 DB shoulder Press, 8 DB row each arm

4. Bike 3 miles for time.

   Day 4 (Lower Body)

   1. 3 Rounds of 5 Self assissted pistols quats each leg

   2. 3 Rounds: 10 Reverse Lunges each leg, 10 DB RDL’s, 25m Statue of Liberty carry each arm.

   3. 4 rounds: 8 Poliquin Side squats each leg, 8 Nordic Curls, 16 Med-ball deadbugs.

   4. 3x500m row. Negative split each round. 90 seconds rest between rounds.

Explanation:

So this would be our week 1. With bodyweight movements we’re going to focus on progressing to full versions of each of the movements over about 4-6 weeks depending on athlete feedback, and then progressing volume. This is a general phase to help the athlete progress at movements they’d like to improve at and build work capacity/stamina. One concept that may not be familiar to all of our readers is the negative splits on the rows on day 4. All that means is we would like each 500m to be faster than the one before it. So if your time on the first 500 m is 2:00, then your target for the second one might be 1:55, and 1:50 the third. The goal is to try to work harder as you accumulate fatigue and get tired.

So there’s our general plan for this athlete’s first week of training. If you’d like to talk more about your goals, then book a consult for free!

Program Chatter 1

Welcome to the first edition of Program Chatter! This will be an ongoing series where we discuss program design for athletes. As this is the first one, I’m just going to dive right in and start outlining the program for an athlete we recently started working with:

Athlete 1

Background Info:

30 year old male, ~100 kg bodyweight. He has been competing in weightlifting for 5 years. Career changes are making it hard for him to keep up with his current trianing schedule, so he’d like help better managing his time in the gym. He has a history of a valgus knee movement, and his lifetime squat PR is much higher than his lifetime deadlift or pull pr (630 lbs vs 500 lbs). He has ran high volume squatting protocols and pulling protocols before, has a self-reported good tolerance to volume and enjoys training often. Their quote from the intake interview is: "I hate not training for more than 3 days.”

Goals

Short term: 270 kg Olympic Total (current best is 264), 220 kg back squat, 182 kg front squat. Be able to make improvements without hip pain.

Long term: 303 kg Olympic Total, 250 kg back squat, 200 kg+ front squat.

Roadblocks:

This athlete’s main road block is schedule right now. He just started a new career meaning that his training schedule has had to change. He had been used to being able to run two a day training sessions multiple days a week, but due to the new job and life obligations that’s not really feasible right now. In addition, to reach his long term goals we’ll have to get stronger while staying injury free, which will take strategic planning to be able to do. He also has a couple of old injuries, namely: Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and a Pars Articularis fracture. Both are cleared for normal activity at this point, but will require some modifications to the overhead volume and jerk technique respectively. Due to the Pars fracture, the athlete tends to use a power jerk in competition as split jerks aggravate his back.

Plan Outline

So this plan is going to focus heavily on leg and back strength. It’s hard to improve your total after so many years in the sport without getting stronger, so our first order of business will be to put together a plan that allows the athlete to progress towards their short term strength strength goals. In particular we want to address what could be an anterior chain/posterior chain strength imbalance. Where the athlete has a history of a valgus collapse and has squatted more than he has ever pulled, those would indidcate that he tends to have more strength in his anterior chain than his posterior chain. To address this we’re going to have more volume on pulling movements and posterior chain strengthening movements than on squatting. After this first phase of training we would assess what the athlete’s needs are: technical development or continued strength gain. To that end we need to balance technique work and strength because the sport of weightlifting is heavily technique dependent. The athlete has been training continuously the past few months but struggling to make consistent progress.

We’ll start with a 6 week block of training. Our most basic micro cycle of the training plan will look like:

Push/Strength Day

• On these days the athlete will Squat, Power Jerk or Push Press, and perform accessory pressing movements.

• To address strucutral balance the athlete will perform core work focused on obliques and glute specific posterior chain exercises here.

Pull/Technique Day

• On these days the athlete will snatch, clean, and perform accessory pulling movements: Pull ups, rows, back flies etc.

• To address structural balance the athlete will perform anti-extension and more compound posterior chain extercises here.

Since those are our two basic days, from there we want to determine how many days a week the athlete can reasonably workout. In the interview they indicated they enjoy training often and that they can reasonably train 45 minutes-1 hour a day 6 days a week. Given the athletes training history, and goals, and preferences, I reccomend they start with a 6 day a week program. If adherence drops below 90% then we would scale back, but again in the interview the athlete indicated they want to train 6 days a week. They have the time, the desire and the enjoyment in training that often, so lets build an initial plan to meet that by writing out their first week:

Day 1 (Pull)

1. Snatch Lift off + Snatch Pull + Snatch, 8x1+1+2 @ 73%, EMOM

2. Clean Lift off + Clean Pull + Clean, 8x1+1+2 @ 73%, EMOM

3. Segment Clean Pull + Clean Pull, 5x1+2 @ 90% Best clean

4. Five RFT: 8 pullups, 20 m death march, 250 m row

5. Four Supersets of: 8 Seal Row, 15 Deadbugs each side

   Day 2 (Push)

   1. Pause Jerk + Jerk, 8x1+2 @ 73%., EMOM.

   2. Pause Back Squat 5x5 @ 67% Best Back Squat.

   3. Three circuits of: 8 HSPU, 20 m KB walking lunges, 40 m Single KB front rack carry (heavy)

   4. Four Super sets of: 5 Bench Press, 5 Hip Thrusts. Each as heavy as form allows. (AHAFA).

Day 3 (Pull)

1. Power Snatch from Power Position: 6x3 @ 68%.

2. Power Clean from Power Position: 6x3 @ 68%

3. Segment Snatch Pull + Snatch Pull, 5x1+2 @ 90% Best Snatch

4. Five RFT: 10 Ring Rows, 15 KB Swing, 20 Cal row

5. Four Circuits of: 8 Weighted Chin ups, 60 second weighted plank

   Day 4 (Push)

   1. Push Press @ 5x5 @ 67%.

   2. Pause Front Squat 5x5 @ 67% best front squat

   3. Four circuits of: 10 Dips, 10 Russian Step ups, 40 m Single KB overhead carry.

   4. Four Super sets: 8 Hip Thrusts @ 80%-90% Day 2 weight, 30 second J.F. side plank each side.

Day 5 (Pull)

1. Snatch: 10x1 @ 80%. EMOM.

2. Clean + Jerk: 10x1 @ 80%. EMOM.

3. Sumo Deadlift: Work to heavy set of 3, then 1x5 @ 85%H3, 1x8@75%H3.

4. Four RFT: 10 Pullups, 10 weighted back extensions, 200 m row

5. Three Supersets of: 8 DB Row each, 15 V ups.

   Day 6 (Push)

   1. Jerk: 10x1 @ 80%. EMOM.

   2. Back Squat: 7x3 @ 74%.

   3. Three circuits of: 10 DB strict Press, 10 Poliquin Side Squats per leg, 10 Toes to Bar

   4. Three Super sets of: 10 Weighted Dips, 60 second Sorenson hold.

Explanation:

So this would be a week 1 for the athletes new training cycle. each week, intensity would work up some degree and exercise selection would change as the athelete moves through the training cycle, so we start light in week 1 to allow the athlete to get used to the volume and see if there’s anything that needs to be changed before the next week. The general progression beyond just getting heavier through the training cycle is going to be: less variation in the complex on day 1, lower hang positions and less hang-powers on day 3, and less EMOM work/volume as the program in general progresses. It is a lot of accessory volume, but the athlete is on a more general phase of training, so we’re expecting to drop the accessory volume down around week 3 of the 6 week cycle. The weirdest thing we have in there is a Sumo Deadlift on day 5. Why is there a sumo deadlift on a weightlifters program? For general posterior chain strength and to address this athlete’s weaknesses. The sumo position should help strenthen the glutes and low back in general, and its a change up movement from the snatch/clean pulls the athlete is performing earlier in the week. Likely the sumo deadlifts would be replaced with a snatch or clean deadlift around week 4.

For load selection, we used a relative intensity progression. For this training phase the athlete will peak at 90% RI, but in week 1 we’ll be working from 74%RI to 80% RI. The intensity loading for the week goes: Moderate, light, heavy, so the first two days are moderate intensity and volume, the next two days are light intensity and volume, and the last two days are heavy intensity and volume. A little wave through the week like that is built in to allow the athlete chances to recover throughout the week while still being able to train often. Overall this should be an easy week of training.

Want a program that fits you? Book a free consult and we’ll see how we can help.