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.

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