8 Unusual Olympic LIfting Cues That Get Results

Olympic lifting is one of the best sporting activities you can do. No other type of lifting requires the same level of coordination, concentration and level of detail as heavy cleaning and jerking or snapping.

8 Unusual Olympic LIfting hints that lead to results - fitness, weight lifting, grip, Olympic weight lifting, neuromuscular strength, barbell, intention, lifting, hints, coaching hints, tips

Olympic lifts require coaching tips to develop the right motor patterns

In my coaching career, I was incredibly lucky to have been brought up by some true masters of the game. About two months after my coaching career, I attended the NSCA sports-specific training conference in Anaheim in January 2000 and listened to Mike Burgener teaching the elevators.

I was intrigued by him and fell in love with every word that came out of his mouth (and his unique ability to kill us all with a PVC pipe in two short hours). I immediately went to see him and he opened his home and infinite knowledge to me. I spent the next three years visiting and assisting him with USAW certificates.

Mike not only has decades of wisdom to share, but also The cueing he uses can somehow get a room full of beginners on the same side. It is powerful. You may or may not have heard the following advice while teaching Olympic lifting. I created many of them out of necessity. They are my contact point for almost everyone and I have had tremendous success with each of them.

Keyword # 1: ice water in your veins

Olympic lifting is both psychological and physical. Anyone familiar with the Olympic lifts will agree that maximum attempts can be incredibly stressful and cause a great deal of fear.

Therefore, many lifters want to foam up before a difficult attempt. This usually involves screaming and shouting, jumping around, and trying to fire the attempts with aggressiveness.

I have bad news for those of you who do. Realistically, you want to do the opposite. Watch how senior weightlifters work out. They all have emotionless access to the bar. They have mastered a view of a thousand miles.

Overexcitability interferes with the running of the motor program. I tell my athletes that they don't have to have an emotional connection to the attempt. When you have successfully completed the lift, you will get angry, but not a moment earlier.

Ice water in your veins.

Keyword # 2: commit to shooting your elbows

This keyword is worth its weight in gold if you are working with a lifter whose elbows do not run the entire distance when caught. I see it fifty times a day. Lifters must make a formal decision that no matter what happens, they will shoot their elbows as quickly as possible over the entire distance.

On some attempts you will see that lifters do the opposite. They have almost resigned themselves to the fact that they cannot get the weight and that the arms never snap into place. If this is the case with one of your athletes, you must convince them that the elbows are not negotiable.

The elbows must be automatic and end at speed. Pull your athletes aside and convince them that before they even touch the crossbar they have to do a deal with themselves that they will shoot their elbows. It works out.

Undertake to shoot your elbows.

Keyword # 3: knuckles down

The feeling of losing your grip leads to a guaranteed failure, especially for young lifters. Grip problems are some of the first mistakes coaches encounter with someone just starting out. This is with or without the use of a hook.

In my experience with the thousands of lifters I've worked with, almost everyone naturally stretched their wrists slightly when they grab the bar. If you look at the position of the bar in your hand while the wrists are at any expansion level, the pressure of the bar moves to your fingertips.

Remember to pull your fingertip up. It's ten times more difficult than a full grip pull-up. If you haven't pressed your ankles, use your fingertip to pull hundreds of pounds off the floor. Knuckles Down does three important things:

  • Now that you have to bend your wrist slightly, the bar rests in the flesh of your hands instead of your fingertips. Through the gate you are in a stronger position thanks to a more secure grip.
  • Using a hook handle (as most experienced lifters do) moves a lot of the pressure off the thumb.
  • The intention to keep the ankles straight down keeps the elbows straight for longer.

Ankle down.

8 Unusual Olympic LIfting hints that lead to results - fitness, weight lifting, grip, Olympic weight lifting, neuromuscular strength, barbell, intention, lifting, hints, coaching hints, tips

Left: Right, ankle down; Right wrong. Ankle out.

Keyword # 4: Drive off the floor on the first train

The first move can be difficult for young lifters because they want to clear their knees for the pole path. If we don't teach this piece properly, beginners will either grind the shins with the bar or push the knees back without lifting the hips. Although we go through an entire section that helps these athletes recognize the need to clean their knees, in many cases it still gets muddy.

If you think about pushing the floor while standing with the bar, not only will the muscle coordination be organized that suits the task, but also the knees will be freed from the bar. Lifters have a great position and can switch effectively.

Drive the floor off on the first train.

Keyword # 5: shrug

It took me several years to finally teach the third train. I have noticed that the moment you tell them to pull themselves under the bar, your athletes will inevitably start pulling their arms on the second move. And as Trainer B says: "When the elbow bends, the strength ends."

Until that cue came, I had come to the conclusion that if I only worked with beginners to advanced, I would not teach the third move. We used to teach the kids that shrugging was the last attempt to lift the bar vertically.

Although we understand that shrugging helps to raise the bar a smidge and gives us a fraction of a second more time to come down, we teach that shrugging is where the drop to catch begins.

If you have a lifter who is ready and able to shrug your shoulders – as it should be – you probably have an athlete who is ready and able to fall into his catch quickly. Win win.

Shrug.

Keyword # 6: Throw your bridge in the corner

I studied Baguazhang for many years and was an offensive lineman for thirteen years. The "bridge" (or what we call the rear bridge pole) is this imaginary pole that covers the athlete's back from shoulder to shoulder.

If you try to leverage an opponent in a confined space, you have a significant advantage if you can push and pull to manipulate their bridge to take control of their torso. Wrestlers, Linemen and BJJ fighters will know what I'm talking about, even if our terminology is different.

8 Unusual Olympic LIfting hints that lead to results - fitness, weight lifting, grip, Olympic weight lifting, neuromuscular strength, barbell, intention, lifting, hints, coaching hints, tips

Know the bridge, throw the bridge to get better hip extension

To have a lifter finish his hips, we explain the bridge and instruct him to throw the bridge into the corner of the room where the wall and roof meet. For your information, the platforms in my facility are on the wall near the corner of the room.

You could use a lamp or something similar if your setup is dramatically different. If you don't get this bridge idea, we can all understand the base of the neck. In any case, for a successful catch, we want the hips to be finished and fully extended into a slight hyperextension to deliver the rod.

Throw your bridge in the corner.

Keyword # 7: catch like a mountain

How many times have you caught a clean one just to be strapped down by weight when you and the bar meet? A lot happens, especially with beginners. They spend all their energy pulling so that they soften and collapse at the bottom of the closure.

I tell lifters who have this problem that they have to be a mountain on the ground. The structure can withstand the stress due to the full tension in the whole body. The image of a mountain gives them the feeling of something big and solid. Most beginners think they have a technical hiccup when in reality they just have to think hard. I get almost perfect results with this keyword.

Catch like a mountain.

Keyword # 8: feel your slants crouched

I noticed this a few months ago when I tried to generate greater tension when pressed vertically. I have had several back injuries in the past. Much of the crafting that I do with techniques is based on the need to create structure and stability for my back. The more you obliquely compress the same side to create a pillar of stability, the stronger the overall movement feels.

Ascending from the bottom of the squat, most of us have to chase our center and strength from ass to grass through a very deep squat. Then come to this point, feel for your slants. Draw your attention to and lock your slants to create a pillar of structure for your midline. If you focus your attention on your slopes, the feeling of stability when standing up increases.

Feel your slants crouch.

We all have some bizarre clues to get what we need from our athletes. These are just a few of me.

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Determining Heavy Loads and Understanding Intensity in Weight Lifting

Many books on strength training contain chapters on intensity and their meaning. They describe 100% intensity as the weight of which you can only do one repetition in a given exercise. If you can do more than one repetition of the exercise, its intensity is lower. The more repetitions you can do, the lower the intensity of the weight.

This discussion then inevitably leads to how high the maximum repetitions will be at certain intensities, Any trainee who has reached the intermediate level will be interested because he wants to make sure that he works with the right intensity for the repetitions he does.

They don't want to work with too low an intensity and they don't want to work with too heavy an intensity either. Many trainees become a little too ambitious and are wrong on the side of the serious. The lazybones or Timider does the opposite. Therefore, knowing the repetition intensity diagram is critical.

The relationship between intensity and 5×5

For newer advanced trainees it can be decided that they follow one of the standard strength development programs, in which they go through five sets of five (5×5) each. This is prescribed by Berry, Starr, Ripp and many others – because 5×5 works.

So they take the appropriate percentage for 5 reps for the athlete. This is about 89% give or take, often rounded to 90% on average to simplify the math (as I will do here). They can start at 85% if they want to familiarize themselves with a new program – and that's fine because the improvement will happen quickly.

Then the trainee does 5×5 for the squat, bench and other strength exercises. However, 5×5 doesn't work as well with deadlifts as it can be tiring, but 5×5 works fine for most other lifts.

After about a week, the trainee consumes a full 90%. But it doesn't always run as smoothly. For example, the fifth iteration may fail on the last sentence. What happened? Are they getting weaker now?

The answer is no. Everything is fine, even if the last repetition is missing. It is indeed a good sign. Why? Because it means that their intensity is at the ideal point, How is it so you have been taught that you always do your full five reps.

What happens is that the repetition intensity graphs are based on only one set, not on multiple sets. Her creators have forgotten the important concept of fatigue. We only have so much in the tank for a particular workout or a day before we need to rest. We cannot work 100% indefinitely. We are all intuitively aware of this.

A sprinter can't keep up with a marathon runner for long. Even the marathon runner has to save his speed for the end of the race. This also applies to intensities of less than 100%. The 90% repetitions cannot continue indefinitely either because the trainee eventually shows signs of fatigue. At the last sentence he runs out of gas.

Actual, relative and perceived intensity

This is especially true when the sets have just gained weight. Suppose the PR squat was 300 pounds and he did 270 for 5X5 as recommended and all 25 reps were completed. You can then have tested their maximum and found that they can now make 320. In this case, the trainee dutifully adds £ 18 to his work sets (the £ 20 increase x 90%).

With renewed enthusiasm for squats, they find that the last set may have consisted of only 3-4 repetitions, while the fourth set consisted of only 4. The trainee is not weaker, instead they are not yet used to working with the extra pounds.

On their next workout, they often do a full 4th set and 4 reps on the 5th set. Finally they can do the full 5×5. With that extra weight, they actually got stronger. It only takes a little adjustment time,

Most trainees will be familiar with this pattern when they gain experience. What may require more awareness is what happens within a single sentence. It should be noted that the fatigue factor is effective from the very first sentence. Let's look at the first set of a 5×5. The above trainee takes £ 270 for five as this is the mandatory 90% of his 1RM.

On the first repetition, 270 feel like 90%. This repetition takes a little time for the trainee, so that the second repetition feels like 275. Not a jump big enough to notice a 300 squatter. Then the 3rd repetition may feel like 287. Number 4 will feel like 296 and the last iteration will feel like 300. Further repetitions are by definition impossible because it is a 5RM.

Only one set behaves at 5 rpm. Things get hairier when we go to multiple sets in a 5×5. Depending on the fitness of the individual, the effects of fatigue appear in the last sentences. On the 5th or even the 4th set, 270 first repetitions feel more like 285. Subsequent repetitions feel 300 closer and closer until at some point the perceived intensity is greater than 300. These repetitions fail.

All of this means that if you say 90% sentences about yourself, for example, you have to realize that not all sentences or even all repetitions feel like 90% to your organism. You will actually work with a slightly higher perceived intensity, As such, you have to take that into account when programming. But how can you counteract these factors when planning a training session?

One way is to try the full 90% for all sentences, knowing that the last one or two sentences may fail. At this point, you can continue with the next exercise and hope that your strength will improve in the next session. Alternatively, you can take a 6th set and make up for the missing repetitions if you don't add one or two additional repetitions. This leaves you in a better mood after making mistakes.

Another way, especially if you are compulsive to do all 25, is to start at less than 90%, so repetition 25 is just about successful. This is a more conservative method, in which the perceived intensity is lower at the beginning but higher at the end.

Regardless of the exact method, the working weights are only increased when the trainee can do all 25 repetitions with the prescribed weight – this keeps everyone honest,

Use the drop set

Another way is the drop set method, which was borrowed from bodybuilding, If you feel the last reps are failing, the bar can be lowered 5 to 10 pounds to ensure successful reps. You will still feel like maximum repetitions so little is lost.

The only problem is that the lifter has to stop in the middle of the set to change the weight. This can be avoided if there are two wizards who can quickly remove the unnecessary plates before the last repetitions. In such cases, these plates should only swim outside the collar. Finally, the entire last sentence can be removed if no help is available.

Think of the 3 forms of intensity

This whole article is about the trainee making the difference between the actual intensity (actual resistance), the relative intensity (% of 1rpm) and the perceived intensity (i.e. how heavy the weight is for the organism actually feels).

When programming, the latter is most relevant in terms of customization and recovery considerations,

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