Tuesday 21 December 2010

Tuesday's tap it in the hole moment--tappity tapperoo!

I have found my weightlifting mojo again and it feels great. To start off today's post, here is a video of a British sprinter Power Cleaning 170kg weighing around 88kg:



I love watching raw power and passionate lifters.

As for my own training, I am effectively in an off season and I needed to do something different to get my mojo back. Here is the reality of my situation over the last few months:

1. I was not getting stronger.
2. I was not lifting more weight in the classical lifts.
3. My positioning was not improving.
4. Running a gym alongside a full time job pretty much sapped my physical and mental energy.
5. Putting myself under pressure to lift certain weights by a certain time actually made the problems worse because the more wound up I got the worse I lifted.

So, these are the main priorites for my lifting in the next two months:

1. Get stronger: I will focus on the Box Squat and the RDL.
2. Lift only three days a week so that I can recover adequately to work both jobs and lift at the same time. The idea of not recovering as a weightlifter in order to force adaptation does not wash with me in my current life situation.
3. Get lots of reps in with the classical lifts.
4. Chill out and enjoy training again.

So here is my program for the next month. I am a week in and I really love it because I know I will make progress and it is completely different to anything I have done before. I am basically lifting using some of Glenn Pendlay's coaching methods for beginners and it is great for improving strength, rhythm and tempo in the classical lifts, and sport specific weightlifting conditioning. Here it is:

Day One:

Snatch: Work up to a top weight and Snatch it twenty times in twenty minutes; you lift every minute and this generally adds up to around 35 to 40 seconds of recovery. Today I lifted 93kg for 20 singles and I am finding so far that my last ten are the smoothest and fluid lifts.

RDL: Work up to 3x3 with a top set. Each week I will increase the weight slightly and improve the range of movement.

Box Squat (14 inch box): I am following the Texas Squat Method and it is delightfully simple. Day one is the volume day and you work up to 5 sets of 5.

Core work: I neglected this too much in the last two years. Laziness.

Day Two:

Hang Snatch: I work up to 5 triples with a modest weight. This is as much positional reinfocement as it is a warm up for the main act that is the focus as follows:

Clean and Jerk: Work up to 20 singles in 20 minutes. I have only done this once so far and it is tiring, but like the Clean and Jerk, it is doing wonders for my timing and overall feel of the lift. Because there is so little recovery, I cannot muscle up the weights like I have been guilty of in the past. Technique and rhythm and tempo improve as the lifts mount up.

Front Squat: Work up to a medium weight for 3x3. This is effectively a squat recovery.

Pressing and Pendlay rows: I need to get stronger and mentally, I need the variety for something different.

Core work

Day Three:


Snatch : 20 singles in twenty minutes.

Clean and Jerk: 20 in 20.

Box Squat: Intensity day of Texas method. Work up to a max set of 5 in the squat. If I cannot progress in this basic squat program, I deserve to be shot. I have every faith in it though. This is my second week and it feels great already.

Core work and fexibility. I will have to stretch every day or else my hips will tighten up and get painful and restrict my movement very negatively. I have been far too lazy with my stretching and doing it two or three times a week is simply not good enough for me. I need to stretch my hips out every day if I am to improve and get my flexibility to any kind of standard for weightlifting. It is currently awful and holding me back; I simply have not worked hard at it enough.

Let me know what you think of the program. I will monitor my progress closely and it it helps me out and I gain from it, it will obviously affect what my following program will look like. 4 weeks on and 1 week download. Let's see how it goes then!

Here is a brilliant lifting video to leave you with:

5 comments:

Bumper Plates said...

Sounds like a good plan, good luck with it.

I like that first video...guy really cares. The second one the guy there should get a job as an extra in a Lord of the Rings movie as a dwarf. Super stocky hairy short guy. Impressive lifts though.

Eamonn Flanagan said...

Is Bumper Plates talking about Murph?

Cedric said...

Good luck Barry, very interested to see how you get on with this, I like the sound of it.

Simple programming is rarely a bad place to start.

andymurphy said...

Hi barry
Programme looks good in my opionion i think it is missing a few important areas. I think in regards the planning i would have a change in volume from week to week as opposed to keeping the same volume for the three weeks and then a deload in the fourth. I think this is one very important of training that i have overlooked in the past. Something as simple as twenty reps in week one in snatch at 90 for example then week two in snatch 16 sines at 92.5 then week 3 12 singles at 95. With this simple progression comes a drop in volume from week to week and the accompanying rise in intensity. I have fouund in the past if you just rise the intensity and maintain the volume you stagnate and burn out much quicker. If you manipulate the volume and the intensity you can keep progressing for longer. Another variation on this would be week one 20 singles in snatch at 90 week two 20 snatch at 92:5 then week 3 16 snathc singles at 95. With this method you get a rise in volume with maintaining of intensity then a drop in volume and the require increasse in intensity. Anyway what i am trying to get at is i think rather than writing down your programme as you have maybe try to get an idea of how you are going to progress from week to week and month to month. In regards the exercise selections i would remove box squat and put in squat (back) instead of the box. If you are going to do box go lower than 14 inch as you will be lower than that in max cleans. I would like to see youu include a snatch deadlift variation as you have an rdl in maybe every second week put in a snath rdl type movement. In regards the 20 reps why 20 singkes why not ten singles and five doubles and you would be able to go heavier than done with 20 singles or whatever variation you can come up with to make the twenty reps in total. Anyway hope was not too critical but you asked for my feedback i will read again later and see if come up with anything else

Love murph
Ps i wish that hobbit was me

Barry said...

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Murph,

These are all great points and I addressed some of them in my latest post. As for varying volume and intensity, I agree with everything you say and it is simply a question of working it out. I have simply written s short term program to give me something different and help me get stronger in my weakest areas. I will see how I react to it and work with Wayne in my long term program in which load, volume and intensity will all be central to its design.

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