Wednesday's wrath

I only have half a week left in my current program. The squatting is very tough, but I am getting stronger and that is the important thing. I only have one squatting workout left thank God and I will do it on Sunday. 15 doubles is a lot of doubles, but I am getting through it and more importantly, improving my numbers. I trust Wayne and I will continue to go along with his advice. Last week was a lighter week which proved a blessing because I was very busy all week and was taking the Weightlifting Level Two coaching course on Saturday and Sunday.

I have a competition on Saturday week which I am really looking forward to. I love lifting on the platform and I always lift well in competitions. This comp will be used to set me up for London where I will qualify for the European Championships with the needed 272kg total.

Here is the Clean and Jerk companion to last week's post where John Broz gives his advice to Zag for what he needs with his Clean and Jerk. There is also the latet ECB video, so hopefully you will enjoy all of them and you are enjoying your training.

Friday's fruity Snatching.

So. I have made a long term decision. I am now Snatching with a collar to collar grip. Before, it was very narrow and I did not have the flexibility to go wider. I am now more flexible--I still have a ways to go yet-- and I am far more able to get into position. For the first time, I feel like can open up at the start of my pull and although I am not string in the position yet, I will get there.

I worked up to six doubles with 90kg in the Snatch tonight at around 9 in the evening and Murph was there to help me. Without him, I would not have lifted nearly as well. I was too tense at the start of my pull which led to my arms swinging the bar as opposed to pulling myself under the bar. I relaxed completely and then tightened up the scaps while trying to relax everything else. It helped quite a bit. Murph is awesome.

I am also doing my fifteen doubles in the squat twice a week and it is demanding to say the least. Once it gets me stronger, I will be a happy camper. I have another week of my current program left and then I will be on to something different. As I am so busy with my regular job, coaching and alongside Zag, looking after ECB, my training time is limited to say the least. I have to be as productive as I can with the time and cns energy that I have.

Here is something I never published before. This was a present to Sami that I knew he would like. John Broz gave Sami the coaching advice he would offer if he was his coach. Here it is and here is Sami's lift with 105kg that he was looking at.






Here is the man beast that is Chigishev Snatching 210kg and making it look impossibly fast. I have never seen a save like this before and it shows just how strong the man is. He can lift in East Coast Barbell any day.



Here is another awesome lifter. Klokov. Need I say more?

Thursday's tightrope muscles

On Monday I am starting a new six month training cycle and I am really looking forward to it. This week I am trying to get my body to some semblance of trainability. I got home on the Saturday morning and competed after 8 days of laying on my ass in Duborvnik where I was so lazy I made Homer Simpson look like Monica from friends. After the competition, I was even more in a heap, particularly on Monday I have never had such painful DOMS, particularly in the upper back and hip areas. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were simpy trying to get my body back into workable shape again and I will do what I can on Friday and Saturday also. Here are the final three parts of my interview with John Broz:

Saturday's sloppy slip up

I was away on holiday for a week and I got back home at around three thirty on Saturday morning. The Leinster Open was on a few hours later in Crossfit Ireland and it was great fun, but my lifting was not the Mae West--108/132 which is roughly 90% of my best. I had not touched a bar in nine days and I was finding it quite difficult to focus my mind. I still enjoyed myself though and was happy to see everyone again. I am really looking forward to the next two months where I can train to my heart's content and continue setting up and establishing East Coast Barbell. By the way, I am setting up an ECB youtube account and will publish my four part interview with John Broz on it and switch over a few of my other interviews also. Here is the first part of John's interview:




I have talked about Pat a few times now, but I have neglected to discuss his training partner. Rob Adell is a 94kg lifter who is training with the Average Broz club; he is around 97kg and is about 5"7 in height. I have never met anyone like him physically: he is like a mutant shark in human form. The man is a perfect fit for the 94kg class and with his background of heavy lifting since he was 12 and his lifestyle, weightlifting is a match made in heaven. The first assumption that jumps to mind is that he is using, but when you realise his lifestyle and fanatical devotion to nutrition, my opinion evolved.


Rob is only 19 and he does not drink, smoke or eat junk food of any kind. So when people jump on the bandwagon and assume him and Pat are using, they are using a mind set that is completely alien to both athletes. People cannot understand their lifting and this means they try and work out in their minds how THEY could do it and gear is the only way they can imagine it. Of course I will not preach how these guys are using steroids or not, but what people need to understand is that there are far more important things to understand. The problem is that Pat's and Rob's brains do not work like ours. In Average Broz gymnasiun, Rob's lifting is treated as a tragic Greek drama: so much potential that has come nowhere near realised due to the main protaganist's conscious decision to ignore the calling of fate. Neither Rob or anyone else in the gym are anywhere even remotely satisfied with his lifts. Now that Rob has decided to focus on lifting and not football, we will see his results sky rocket.

When he was 17 years old he had Cleaned either 180kg or slightly less after little over a year of training. Himself and Pat started training at the same time and Rob was actually making better progress than Pat, but he was still playing football and actually hardly training with John for about a year. He is back and we will be hearing a lot more about him soon. In an interview I will show when Blogger stops being a stubborn 8 year old girl who just got her first Barbie taken off her on Christmas day so that she will eat her dinner, he was so tired from his week's training that he was practically a walking zombie and was not nearly as articulate as he would be normally. I will put up the rest of John's interviews over the next few days.

Friday's fare thee well moment

Here are the latest installments from my series of interviews where I talk to Pat Mendes, who is training to become Olympic champion. He discusses the physical and mental process of his journey and hopefully you will enjoy watching it.






When people discuss Pat, the issue of steroids is raised every time and what is not realised, is just how much time, effort and dedication have gone into his training. Pat has put everything in his life on hold for the last two and a half years in order to become a world champion. Everything that we take for granted in life such as going out with friends whenever we want, college, romance and even the feeling of vitality every day-- these things are not applicable to Pat. He has dedicated his life one hundred percent to achieving his goals. There is no luck in this equation; every fibre of his being is invested in becoming Olympic champion. Can people like us relate to this? No. Pat's progress is one of the major reasons that people assume he is taking drugs, as is his lack of competing in a tested competition in the last year and a bit. As I said before, it is not my job to explain his and John's decisions and quite frankly, it is none of my business either.

Aside from the fact that Pat is simply a really nice guy, the main reason I conducted these interviews with John's lifters and the equally hard working lifters in California Strength, is so that we can change our perspective on what is possible. Glenn Pendlay and John Broz have dedicated a major part of their lives to the sport as have the lifters I trained with. They are professional lifters, but their mindset is different and Pat's is almost even more intense again.



I will be away for the next few days on a non weightlifting holiday. I can't remember the last time I went without a week of training, but I will rest up and enjoy it. I will be back the night before the Leinster Open on June 26th and I am really looking forward to competing and enjoying myself. When I come back I shall finish off my series of interviews with a John Broz four part finale.

Some of you may know already that I am starting up an athletic performance centre and weightlifting club in Bray. It is going to be called East Coast Barbell and it is around 20-30 minutes from Dublin, depending on what time of day one is travelling at. We shall be opening up around the beginning of July, so my summer shall be dedicated to training as hard as I can and turning East Coast Barbell into one of the best training centres in the country.

Wednesday's withered lifting

I am now back home after my weightlifting odyssey in the States. I trained today and it went as swimmingly as I could have hoped. I was weak as a kitten, but it was nice seeing Wayne and Zag again. I was telling them how jet-lag was not a problem--and then I trained...Uh oh. Here is a link to my first interview taken from my stay in Average Broz gymnasium:



For the first time since I started this blog, I am not sure about how to write about the experience because it went beyond weightlifting. I learned a lot in regards to weightlifting in both California and also in Vegas, but I really enjoyed myself in the process and it was in meeting so many interesting, fun and genuinely nice individuals that will make my trip a powerful and indisposable memory. What people don't understand is just how generous both the guys out in California are and John Broz is out in Vegas. I have spoken about Glenn and David out in San Ramon in length, so I will focus more on John in this post.

People's perceptions of John lack both accuracy and credibility. Some people think of him as an extremist and that all his lifters use enough gear to help them fly. I refuse to be naive enough to igmore the possibility of drugs, but people fail to realise it is simply an opinion, not a fact. There is a difference. Last year, I met John Broz by complete chance and after training in his club, I thought it would be fun to interview a man who loved weightlifting and strength even more than I do. John has dedicated most of his life to both and is incredibly passionate in helping his lifters as well as other people who ask for his help. I have visited on two occasions now and my good friend Cathal Byrd--don't tell him I called him that: it is embarrassing for us both--has also visited him:click here to read his report.

Both of us found him to be a generous and genuinely top guy who is a charismatic character in our sport. I can see how he can rub some people the wrong way with his brash manner in dealing with the USAWA, but he is a man who will do anything for his lifters and he has always strived from day one to set international standards for them; he has deliberately avoided most local and national competitions which bucks the trend to get competition and platform experience. It is not my place to explain his actions and I will not presume to answer for him, but there are answers that that go beyond the presumption that Pat Mendes and Rob Adell are taking copious amounts of steroids. Sometimes an assumption is made that says more about the people making it rather than the intended recipient--the temptation is to use the word "victim" but John and Pat are certainly no victims; they have made their decision and are happy to face the consequences.

I still do not really know how to relate my experience. John helped me technically and I spent a good bit of time both with him and his lifters. People ask me about him and the first thing that comes to mind is that he is just a really nice guy who I get on well with. How great a weightlifting coach will be decided in the future and this is a challenge that he seems to revel in; many of his lifters make similar gains, but with Pat and Rob the starting points were different. Pat walked into the gym with a 230kg Back Squat and a 200 odd Bench Press. Both himself and Rob had been weight training since they were thirteen, going as heavy as they could. This kind of training and "genetics" are incomprehensible to most people. Most people assume that without gear, training twice a day is impossible over the long run. In my interview above, Jessica is plainly not using and she maintains this schedule despite having an injury history before taking up the sport. Sometimes expectations set from the beginning alters a person's thought process and therefore their mental and physical ability to learn. All good teachers and coaches know this. Irish expectations are too low. We all know this and this is why we are making a collective effort to improve.

Over the next few days I shall release my series of interviews that I took with different people who train in Average Broz so that an overall perspective can be gained and not just a focus on Pat and John. Are you going to be one who makes an easy assumption or are you going to think for yourself and reflect on more than numbers?

Thursday's tenor

I was determined to have a short and sharp one hour workout and that I did. I Snatched up to 90% and Front Squatted up to what I want to Clean and Jerk for two singles. I did a short and effective joint and muscle warm up and followed that with some bar work and got straight into it. I have decided to make my workouts a lot shorter by reducing my rest times and simply demanding more from myself. Here is what I did:

Snatch--1x2@50, 50, 50, 70 1x1@80, 90, 95, 100, 105

Funnily enough, what I have been working on the most: my starting position--went exactly what the way I wanted it to. However, as you will see in the video below, I was far too relaxed and that was something I was actively trying to do. I was trying to stay as relaxed as possible, but I will need to to get the back as tight as it needs to be as well as keeping the arms and traps relaxed for speed. As Murph said a few days ago: chest up, back tight, hips in. There is no need to worry about it though, because this was something I tried that did not work out. I know I can easily fix this on Saturday.

Front Squat--3x3@70 in order to do mobility squats. Consistency is the key here. It feels like I am not improving, but my body will learn eventually, I just have to make it. I can feel my joint mobility improving because I work on it every day. I need to do the same with my hips.

Have a look at the video below and let me know what you think. I am really looking forward to competing on Saturday; it is the start of my competition training period which will culminate in the end of May in the Ulster Open. Every session I contine to improve in a variety of ways and that is my main goal as an athlete and a lifelong learner. Constant and never-ending improvement is what I must have.




Most people will hve already seen this but, it is even more awesome every time you watch it. If you click on John Broz or Pat Mendes in the menu to your right, you can read about and watch he videos.

A Christmas cracker--a report from Las Vegas: training in Average Broz, by Cathal Byrd

Our favourite son from Cork--or is it Limerick? Even he does not know anymore--trained with John Broz and here is his report. You may or may not have seen my report of training over there. There is another video in this post also. I hope everyone has had a great Christmas and trains smarter and harder over the new Year.

I recently spent a few days holidaying in Las Vegas. Even though the main purpose of this trip was to holiday, I still thought that I should take the opportunity to train in John Broz's weightlifting club as it's always great to train in a new environment, especially in the company of a coach of the calibre of John as well as some of his top athletes. Two 94kg lifters, Taylor and Rob, both Snatched a routine 120kg while both having injured backs. Fighting through the pain or what? I spent four days in total in Vegas, the third day being my session at 'Average Broz', so needless to say I was pretty fatigued from the travel and the general mayhem of Vegas by the time I started my warm-up.
The following is what I did at the training session:

Snatch 80/1x3, 90/1x3
Power Snatch 60/3x2, 80/1x2
Snatch 90/1, 95/1, 100/1
Clean and Jerk 110/1x3
Power Clean+Front Squat+Power Jerk 100/1+1+1x3
Front Squat 110/1, 130/1x3

I was genuinely exhausted during this session so I was delighted to have made 90% (100kg) in the snatch. What was pretty humbling though was that while I was making a not-so-routine 100kg snatch, 105+ junior lifter Pat Mendes was loading the bar to 190kg for an attempt at a new snatch personal best...

Pat was the first of the 'Average Broz' that I met at the gym. He's a big guy, weighing around 130kg at 19 years of age. After some brief introductions and a pretty quick tour of the modestly-sized gym (two lifting platforms, one set of jerk blocks, a few squat stands and a few sets of dumbbells...in my opinion all that a weightlifter needs, nothing fancy, but more than enough for the hard-working weightlifter) we got talking about weightlfting and I asked Pat how his training has been going. He was very upbeat and positive, even though he said he has had some injury problems with his wrist and a very similar knee injury to my own. He then casually mentioned that he was going to snatch 190kg today, to which I humbly replied 'good'. Pat's mental attitiude is fantastic, he realises that to succeed in a sport like weightlifting one has to shed all ego and bulls**t and train hard day after day. Injuries and bad days will come and go, that's a given as an athlete. Giving in to these injuries and bad days however are just not acceptable.

Pat and I began our snatch sessions at the same time and I made sure to keep an eye on him as I thought that I could learn a thing or two. My session was just a run-out to keep me ticking over while on holiday, but Pat was in it for the real thing. A few sets with 50kg, then 100kg for a few doubles, 130kg for a few doubles, 150kg, 170kg, 180kg, 185kg which equalled his personal best. Then 190kg...five times Pat tried this, each time losing the bar out in front. The first attempt was especially close. Pat was clearly annoyed that he could not make 190kg today, he has been attempting this milestone for a couple of months now. It will come though, of that I have no doubt. With 185kg as a 105+ junior, he is already at a top class international level. I'm sure as he moves to the senior ranks he will quickly become a 200kg+ snatcher, with more to come also. Obviously Pat is physically a great athlete, very strong, powerful and with good technique. With a 320kg-edit: now 350kg-- back squat he has the potential to be one of the best super-heavyweights of all time. But for me it is his mental attitude and application to his training that will take him to the level both he and his coach John Broz know he can reach.

During my session I spoke with John Broz about my own weightlifting and training in general. Like Pat I found that John posseses fantastic mental strength. He seems to be a tough but very fair and understanding coach, traits that can only make for top quality athletes. I especially liked his no-nonsense and straightforward training ethos...if an athlete has weak legs, squat. If the pull is weak, incorporate more pulls in training. But the most compelling piece of advice John gave was to build a strong mind, or the 'mind of a champion'. Afterall if the mind is weak, the body has no hope of becoming strong.

You have probably already seen my interview with John, but it is worth watching again because he talks about what Cathal discusses above:

Saturday's sandy beaches in Santa Barbara

I had a very short and not so sharp 45 minute workout in Crossfit Santa Barbara. Thanks to Tyler for hooking me up and letting me train there. All that I did was Power and Squat Snatch up to 85kg for two doubles and Power Clean, Front Squat and Jerk a single with 115kg. These are approximate weights because they were in pounds, not kilograms. My traps were were a bit sore from my session in Vegas: I have never Cleaned 130 seven or eight times before. Otherwise, I am enjoying the sunshine and am currently in Monterey after visiting Carmel by the sea today. I will arrive in San Francisco on Wednesday and I will be having two sessions with Jim "I am an absolute legend" Schmitz.

Here is a video of some of the lifts from Thursday with John lifting as well as his three athletes. There are some great lifts here, so enjoy and leave any constructive criticism that will help.

Thursday's tantalising Vegas jackpot

I stayed in Vegas for three nights and I managed to organise a training session with John Broz, an American super heavyweight, who also coaches a group of young lifters in the "Average Broz" club. This was definitely a session to remember because I learned a lot from John, I really enjoyed watching his young lifters--they were all 19--and I lifted well for my own standards also.

I have a great interview with John Broz below, and it is particularly interesting because he lived with Antonio " I have Snatched the biggest weight in history" Krastev for three years. Listen to what he has to say and I can guarantee it will have you looking at your own training in a new light.

There were three 19 year old lifters who I trained with: Pat Mendes, a super heavy weighing 125kg who I watched Power Snatch 135 and Power Clean 170; Taylor Smith, a 94kg lifter who I watched Snatch 120 and Clean and Jerk 145; and Brett, a 110kg lifter who Clean and Jerked 145 and Power Snatched 110. This was the fifth or sixth time he has ever Snatched or Jerked. Pat and Taylor have been training for just over a year and Brett for six months. Their power was astonishing and to say they have incredible raw talent is like saying Cathal Byrd has massive calves: both statements are gospel. I have videos of these three lifters along with my own lifts from the session to follow soon.

As far as my own training went, it got a kick up the proverbial, because these guys were strong and that pushed me forward also. I did the following:

Snatch doubles: I worked up to a double with 100kg for a pb. Then I followed it with a double with 102.5 and after missing the second Snatch with 105kg in two sets, I got both the third time. This was an 8kg pb in the Snatch double so I was pretty chuffed. With the doubles, the technique is never as pretty as with singles, but I was happy. John was urging me to be more aggressive with how I turn the bar over and pull it into the proper recieving position over the head.

Power Clean and Power Jerk: I worked up to 125kg and I Cleaned 130 maybe six times, missing the Power Jerk each time due to a slow lockout. I am still not used to the Power Jerk, but it is getting better gradually. John was making the points that I was too tense in the rack position--Andy Murphy has said likewise--and also that I was not being forceful enough with how I drive and lock the bar into the right position over my head.

Back Squat--I worked up to a double with 160kg. I mentioned to John that my legs have not felt strong since I got over here, and he said that this was because of all the walking I have been doing, being on holiday and all. He also mentioned that I was Snatching well because my back was fresh, but my legs were not, which affected my Cleans and Squats.

I don't have the time or inclination to write down all I learned from John, but I will say this: He gives his lifters an international perspective and steers clear of national focus. He plays the old school Ironmind training hall tapes and world championship videos during training sessions so that the guys have proper form to watch. I felt like I was given an injection of adrenaline after training in his gym and that is something that I think we all need from time to time. Do yourself a favour and watch the video below. You may or may not agree with everything John says, but it will certainly make you think.