On the other hand, there are some severe limitations to the traditional model of group class instruction that do not lend themselves to holding an effective “weightlifting class.” In a typical group exercise class, the instructor leads the activities by designating the nature of the activity and providing parameters to standardize the activity. There is a short lifespan under which this type of instructional model can prevail for a group of different levels and abilities. Even teaching the most basic exercises for weightlifting will exceed the limitations of the group class model.

Know When to Individualize

So when is individualization necessary? The short answer is it’s necessary whenever it’s necessary. The goal of the coach is to make the athlete as efficient as possible. If over the course of a 10-year weightlifting career, the athlete’s body changes (and it will), then technique will have to undergo slight modifications, and the training will have to be suited to the specifics of the athlete’s training condition.

Furthermore, that same body will have to train differently depending on the point within the macrocycle, and this will require individual modifications. Although the movements being learned are the same, they will have to be modified to suit the specific body proportions and movement patterns of each individual. This means the coach will have to make specific adjustments.

On other occasions, a group made up of individuals with equal capacities who started at approximately the same time may have to modify certain aspects of the same training program. This requires the coach to do some individualization, which may include dropping or adding a set, eliminating or adding an exercise, adding repetitions on certain sets, or changing the number of sets performed in a specific intensity zone. To make these individualized modifications, the coach must have a deep working knowledge of the medium and a vision for the eventual goal of the training.

Group Training Has Its Place

Personally, during the sessions I host, we have 10 or more athletes training simultaneously on three different programs that vary according to each lifter’s abilities.

There is great energy in the room, as many of the athletes are trying to do well on the same training program and are anxious to see how others are doing. The energy is helpful. The lifters encourage each other, reinforce the culture of the sport, generate enthusiasm for upcoming competitions, and share common knowledge that lies beyond the training advice that I dispense as the coach.

The group also maintains a common pace that keeps the training active and inhibits lagging. For the less accomplished, there are role models to observe and performance models to mimic. Each team member is reinforced by the others. Performing such demanding training on a solitary basis will not last as long as is necessary to benefit from rigorous training.

Final Word

The conclusion here is that training must be individualized for it to be most effective, but must be performed in a group setting that encourages full participation and maintains enthusiasm. As a coach I’ve found this to be true in a wide variety of venues around the world. It is the most productive way to organize a team of lifters to achieve their highest potential.

You must coach individually in a group. 

Featured Image: Flamingo Images/Shutterstock

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This is one of those topics that rarely come up in discussions of weightlifting technique, but it can prove to be the cause of problems. One of them is that it may inhibit a lifter from making a best effort to complete a lifetime PR. I unknowingly developed my escapability when as a youngster my parents enrolled me in judo lessons.

In the sport of judo, there is a constant dual taking place in an attempt to place oneself in a more favorable position so as to overcome the opponent. One athlete may be thrown by the opponent but can position the body so that a full point is not scored.

This can ultimately lead to a reversal on the mat. This ceaseless jockeying for position and leverage goes on throughout the match until one combatant is declared the winner or the time clock ends the match. A key skill that is acquired in judo is that of escapability—the ability to get out of a perilous situation, often in a very brief amount of time.

Rediscovering Escapability

So I knew I had this skill when I begin weightlifting. I didn’t think much of it, didn’t place any emphasis on it, and have never thought about coaching it until recently. I discovered the value of it one day, however, when I got into a situation that was potentially perilous.

It was a normal training session at the old Downtown LA YMCA. There were about 6 or 7 of the regular lifters there along with coach Bob Hise II, and we were working up in clean & jerk singles.

My legs had always lagged behind my clean, but anything I could stand up with, I could jerk with excellent elbow lock. This particular occasion was at the end of a week of heavy training and we were probably more fatigued than we realized.

I got up to 110 which was a 90% weight. I cleaned it with some difficulty and did a typical grinder to stand. At that point, I figured that I had the jerk nailed. I drove the weight straight overhead and to my surprise, my elbows failed to lock and the weight began to drop from overhead.

On many occasions, it would have been normal to then lose the weight forward or behind and just step out from under it, but this time it could only come straight down. And it did! It actually hit my head. In a flash, I realized I could get seriously injured if I didn’t do something.

Adrenaline hit and it was a life saver. I immediately pancaked and went spreadeagle. I beat the bar down making sure to release my grip on the bar so that I wouldn’t risk a wrist injury.

On the way down I realized that my head was deeper than it was wide so instead of face-planting I turned my head to the side as I hit the floor. Amazing what goes through your mind in a time of extreme peril.

The bar hit the floor, didn’t injure anything, and just rolled forward barely nicking my side turned head. The entire incident was more embarrassment than an indicator of failure.

I walked away relieved but even more confident in my ability to escape peril.

Re-Encountering

I didn’t think about this at all for much of my coaching career. Much of that time the majority of lifters that I coached were juniors and seniors. The majority of them had begun their athletic careers at an early age and learned many general athletic skills. I witnessed a number of harrowing escapes made possible by the escapability skills of some exceptional athletes.

Lately, I’ve been working with more Master athletes, many of whom have started their athletic careers after the age of 40. They had not been involved in grappling or physical contact sports were escapability skills are developed.

Consequently, they are hesitant about descending in the bottom position of the snatch and less frequently the split of the jerk. In the case of the snatch, the conventional thinking was that there was a mobility issue, but since then I think we’ve all found that many who are hesitant about descending into the snatch can do a proper overhead squat. So it’s not a mobility issue.

My take is that several of my master athletes who are hesitant about descending into the full snatch position are inhibited by a lack of confidence in their escapability skills.

I don’t have a strategy for dealing with this problem. My initial observation is that escapability is acquired during a certain window of time, during the younger ages. I suppose that someone could come up with a pathway to acquiring these skills, but I’m not sure that many of our conventional exercise protocols would be very effective.

I’m just identifying a situation here. I think that any coaches working with novice master athletes should keep this in mind when they are dealing with this population. Some of them may never be able to descend into a bottom position without leaving themselves an escape route.

This will also apply to athletes who have good shoulder mobility but still prefer to keep the head from being placed directly under the bar in the jerk. Ah, well. Another dilemma to ponder!

If you would like to learn more about Takano Weightlifting or would like my help on your weightlifting programs, please contact me through the gym’s Facebook page or site.

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The front squat is an exercise that’s absolutely vital for weight lifters, not only because of the necessity to come out of the squat clean but also because it works different muscle groups differently than the regular back squat.

The front squat is an exercise that’s absolutely vital for weight lifters, not only because of the necessity to come out of the squat clean but also because it works different muscle groups differently than the regular back squat.

Most people doing a back squat are going to find that they tend to bend the torso a little bit forward from the hip, and what that tends to do is it involves a hip extension a lot more in recovering from the deep position.

Whereas in a front squat, you’re able to sit with the torso much more upright and it places much more of the stress not only on the posterior chain in the back but also on the core muscles, especially the obliques and the transversus abdominis and rectus abdominis. Those muscles have to work hard, and they can really only be worked effectively while doing a front squat.

They’re not worked nearly as effectively while performing the back squat. Unless you are one of those unusual individuals who’s got very good ankle mobility and you can sit very upright in a back squat. Most people will find that they can back squat significantly more than they do in the front squat.

We’re looking at numbers like 131% of the clean and jerk in the back squat and 105% in the front squat. Personally, for the front squat, I prefer them to be higher. This will insure that the recovery from the deep squat in the clean is relatively easy and there is enough leg strength left for a successful jerk drive.

As in an interesting side not, there is a reason why I say 131% for the back squat. In the 1950s and 1960s there were frequent incidents of elite level weightlifters being forced to withdraw from competitions because of knee injuries. These types of situations have abated greatly and in today’s world level competition their occurrence is extremely rare. The reason for that, I believe, is the increase in the squat to clean and jerk ratio along with better selection of athletes.

In the late 1970s the Soviets gathered data and found that their best lifters had best back squats that averaged 131% of their best cleans and jerk. As time passed there was anecdotal evidence that many of the top lifters in the world had even higher figures.

As a coach I’ve used this 131% in calculating the target squatting figure for my athletes. For instance, if I am planning on having a lifter target a clean and jerk goal of 120 kg for the next cycle, I will plan all the training percentages for the back squat off of 157 kg or more, which is 131% of 120. This seems to provide the proper amount of loading on the individual, and enables to athlete to stand easily with whatever weight is cleaned.

Naturally there are variations among individuals, and since I work with Americans and we have no infrastructure for talent selection, the variations are even greater. Once my athletes have mastered technique, and their bodies have been balanced through training, we can plan on targeting back squatting weights at that 131% figure.

For both front and back squats, this can be difficult for those with especially long femurs and who are lifting at a less than optimal bodyweight. Others have excellent squatting leverages and can routinely exceed that target weight.

There are a few individuals, like I said, with good ankle mobility and a good upright posture in the bottom position of the back squat where those numbers are much closer.

For most people, they need to work extra hard on the front squat. It’s also going to place more of an emphasis on quad strength than the back squat does. In that way, it works the body differently.

Another thing that it does is it teaches the athlete to rack the bar and maintain a good position with the elbows up, therefore forming a rack that keeps the bar from rolling off the shoulders.

If anyone is planning on becoming an effective weightlifter, most of the time especially during preparation cycles, you’re doing back squats about twice a week and front squats maybe once a week. Then as you get closer to competition, you might change that ratio.

As you get further along and move up into master categories for the squat for weightlifting, you may find that you back squat as much as five or six days a week and front squat once.

Then as you get closer to competition, you’ll probably be back squatting maybe once or twice a week and front squatting twice a week. The incidents of front squatting is going to increase much more as you get closer to competition.

If you’ve been ignoring the front squat and you’ve been ignoring doing it correctly, you need to put that in if you’re going to have an effective clean and jerk. If you are a competitive athlete and want to learn more, you can try my Olympic Weightlifting Intermediate and Advanced Training which is what all my athletes follow. There’s also a Beginners program if you want to progressively improve your fundamental skills and prepare yourself to graduate to the higher levels.

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A common issue encountered in training female weightlifters is that of body image, and more specifically, bodyweight. In our modern, mass-media controlled culture, both males and females are bombarded from pre-adolescence with supposedly desirable body images. For girls, the ideal is all too frequently the appearance of a fashion model. But what does that appearance have to do with a woman who can lift?

Care more about the weight on the bar than the weight on your body. [Photo credit: Bruce Klemens/Breaking Muscle]

Your Body Will Look Like What It Can Do

What everyone needs to understand is that an athlete looks like whatever she is. If you are a highly-trained athlete with a specialized lifestyle, the functions you perform will dictate the form that your body takes.

I previously wrote about Diana Fuhrman, one of the pioneers of women’s weightlifting in the United States. Since it was a relatively new sport, few people had any idea of what a female weightlifter might look like. All too frequently, when Diana was introduced as an elite weightlifter, the response was “you don’t look like a weightlifter.” What they actually meant that she didn’t look like a bodybuilder.

When people are given the chance to express their ignorance, many will enthusiastically take it.

For several years, Diana competed at 56kg and 60kg. I knew that in order for her to lift at her maximal capacity, she would need to gain weight. Her height was 5ft 4in, and weighing 132lb would not allow her to carry enough muscle to clean and jerk competitive weights. We had many discussions regarding her bodyweight over the years. She was hesitant to go against the societal norms for bodyweight at her height. After failing to make progress over several meets, she finally decided to go up to 67.5kg and it was there that she did her best lifting. By her retirement, she had set the American records with a 93kg snatch and 115kg clean and jerk.

Limbs work as a lever system, and the longer the lever, the more force must be generated to move that limb. At a certain point, more force can only be generated by more muscle mass. Consequently, the taller the weightlifter, the more muscle mass will be needed to move the longer limbs against resistance.

Supermodels Can’t Clean and Jerk

Successful weightlifters will have a certain appearance that is the result of the preparation necessary to achieve excellent results in the sport. This may conflict with popular ideals of feminine morphology. But then again, so also do the physiques of many channel swimmers, basketball players, gymnasts, and athletes from other sports that require extreme specialization.

For perspective, below is a table that I published in my book Weightlifting Programming. The data was compiled by Leslie Musser, one of my former lifters, for her Masters thesis, at the 2009 Pan American weightlifting championships. It provides a snapshot of the bodyweight-to-height ratio of elite level female weightlifters.

Women who aspire to reach the elite levels of weightlifting competition must realize that they will likely exceed the bodyweight-to-height ratios of supermodels. Those who become addicted to the sport at any level will learn to deal with the truth of the data.

So what is your ideal weight class, anyway?

Strong Is as Strong Does: Your Ideal Weightlifting Weight

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