weightlifting poetry

hip bruises, torn calluses, scrapped up shins, what are those marks on your collarbone?
knee sleeves, belts, special shoes, singlet like in wrestling.
coffee black, tapped thumbs white, rubber disks, red, blue, yellow, green.
Red lighted, white lights, good lift, no lift, misses in training.
Front squat, back squat, take your pick, you need legs to play this game.
Platform, judges, chalkbox, chalk it up, time is running out, make this lift.
What's your openers?
shake those nerves, focus, clear your head, don't bomb out.
Timing, technique, rhythm, make it flow, hook grip, don't let go.
Time stops, in the zone, six for six, on fire, dark times lead to white moments.

"Boom, Boom" and the "whipping pull"

"Boom, Boom". Coach Jianping Ma would say those two words over and over while simultaneously clapping his hands. Now if you've ever met the happy-go-lucky Jainping Ma, you know that he is very Chinese, so some things get lost in translation. Some lifters never really knew what he was trying to get a crossed with his "boom, boom" and clapping cue. I'm here to tell you that he was trying to get a crossed the most important and fundamental aspect of weightlifting: hips and feet. What "boom, boom" really meant was hip and feet; the sound of the bar meeting the hip at the top of the pull and the feet slapping the floor as you flash into the catch position. If you hear the first "boom" at the top of your pull you know you're getting you hips into the lift and when you hear the second "boom" you know you had quick feet. Hips and feet, it's as simple as that. With very good lifters the "boom, boom" sound will be very fast and loud; the first "boom" will be loud because they are driving their hips through the bar with such force at the top of the pull and the second "boom" can sometimes sound like the cracking of a whip. Good lifting is very closely related to a whipping action. I believe the hip follow through can be used to whip yourself into the bottom position. Anybody ever seen the finish of Taner Sagir's pull? It's pulls like that where the hip follow through whips the lifter into the bottom position. Just as the hips can be used to whip the bar upward there is also a whip that can occur from retreating the hips from that follow through. Try it sometime. Take a stick and don't fully extend your hips in the finish position, now try to whip your self under, this may be what your used to. Now try the same thing, get in the finish position, but bring your hips all the way through, from the side your crotch should be the most forward part of your body creating a body arch like a narrow letter C. You whipped yourself under, did you feel it? The hips coming through created a mechanism like a bow and arrow, the more you get the hips through, the faster you (the arrow) will shoot into the bottom. Now, one last thing about this "whipping pull", yeah that's what I'm calling it. It's hard to achieve that whipping finish if you don't start with your shoulders and chest about as far back as you can. This is critical to getting the bar into the hip in the first place allowing you to follow through. The chest and shoulders back usually means you have to get your butt way down in your starting position, way lower than you are used to, but the pay off is huge. Watch my video above, listen for the "boom, boom". Also look at my starting position, my chest and shoulders are back at the start. This start is still something I'm working on, but believe me, "back is better". I feel like getting my chest and shoulders back is the single biggest technique correction I've ever made, and it kind of evolved on it's own. Right now my shoulders are directly over the bar at the start, but it feels like I'm behind the bar but that is only the way it feels. Over time my shoulders might get behind the bar, it's tough to get into these positions, but a side effect of having your chest and shoulders that far back is your back is set and arched perfectly. You will notice in my video that my finish isn't as arched as it could be, that is because I have short legs, a long torso, and a tilted pelvis. The finish position you see in the video is actually very good compared to what it has been for me in the past. Now, if you have longer legs, a shorter torso, and good pelvic mobility, you could do serious magic with this "whipping pull". Your whip will be a lot longer and when you follow through with your hips you will crack the whip much stronger than myself and whip into the bottom position much faster.

The "Stripper Pull"

The "Stripper Pull"

Gwen Sisto recently wrote a blog about what she calls the "butt pull" and she describes it in much more detail than me. I read her blog and realized that the "butt pull" has to be among the number one issues a beginning lifter faces. It's almost like beginners are naturally predisposed to doing this type of pull, also I have another name for it. At my gym we have a saying for when a lifters butt raises up too soon in the pull, we call it the "stripper pull". Strippers do this maneuver at strip joints, they touch the floor without bending their knees and their you have it. It turns the pull into a Romanian deadlift. Consequently, this pull results in weights being lost forward. To correct this a lifter needs to concentrate on having his or her butt down, chest up and shoulders back helps too. Instead of that butt popping up, we want the knees to extend from the start and the butt to raise gradually. If you do the stripper pull something is going to be lost at the finish as well because the bar won't be tucked back into the hip as much as it should. When I find myself doing the stripper pull I feel like my finish of the pull was just a weak sliding instead of a powerful tuck and catapult. So remember, butt down! Chest up and Shoulders back! This isn't the strip joint and you're not going to get tips for showing your butt off.