My best weightlifting total occurred when I was doing lots of front squats, just like you hear the Bulgarians do. Front squats help me stand from cleans and have that reserve strength needed to for heavy jerks. One time a very good lifter told me that front squats helped snatch. Help your snatch? What in the world was he talking about?
My shoulders and elbows are pretty banged up, so if you take a closer look at the front squat and the back squat you see a couple key differences in regard to the shoulders. The back squat requires internal rotation of the shoulder. This is the way my shoulders want to go. I sat in school for years and years and now I sit at a desk with a computer. Most people struggle with excessive internal rotation with the upper body.
Enter the front squat. You can't do a good front squat without external rotation of the shoulders and elbow. I just feel healthy when front squatting and I walk around a little taller. So for me, mobility and function are supported by the front squat.
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Deadlift: The Backsquat for the PULL
When I was down in Waterloo training under Jianping Ma he had me doing lots of deadlifts and I didn't like them. I didn't like the deadlift. The Bulgarians didn't deadlift. The deadlift wasn't a squat and they were hard. There was many reasons why I didn't like the deadlift back then! But now I see them differently.
The deadlift is kind of like the back squat. It's a derivative and isn't all that specific to weightlifting. But the back squat can make your legs generally strong, which can help your front squat and help you stand up with heavy cleans. Some people think the back squat helps your pull but I don't subscribe to that. If you hinge over and good morning your back squat like a Powerlifter, then yes it's very similar to a pull and will help your pull. With an upright torso, deep knee bend, ass to the grass the back squat is like a front squat only easier, so you can use more weight.
In a similar way, the deadlift can give you general pulling strength which can help your specific snatch or clean pull, which can help your snatch or clean. It's also a basic hinge movement. When you pick something up off the ground, be it a pencil or a barbell, you can either pick it up by hinging or squatting. In weightlifting, we pull the weight off the floor in a hinging motion, followed by a a squat to catch and recover the weight damn near in the same moment. Your body needs to know the difference from a hing and a squat. Some people are better squatters some better hingers, but you need to master both. The deadlift has helped my body awareness of hinging. With my body type I can very easily fall into the pattern of squatting my pull. The squat is avery natural movement for me, hinging is not.
One final point about the deadlift. I don't like singles and I don't think you need to test the deadlift for a single. The deadlift can increase work capacity through sets and reps.
If you are training very minimally with only snatch, clean and jerk, squat, don't be afraid to throw some deadlifts in the mix. At the very least you will be training your pull in a very general way as opposed to not at all, and it just may be a game changer.
I don't have much experience with the so called Romanian Deadlift. In all respect it seems like a advanced hinging movement and difficult to perform correctly. I may try to implement them in my future training. But first things first, mastery of the deadlift.
The deadlift is kind of like the back squat. It's a derivative and isn't all that specific to weightlifting. But the back squat can make your legs generally strong, which can help your front squat and help you stand up with heavy cleans. Some people think the back squat helps your pull but I don't subscribe to that. If you hinge over and good morning your back squat like a Powerlifter, then yes it's very similar to a pull and will help your pull. With an upright torso, deep knee bend, ass to the grass the back squat is like a front squat only easier, so you can use more weight.
In a similar way, the deadlift can give you general pulling strength which can help your specific snatch or clean pull, which can help your snatch or clean. It's also a basic hinge movement. When you pick something up off the ground, be it a pencil or a barbell, you can either pick it up by hinging or squatting. In weightlifting, we pull the weight off the floor in a hinging motion, followed by a a squat to catch and recover the weight damn near in the same moment. Your body needs to know the difference from a hing and a squat. Some people are better squatters some better hingers, but you need to master both. The deadlift has helped my body awareness of hinging. With my body type I can very easily fall into the pattern of squatting my pull. The squat is avery natural movement for me, hinging is not.
One final point about the deadlift. I don't like singles and I don't think you need to test the deadlift for a single. The deadlift can increase work capacity through sets and reps.
If you are training very minimally with only snatch, clean and jerk, squat, don't be afraid to throw some deadlifts in the mix. At the very least you will be training your pull in a very general way as opposed to not at all, and it just may be a game changer.
I don't have much experience with the so called Romanian Deadlift. In all respect it seems like a advanced hinging movement and difficult to perform correctly. I may try to implement them in my future training. But first things first, mastery of the deadlift.
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