A great training system can counter two important issues we have across sports in North America. That is, it prevents early specialization and lack of long term progress, granted the candidate is suited for the sport (athletic predisposition). Don’t miss out on Updates : Make sure… Read More »What is a training system and why it matters ?
Can we talk about the elephant in the room? You will often hear coaches and athletes state that competitions are won with the Clean and jerk, yet I’m not sure if that statement is necessarily behind the rationale of many programs. Don’t miss out on Updates : Make… Read More »You win with the clean and jerk
As I am writing this, I just landed in Montréal, Canada. I’m finally home after a long 6 days trip to Cartagena, Colombia where the 2016 Pan American Championships was held. This competition was of extreme importance because non qualified countries fought to get a… Read More »2016 Pan American Championships – Rio Olympic Qualification
Don’t miss out on Updates : Make sure you follow First Pull on Facebook and Instagram for daily pictures and advice You are responsible for your success. You are also your own worse enemy. Seeing athletes miss lifts because they thought too much during the lift has been my pet… Read More »Paralysis by analysis : Stop thinking and start improving!
Don’t miss out on Updates : Make sure you follow First Pull on Facebook and Instagram for daily pictures and advice Sport footwear (and even daily footwear) need to be carefully selected as they have a crucial impact on performance (stability, strength, sport result, biomechanics/body alignement, etc.), injury risks, chronic… Read More »Weightlifting shoes concerns : a case against bad footwear choices
Don’t miss out on Updates : Make sure you follow First Pull on Facebook and Instagram for daily pictures and advice The road to your best self as an athlete is a long one. Weightlifting is hard, requires a lot of sacrifices (from both the coach and the athlete) and… Read More »The system of training : differences and considerations
Don’t miss out on Updates : Make sure you follow First Pull on Facebook and Instagram for daily pictures and advice The more I coach and the more people I coach progress, the more I realize how important it is to have a strong mind in weightlifting. My definition of… Read More »Get your head on straight : Making progress and keeping a strong will to progress
Credit Hookgrip
I was never a big fan of strict yearly plans – it may be the Canadian in me, but I like the grey area more than the black or white area. I have developed a set of training guidelines that I use in my coaching. Those guidelines are ideas of what we should be doing in training in relation to where we are in the year and how far the next competition is from now. Add to that some recipes of how to fix technical or strength problems and you have got a good idea of what you should be doing in training. That is, my programs are very flexible – especially when it comes to weight selection. In my experience, I have found that this type of flexible programming produce more results than strict programming.
Credit Wonderlifter
One of my biggest pet peeve, in weightlifting, is missed jerks. According to Russian literature and coaches experience, the jerk is the competitive lift that is the most often missed. According to what I have seen around (in NA), it is also the least actively coached lift and the least trained lift. Now everybody will miss lifts – that’s part of weightlifting and we should all learn from that. However, some missed jerk attempts are so far from being save-able, let alone made, it needs to be addressed.
Credit Lifters life
The whole point of the planning of the training process of weightlifters is to make sure they lift the best they can on a given (scheduled) date. Unlike other sports (mostly team sports), sports like weightlifting (or boxing for instance) are defined by a long period of training that lead to one performance on a scheduled day. That is, you know how many weeks you have until the meet and your training volume, intensity and need for recovery can be planned and anticipated in order to show up in the best shape you can be. Here are some thoughts on competition planning – especially in regard to the pre competition phase.
Read More »Peculiarities of the pre competition training phase
