Starting In the Middle
(take a step or two back to take a big jump forward)
Over the years I have had to work with multiple lifters who have come to the program with prior lifting experience. And not all of it was good experience. There have been a lot of athletes who have come to the program with glaring strength development issues or glaring technique issues (and to be frank, usually both). Here is a bit of the process that I use to break a lifter down and rebuild them.
Assess the issues ASAP
The quicker I can identify what the issues are, the quicker I can get to work. For me this starts with analyzing a lifter's previous lifts. This allows me to identify issues before I even see them move. I can get a good sense of what their faults are and what direction to start with in terms of programming. For example, if I have a lifter come to me with a 65 kilo snatch, a 65 kilo power snatch and a 70 kilo overhead squat, I can assure you that power snatch and heavy snatch pulls will not be in their future. I can also gauge potential strength imbalances through this. Another example is someone with a high front squat (relative to their back squat) and a low clean deadlift (relative to their back squat). They will most likely have serious posterior chain deficiencies.
The next step is to assess their lifts.
For the first few sessions I have a lifter do the lifts as they have been taught. This allows me to see how they move. If it is REALLY bad, I stop them early and tell them we will start from the ground up. More often than not this is where I can see small technical errors and give some simple cues on fixing them. This process allows me to 1) start to correct the technical issues and 2) learn how quickly they can respond/adapt to changes.
Once I have assessed their numbers and see them lift I can put a plan together.
Break the lifts down
Once I have identified the technical issues, I start to break the lift down and help them to relearn it. Here I trim the fat and eliminate any exercises that will work on their strengths and hide their weaknesses. Using the snatch example from above: power snatches will not be programmed. The reason being that with it being such a high percentage of their snatch, combined with them having no problems with overhead squatting, the pull is clearly not the issue. The lifter needs to learn to get under the bar, and get under fast. Power snatches will simply reinforce over reliance on the pull.
Another part of this is to find the weight that causes them (training) stress and stay just below that. As a lifter relearns the lifts and as the intensity increases, so will their stress response. They’ll reach a point where the excitation of the nervous system causes them to revert to their old movement pattern. Staying just short of this weight allows them to remain in a state of control where they can make good lifts. Over time the more good lifts they perform, the higher that threshold will go. The goal is to alway make good reps and minimize stress. Over time they will be able to execute max effort lifts with the technique they have been working to improve. Just chasing heavy loads will work against the technical development we are focused on.
Get strong…where it is needed
As much fun as it may be to put someone on a proven strength cycle, now is not the time for that. We need to assess what their weaknesses are AND how they are affecting their execution. Once we have that figured out, we focus on fixing their weaknesses before addressing overall strength development. Using the above example of a lifter with posterior chain development, simply putting them on a squat cycle off the start is not the best approach. They need to do just enough squatting to maintain current levels. This allows the time/energy to hammer away at the posterior chain. This will allow them to more easily execute the technical changes needed. And it will help to keep them healthy.
High percentage success rate
We want the lifter to make quality reps. Session in. Session out. Key word being MAKE. We need to make sure that the lifter’s success rate is even higher than we normally look for. This will help to keep the lifter confident that the changes they are working on will help them to improve. It will also allow them to slowly build up the tolerance needed to minimize the stress response as the intensity slowly increases.
If you are looking to change programs, or have done so recently this is some of the insight into the philosophy in training that will help you become a better lifter. If this is not the case, it may be time to ask some questions.
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