Starting Strength Seminar Day 3

Power Clean

Day 3 began immediately with the power clean. Rippetoe likes the addition of the power clean to a strength training programme because it teaches you to be able to make use of your strength and it enables athletes to become more powerful, jump higher, run faster etc.

Like the best coaches, we were taught from the top down. Starting from the hang, then below the knee, then the mid shin and finally off the floor.

To the best of my knowledge, not a lot of the seminar attendee had Olympic lifting experience, however, during the work sets, I was impressed that the majority of people were able to perform something that resembled a power clean and not a ‘jumping reverse curl’. This clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of the coaching provided to us.

All you have to do is deadlift the bar up to your mid-thigh, then jump, pull the bar up in the air and catch it on your shoulders. Obviously there are a few more technical details (back stays same angle during 1st pull, double-knee bend etc.) but if you can do that, and do it well, you're well on your way to a nice power clean. 

Since I’ve been familiar with the Olympic lifts for roughly 3 years, I took to the power clean very nicely and no fault could be found with my technique. Rippetoe even gave me a complement during the practices saying that it was ‘perfect and exactly how a power clean should look like’. Even whilst wearing trainers.

Flawless, baby

Bench Press

Finally, the bench press – technically, the easiest of all lifts.

This was also the only lift that we were not only assessed on form, but also on spotting technique. We had to safely give a good hand-off to the lifter and then assist in racking the bar on their termination of the final rep. At no point whatsoever we were allowed to touch the bar until it had come to a full lockout after the final rep – and then we had to be quick to grab it and re-rack it.

The only time we were permitted to touching the bar before the end of the last rep was if the bar moves ‘any direction other than up’. If the bar is touched beforehand, the rep doesn’t count and the lifter is allowed to cuff the spotter in the ear as hard as he (or she - could be a woman) likes.

Also the spotter needs to be completely out of eyesight whilst the lifter is doing the exercise. 

In order to assist with the vertical path of the bar, the forearms must be kept vertical, and therefore a fairly wide grip is permitted – much wider than I’m used to. This wider grip actually makes you stronger, but as I’m so unfamiliar with it, I felt quite unstable on the bench – but it’s nice to know I will easily be able to ramp the weight up when I get back to training it again.

I had the pleasant fortune of spotting 'Dwayne' - a large guy who has competed as a powerlifter and has some decent numbers . We were also using the most unstable rack in the gym, which could have easily fallen over at any point. So during Dwayne's easy 140kg for 5 reps, I had to be the guy to save him if all went badly (luckily he was awesome and there was no panic). 

Programming

This is very simple. Firstly, the coach needs to be aware of how far along the progression curve the lifter is. If they're a novice (most people are), then they need to do the 5 lifts regularly and add weight each time. If they're an intermediate (which you'll know because they won't be able to increase the weight each workout), they'll need a volume day (5x5), a recovery day (2x5) and an intensity day (5 x 1). Or something along those lines.

Regarding exercises, coach Rip only likes about 15 exercise. In addition to the key 5, he listed chin-ups, power snatch, front squats, Romanian deadlifts and then went on to say that it got tricky to add anything else. He was completely against single-leg training and stated that if you train properly, you'll be in good balance anyway. Don't think I completely agree with him, but he made an interesting point.

Q & A

For the final part of the seminar, we were asked to think of a question to ask him, which he would then answer in front of the group. I asked him if deadlifting barefoot was a bad idea (since it had been banned the day before) and he went off on one saying that training barefoot is completely moronic and that it will destroy the arches in your foot. He then told me to go and buy a pair of weightlifting shoes and said that his best ever deadlift was in weightlifting shoes as the raised heel allowed him to recruit a bit more of the quadriceps.  Fair enough - I'll add them to my list.

Quotes

I think Mark Rippetoe is one of the most quoted strength coaches as some of the stuff he comes up with is pure genius. Things like, "you can only wear gloves when you train if they match your purse" and  "women who claim to be afraid to train hard because they always "bulk up too much" are often already pretty bulky or "skinny fat" (thin but weak and deconditioned" and have found another excuse to continue life sitting on their butts."

I therefore decided to take note of anything mildly humourous to repeat it here:

  

Attendee: “So what do you think of Triathlons?”

Rip: “I don’t deal with that. That’s.... a mental illness”

“We don’t use PVC pipes in exercises because we’re weightlifters, not plumbers”

“I can squat 600lbs but can’t even do 1 single leg squat. What does that tell you? It’s a circus trick.”

“OK, let’s take a 5 minute piss break”

Rip: “I take the bar out of the rack and do a warm-up set…”

Atendee: “Do you do just 1 warm-up set with only the bar”

Rip: “Haha. Nah!....Six”

(On discussing the possibility of doing ‘Breathing Squats' more than once a week)

Rip: “Yea you could train like that if you wanted, but you’d need to be taking something really special to get you through the workouts”

Attendee: “What you mean like a double dose of caffeine?”

Rip: “No, I mean like cocaine”

Attendee: “So the goal is to squat 3 inches below parallel”

Rip: “No the goal is to squat 405”

(A slim guy is asking about conditioning)

Attendee: “So all you need to do for conditioning is just the prowler?”

Rip: “No. YOU don’t need to do ANY conditioning. YOU need to find one of those all-you-can-eat places...... and then stay there for a while.”

“Doing an ironman is one step away from being dropped off a building – the stress on the body is that intense.”

Rip was the first person to ever renounce their CSCS credentials and wrote to the NSCA saying that they were no longer allowed to say that he had anything to do with them. He said it was an embarrassment to be associated with them because of the absolute rubbish research they were coming up with. He then pulled out a paper in which the researchers had found that a 1RM bench press does not differ whether you perform it on a stable or an unstable surface...

Attendee: "Who would even think to do a study like that anyway?" 

Rip: “That is a key question and I’ll tell you the kind of guy that comes up with a stupid-ass study such as this one. 

*Begins shaking paper furiously* 

"A guy that isn’t very strong.... and doesn’t know ANYTHING about getting strong…..and this is in the journal of STRENGTH and conditioning research!!”

“What causes a stroke? All kinds of shit but not weightlifting.”

 Rip: “I don’t have any credentials after my name. Sometimes, I put M.T. if absolutely need to, like if I'm arguing with a doctor or something”

10 mins later

Atendee: “So..uh... what does M.T stand for?

Rip: “Master Turdsman. Well come on, you gotta have something!”

6 things I learnt:

1) If you take a guy's squat from 200lbs - 500lbs - do you think their core will have gotten stronger? Yes - therefore, provided that the beginner is healthy, in a lot of cases, you can get away without direct core training and just concentrate on the big lifts (although a lot of people will disagree with that).

2) If you are suffering from tennis elbow - do as many chin-ups as possible, rest and then do some more. It may be more painful for a while, but that should flush out the inflammation and you'll be pain free in no time.

3) Don't even mention the double-knee bend to athletes when teaching the Olympic-lifts. If you do the first pull slow enough, the athlete will find that the best position for the beginning of triple extension (the second pull) is if they re-bend their knees. Let them find it out for themselves.

4) In the bottom position of the front squat, there is a much more closed angle at the knees than in the low bar squat. With the knees flexed that much, the hamstrings are contracted and therefore cannot contribute to hip extension during the concentric phase. With the low bar, the knee is not closed as much and the hamstrings are stretched, therefore allowing them to contract in the concentric phase. This stretch will also help to balance forces at the knee joint and keep it healthy. Quarter squats are retarded and for idiots. 

5) The hamstrings anchor the lower back. If the hips shoot up first in the squat, deadlift or clean, the hamstrings are too weak to hold the hips down. Try cueing the lifter to squeeze the hamstrings - that may do the trick first.

6) Active hip 2.0 - the hips MUST be abducted and externally rotated in the squat. By doing so, you free up the hip joint and prevent an impingement from occurring. This allows you to squat deeper. Although the concept of Active hip is more complicated than this - that is the basic premise of it. Don't do anything to correct squat depth until the lifter has pushed their knees out in line with their toes and make sure their hips are externally rotated - that alone will help to gain squat depth in nearly all cases. 

Following the seminar, we received an exam that covered all topics from the past few days. There were 10 questions (one of them was on coaching points - that I happened to miss on day 1. Whoops) that had to be answered in pretty extensive detail. I actually think it was tougher than some of the stuff I had to do in my Masters, which means that becoming a 'Starting Strength Coach' is a credential to be proud of (I'm waiting for my results).

One interesting thing was that the majority of people who turned up for the seminar, were there to improve their lifting technique and hardly any were coaches or trainers. Being a coach or a trainer gives you a huge advantage for understanding  a lot of the technical words and biomechanics and a lot can be learnt that you can immediately use. 

From what I heard, this seminar doesn't leave the USA, so if you ever find yourself with an opportunity to do this seminar - go for it.