In my last post I mentioned that I have been training for almost 25 years. I have not always been training with the same methodology or mindset. With age a few adjustments and variations need to be incorporated into training in order to maintain your longevity in the sport.
In your teens and 20's, your bodies ability to recover from training is phenomenal. After only a few hours of rest you are ready to go again. ( Yes I am still talking about training ) In my heyday, when I was at a National training camp with the South African National team we would train hard twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. The lifts, and loads would vary, but one thing I remember clearly was front squat in the morning, and back squat in the evening. We did this every day, except Sundays, we only did back squat on a Sunday afternoon. The thing that gets to me most about those days was how fast I would recover from training. We would start at around 10:00 am and finish around 12:00. After that we would head back to the dormitory and eat lunch. At this particular stage we were tired and sore. We would eat, and I mean eat. I am talking about pasta by the bowl loads, with seconds. Then we would usually rest for an hour or two. That would bring us up to around 4 pm. At 4:30 we would make our way back to the training hall for our second session for the day. This would be the heavy lifting session, max lifts, Pulls and Heavy Back Squats. The thing that I am today mesmerized by is the fact that we would be fully recovered from the mornings session by the time we started the afternoon session. That was then.
Alas, Youth is wasted on the Young. So what I have noticed personally about training as I have gotten older , from early 20's to mid 30's, is that I can still train hard, almost as hard as I did then. But, and this is the catch, my recovery time has more than doubled. Probably tripled in fact. I can still do the same workouts I used to do, it is just taking me so much longer to recover from them.
If I do heavy back squat in the evening, my legs are still like jello the next morning. There aint a chance in hell I am going to be able to squat heavy again the next day. At the World Masters Weightlifting Championships in Denmark this year, where I got a silver medal in the Men's 62 kg Division 35-40 Age group, I had the opportunity to talk with many of the athletes of varying ages from 35 all the way up to 90. Yes there where people still lifting at 90 years of age.
The general consensus was simple, it only gets worse. This is rather a mortifying fact for someone who is intent on lifting until the day he dies.
So what now, where do I go from here. Well it all boils down to programming and periodization. I cant program heavy squat in the evening, and then again the next day. I simply cannot handle the load anymore. By now it should be rather evident that I consider Squats to be the quintessential exercise for an Olympic Weightlifter. I cant back squat heavy every day, let alone squat twice a day anymore. So what I do is alternate my back and front squats on separate days. This way I can Squat every day but have 48 hours between each. Now I know what you are thinking, but you are still squatting every day. Yes I am, but the subtle difference in the muscle recruitment and load allows me to recover sufficiently from one, in order to do the other.
Back squats are heavier than front squats and put more emphasis on the lower back and posterior chain. Whereas front squats use a much lighter load, and are more quadriceps and upper back intensive.
This philosophy of "Load and recovery" can be used with all lifts. Heavy cleans on one day, light Power Snatches the next. This way I can get through all of the exercises I need to do in a week, and still be able to walk the next day.
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