Burning Bra's, lifting Bars: Woman and Weights.

So yesterday I had a training session with my brother and his fiancé. (Yes, I have a brother) My brother sits on the executive of the New York Squash Rackets association and writes a very successful blog on the topic of Squash. If anyone has an interest in the sport I have attached a link to his blog below. While training he mentioned an article he recently read regarding woman and weight training. After our our session he forwarded me the link (attached below), and it got me thinking about the topic. 

Very enlightening article but not anything new to me. I have been doing weightlifting for quite some time, and have had this opinion of woman lifting weights long before it became popularized by sports such as Crossfit. Let me put it simply, " there is nothing sexier, and more attractive than a woman who lifts weights" Nothing!!! We have gotten to the point where the old wives tales have been debunked. The myths and fallacies told to woman over the centuries that lifting weights will make you big have not only been dissproven, but this article reiterates my point that men find woman who lift weights more attractive. Woman no longer consider muscles to simply be the domain of men. Woman no longer consider being strong as a sign of there sexual orientation. Strong is the New Sexy, and woman are embracing it. Call it feminism, called self empowerment, call it what ever you want, there is nothing more attractive than a woman picking up an Olympic bar and doing a snatch, clean and Jerk or Squat.

I have heard the same thing over and over again from woman who come to me for personal training, " I don't want to get Big" I don't want to gain weight. I don't want to look like a bodybuilder. Thats totally understandable. However, the thing is, you are not going to get big, you are going to add lean muscle mass, and lose body fat.  While your overall bodyweight might increase, your body composition will change, significantly. If you think your jeans are going to fit better after you start weight training you are wrong. Your quadriceps will get bigger, your gluteus will get bigger, but here is the catch. They are going to be tighter and more toned. Woman need to stop thinking in terms of mass and start thinking in terms of appearance. Throw that bloody scale away and stop obsessing about how much force you are being pulled back towards the center of the Earth by and start concerning yourself more with how you feel physically. 

I have been to Fashion shows at Model Week in Manhattan. I have been to afterparties with woman whom society considers to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Let me tell you something about these woman that you aspire to be. They look look like half dead anorexic zombies to me. I find nothing attractive about them, yet these are the woman who are plastered all over magazines and billboards giving the young woman today this unrealistic expectation of what beauty is.  If you want to see beautiful woman you should have been at the Winter Challenge at Crossfit Hoboken last weekend. More beautiful and attractive woman under one roof than any fashion show. Ladies, Muscles are the new sexy. Weights are the new Yoga. You started with Burning your Bra's. now start bending the Bars.

My Brothers Squash Blog:

 http://www.brettssquashblog.com.

The Article that started it all:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2873487/Women-lift-weights-seen-attractive-men-fitness-fanatics-Cameron-Diaz-Millie-Mackintosh-leading-athletic-trend.html

Training: love what you hate, hate what you love.

We all have our favorite exercise, that one thing that we are really good at. We thrive upon it. We are good at it and it makes us happy. For me it is Squatting, (if I haven't mentioned that before). When I say Squatting, I mean Back squats. I can back Squat really heavy, triple Bodyweight in fact. That makes me happy, it gives me a sense of achievement and accomplishment. What I hate on the Other hand ("Darren" for my South African Readers) is front Squats. Front Squats are so much Harder than back squats. Even though the weight is less than a back squat, having to hold the weight on your shoulders, and the emphasis it places on the upper back and core, makes it such a harder lift than Back Squats.

                                                         402 lbs back squat

So naturally what do I do, back squat, all the time. I neglect my front squats because I favor my back squats. This is something that we all do in the gym. We focus all our energy into doing something we know we are good at, (myself included) because it make us feel good. In doing so we neglect the thing we should actually be focusing on, our weak spot. Front Squats. I would rather be dragged across a field of broken glass tied to the back of a pick up truck than front squat. I know that I get into a deeper position in a front squat than a back squat. I know that doing front squats will only benefit my clean and jerks. Yet I still do more back squats than front, because I like back squats. 

                                                          300 lbs Front Squat

A few weeks ago I embarked on my " Screw You " Training regime. It entails front squatting every day for a month. I am not doing this because I particularly want to do it. I am doing this because I know that I will see the greatest increase in my Olympic Lifts by focusing on the one thing that I have neglected above all else. The strange thing is, after two weeks in, I am no longer hating front squats as much as I used to. While I might not look forward to the front squats every day I am certainly relishing in the fact that I am making daily and weekly progress. I was always told that if you want to Clean and Jerk a weight, you should be able to front squat that weight for 5 sets of 5 reps. Once you can do that, you should have no problem Clean and Jerking It. So I am focusing all my energy for the next three weeks on hitting 5x5 front squats at 275lbs. I guess we will know how it goes come New Year.

Training as I get Older: Load and Recovery

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.

Different Theories, different styles:

There are many different styles of weightlifting. There are many different training techniques and philosophies. The Russian Principle, The Bulgarian Method, the Chinese philosophy, to name but a few. They all have their merits. They all have their good and bad points. There are many different ways of looking at all of these. Some Say do Heavy Pulls, some say Don’t. Some Say Squat Heavy twice a day, some say squat twice week. Everyone has an opinion. And Opinions are like assholes, we all got one.

Chinese Narrow Stance Clean

So which one would work best for you? Only you and your coach can decide that. I have been training for over 25 years and I am constantly updating my training philosophies and principles. Try them all, I say. So what fits you the best. Only you know what your body can handle, and what it can’t. I can’t train the same way now as I did in my 20’s. I have had to change my thinking around training in order to accommodate the fact that I am older than I was. I can no longer handle the Load of the Bulgarian Method. I am no longer recovering from training after a few hours, more like a few days. So I now train according to what my capabilities are. And you should do the same. Know thyself.

USA's Kendrick Farris Power Jerk

Every coach is different and has different styles and philosophies when it comes to coaching. No coach is alike. Just like personalities we all have our own way of doing things. And just like people we are all susceptible to being liked or disliked because of our views. No coach is always right. No coach knows everything there is to know. I certainly don’t. However I do try to know as much as I can, and keep as up to date with training philosophies as I can. Will my style differ from others, yes.  Will my terminology differ from others, yes.  As coaches we are all simply trying to help those who are as passionate about lifting as we are. We are never going to be perfect, but we will try and be as perfect as we can.

Guilty of Bias; A new Perspective on the Crossfit Games

I have to be honest, I am guilty. Guilty of being biased. You see I have had something of a change of heart in the last day regarding my last post. More of a realization actually. What I realized is that I have been looking at the Crossfit Games from the wrong perspective. Mine, as a weightlifting Coach. 

HEIGHT:	WEIGHT:
Men:	Men:
2011 – 70.1 2012 – 69.8 2013 – 69.7 2014 – 69.3	2011 – 188.7 2012 – 198.0 2013 – 195.2 2014 – 191.4
Woman:	Woman:
2011 – 65.0 2012 – 65.2 2013 – 64.9 2014 – 64.8	2011 – 139.1 2012 – 143.5 2013 – 142.1 2014 – 141.8

Crossfit is not Olympic weightlifting, and it is not trying to be. I should not have imposed my expectations and beliefs upon it. I have been looking at it from my own viewpoint and perspective this whole time, which was wrong.

 My opinion on Bodyweight exercises and whether it is easier for lighter lifters hasn’t changed. My opinion on whether it is unfair to have lighter lifters snatching the same weight as heavier lifters hasn’t changed. What has changed is my perspective on the games itself. All along it should have been the Crossfit athletes themselves I should have been looking at. 

So I decided to do a little research. When the 2014 Crossfit Regional’s workout was revealed this year many people assumed it would favor the smaller lighter athletes based on its emphasis on Gymnastic skills. It featured a max distance handstand walk, 150 pistols, 21 ring muscle-ups, 54 strict handstand push-ups, 54 burpees, 10 legless rope climbs, 50 ring dips, and 64 pull-ups. Below are the average Heights and Weights of the Crossfit Games individual Qualifiers over the years 2011-2014

Based on the above statistics it would seem that there was no significant decrease in qualifiers average weight. What does that say about the theory that Bodyweight exercises are easier for lighter athletes?

I decided to look further and found this great article over at www.theboxmag.com.

(Link below) The writer asks several top level Crossfit athletes their feelings on the one-size fits all philosophy on the Crossfit games. One athlete in particular gave his comments on being a smaller athlete competing in the games. Chris Spealler, at 151 lbs in undoubtedly one of the best light athletes around. When asked;

Do you think the Games are fair for all competitors?

"No, I don’t think CrossFit is fair. Anybody who does think its fair is stretching a bit. But I don’t think it’s designed to be fair. They do a good job of balancing things out, but I don’t think that every Game’s is fair."

As a lighter guy myself I feel Chris’s pain here. He seems to feel aggrieved by the fact that he has to compete against guys that are so much heavier than him. Who can blame him? He does however also seem to thrive on it. In the article he says he likes being the underdog, and goes on to say that he would like to see at least one event in each competition where the load was based on an athlete’s bodyweight.

What struck me most about his answers was that when asked whether he was interested in competing in bodyweight categories at the Games his answer was unequivocally NO. In fact all of the athletes pretty much unanimously agreed.

So what this tells me is that the athletes, those that are competing in the sport of Crossfit are happy with the current formula, and are not interested in having bodyweight categories.

The numbers and the norms don’t lie. If you want to succeed at the Crossfit Games as a Man you need to be 69.8 inches tall and around 195 lbs, and 65 inches and 142 lbs as a Woman. (Unless I finally hit that growth spurt at 40 I am sh1t out of luck)

You see Crossfit is not looking for the best weightlifter; it is not looking for the best tri-athlete or gymnast. No, Crossfit is looking for the best ATHLETE at all of the above. The best at doing all that encompasses Crossfit, hence their motto “The Fittest on Earth”

To read the full article with interviews from several athletes over at theboxmag.com  

CLICK HERE

The Sinclair formula and the Crossfit Games:

After Monday's post many people asked me about the Sinclair Formula, and what it is.
Firstly, we all know that weightlifting is divided up into different body weight categories, 8 for men and 7 for woman.

·         56 kg (123 lb)	·         48 kg (106 lb)
·         62 kg (137 lb)	·         53 kg (117 lb)
·         69 kg (152 lb)	·         58 kg (128 lb)
·         77 kg (170 lb)	·         63 kg (139 lb)
·         85 kg (187 lb)	·         69 kg (152 lb)
·         94 kg (207 lb)	·         75 kg (165 lb)
·         105 kg (231 lb)	·         75 kg and over (165 lb+)
·         105 kg and over (231 lb+)

               Men’s Weight Classes:                                                  Woman’s Weight Classes

 So how do we compare lighter lifters to heavier ones?  That's where the Sinclair formula comes in. At the end of every competition all lifters combined snatch and clean and jerks are tallied and entered into the formula. With the result being their Sinclair coefficient. Rank per division, and overall rankings are based on this coefficient. The one with the highest coefficient wins. By using this formula we can now measure how heavy lighter lifters are lifting compared to their heavier counterparts. 

That's seems quite fair right? Here is an example;

Say you are in the gym doing a max clean and jerk with a group. A lifter in the front weighs 94 kg and does a 120 kg clean and jerk. A lifter in the back weighs 62 kg and does a 95 kg Jerk. Who is lifting heavier? Most would assume the guy lifting 120 kg right? Wrong. According the Sinclair coefficient the lighter lifter is actually Lifting more. 

At 62 kg / 95 kg C&J = 137.39 Sinclair Coefficient, 

and at 94 kg / 120 kg C@J = 136.9 Sinclair Coefficient

This is the major issue I have with Crossfit Games. They do not make any lifting weight adjustments according to body weight. Now again I am biased here, for obvious reasons, I am a small guy who weighs 138 lbs. I can do 30 snatches at 60 kg / 135 lbs very easily. That's 30 snatches at 2 kg / 4 lbs under my body weight. Trying to compare my power output to a heavier athlete is ridiculous. The amount of energy output I have to expend in comparison to a lifter who weighs 205 lbs is exponentially higher.

Imagine what would happen in a competition if all the athletes had to lift a weight adjusted by the Sinclair coefficient. I think the competition would suddenly look very different, don't you? 

I have actually heard someone justify the lack of adjustments for body weight at the Crossfit games by saying it's easier for lighter lifters to do body weight exercises. That is so preposterous I refuse to even retort. 

I am not suggesting that Crossfit have 8 body weight categories. I do however think that they have got to the stage where they have the numbers world wide to include at least a lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight division at the Crossfit Games. There would be so much more interest and participation from those of us that are not big guys, the 135-165 lbs group. The Crossfit Games have always been geared towards heavier athletes, leaving us lighter guys little or no chance of competing. I personally think it is time they did something about it. I am just throwing that out there to the powers that be, use it, don't use it.

For more info on the Sinclair Coefficient Click Here

To work out a Sinclair Coefficient Click Here 

Who do YOU consider the greatest Lifter of all time?

 

This is probably the most talked about and most contentious issue ever discussed by weightlifters. Who is the greatest lifter of all time? Every lifter has an opinion. No matter how old, or how young, we all have our favorite.

Before I talk about whom I consider to be the greatest lifter of all time we need to talk about the parameters. I would love to hear yours. There are so many to chose from, and so many parameters to take into consideration. First off, he has to be an Olympic and world Champion, and record Holder. That narrows it down. Do we consider the old school lifters that still did the Press lift back in the day? I say Yes. What about taking Body weights into consideration? Are we going to use the Sinclair formula? I say Yes. That should give the answer away right there to those that know. Can they be current lifters and champions? For sure. My question is simple, who do you consider to be the greatest of all time?

So now its time for my answer. I am probably biased because this person lifted in my era.  In fact this person lifted in my division. None other than the Pocket Hercules himself, Niam Suleymanoglu. He was my hero growing up. Watching him lift knowing he was the same body weight as me inspired and mesmerized me. And here is why.

He won 3 Olympic Gold Medals. Should have been 4 but Bulgaria Boycotted the 1984 Olympics. Could have been 5 but he bombed out in the Sydney Olympics. He was a 7 time World Champion, 7 Time European Champion, and set 51 World Records. Most importantly to me, he has the highest ever-recorded Sinclair of 504. At a body weight of 60kg he Snatched 152.5kg, and clean and Jerked 190kg.

Which means pound for pound he has lifted more than any other human being. That is why I consider Niam as the greatest lifter of all time.

My top 5 looks like this:

1: Niam Suleymanoglu

2: Vasili Alexeyev

3: Pyrros Dimas

4: Yuri Vardanyan

5: Ilya Ilyin

 I know people will argue over the inclusion of Ilyin at number five. I am basing that decision on the fact that I believe he is going to continue to dominate the sport for many years to come. He is the only person in my mind who has a realistic chance of dethroning Niam in the near future.

So Who is your Greatest of all time?