Strength and Deconditioning 8: Clean and jerk

Today was clean and jerk day on my workout schedule, my first in a couple of weeks. I like to do different things, instead of just keeping to the three power lifts and support exercises that are "approved" by one protocol, HIT or Westside or whatever, and the Olympic lifts, clean and jerk and snatch, are two of the best overall body conditioners available. There is something raw, primal and satisfying about ripping a barbell off the floor, racking it, and then hurling it over your head. There is no room for cheating. The lift is black and white, and there is no supportive gear that you can wear, except maybe lifting straps or knee wraps or something; you will fail or you will succeed based largely on your own merits. Whenever I do the clean and jerk I can literally feel my trapezius and quadriceps growing in response to the stresses put on them; the jerk phase feels so good on my calves, shoulders (much better than military press) and my lower back and abdominal wall. The only issue with this lift is that the potential for failure is absolutely epic. If you feel yourself losing the bar, then lose it. It could cause damage to the bar, but that's better than breaking both your shin bones, eh? I suggest either having rubber bumper plates--which are insanely expensive--a padded lifting platform, which is what I use, when you do the clean and jerk. For inspiration, here is Hossein Rezazadeh (SHW, Iran) performing the heaviest clean and jerk on Olympic record. For further inspiration, her is a really cute girl doing a somewhat (heh) smaller C&J.

So go, ye children, in peace to the gym and start cleaning!

Strength and deconditioning 7: Getting strong

I have coached a few people, in the weight room, when I have worked out in public places. This is one of the hazards of working out while very strong. People see you loading four or more plates onto any given bar, and they just sort of assume you have a duty to the public to help them work out. Maybe you do... I don't know. I do know that I don't mind helping somebody out when that person is dedicated and serious about weight training, about getting stronger. One of the best students I ever had, in the weight room, was a tall, thin young man whose leverages were absolutely and utterly wrong for lifting weights. He was able to do a lot of running and to hop around like a tree frog on crack, doing P90X, but wasn't able to bench press, squat or dead lift more than 135. His bench might have been 145; I forget. The point was that he wasn't very strong, in absolute terms, and the program he was doing of four sixes wasn't doing him any favors. I put him on a program of alternating 3x3 and 5x2 workouts (I chose against adding in a cycle of 8-12 singles, due to the fact that I couldn't watch him closely and do my own workouts) and, within a few weeks, his max bench press had leaped to 165! This is a pretty impressive step forward and I was incredibly proud of him. He also made progress on bench press and squat, which are excellent indicators of overall strength.

This is one of the reasons that it confuses me, then, when someone comes up to me in the weight room and says, "I want you to help me, but I don't want to get strong/I don't care about getting strong. Can you help me?" I have to say, after looking at them confused, for a moment, "No, no I don't think I can help you, at all, and furthermore I can't understand you." It's not that I don't get where they're coming from, you know... I understand them intellectually, I guess, I comprehend the words that they're saying, and all, but I just don't get what they want to get if not, you know, stronger. If you don't want to get stronger, then what do you want, to get weaker? Do you want to be weak? Really? Really? If so, then, why? I've had people tell me everything from that they want to get "bigger" to that they want to "lose fat." Well, buckaroo, you can't get big, you can't get really big, without getting strong. You can get a blood pump happening in your muscles, you can develop a certain amount of liquid hypertrophy, but a few hours out of the gym will bring you down to earth, leaving those little swollen guns, of which you were so proud a little while ago, posing in front of the mirror, will be deflated like balloons. If you want to lose fat, well, then, you need to pack on some muscle, which can be accomplished by getting stronger. You might weigh more--muscle ways more than fat, after all--but each pound of muscle will burn four times the amount of calories that a pound of fat will. Your body will literally revolt against fat as you get stronger, stripping it away. Besides, when a person is truly down and out, you don't hear "I want to get buff," or "I want six pack abs." When a man or woman can't walk, or work, or get out of bed, he or she says, "I want to get stronger." That person is at their lowest, back to basics, and that's where the deep work, which feels like it's being done at the cellular level, gets done. Get back there and start building. Get strong. All the other stuff you want will come.