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Is Weightlifting strength training?

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Pingleton View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pingleton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 5/01/12 at 6:51am
Glenn,

Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful response.  Two more follow-up questions, if I may.

First, why do you train back squats more than front squats?  

Second, when squatting, how many times per week are your lifters really pushing the squats hard?  Not necessarily "grinding",  or going to max for a given number of reps, but close to it?  Are most of the squats done for reps between 1 and 3, and do you feel this allows your lifters to squat more frequently?  When squatting, how often do they perform reps of 5 or so vs. singles and doubles?

This whole issue of more frequent vs. less frequent training, particularly when it comes to squatting (since performing singles on the quick lifts is quite different), is a subject that is very interesting and/or confusing to many lifters.

Again, many thanks.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote glennpendlay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 5/01/12 at 6:54am
Originally posted by C. Smith C. Smith wrote:

Solid and reasonable answers. 

Do you feel that 15+ sessions per week is the optimal way to get strong for all your athletes (regardless of their size, experience, training age, etc...)?

I've strongly disagreed with this before so I won't really get into that, but luckily for me I only have to worry about coaching myself and getting myself strong.  Big smile


Craig,

No I don't feel that way.  In fact 9 sessions is the most often used number for people that I would consider "advanced".

In a perfect world, I would start someone out around age 10-11 training 3 days per week.  They would continue with this till they were 14 or 15 then add a 4th session. We might try to push in a 5th session when they are in their senior year of high school, say age 17.  Then upon high school graduation, they would become a full time athlete, and build over the next 6 months to 9 sessions, or maybe even 12.  This is in an ideal world where they only did weightlifting from age 10 on through to their 20's.

I had the chance to follow this progression absolutely perfectly once, his name was Caleb Ward and he clean and jerked 446lbs at age 19, a new American Record.

The year after Caleb broke that record, it was broken again by another athlete that I coach, Spencer Moormon, who did a 448lb clean and jerk right after turning 20 years old.  Spencer was coached by his father from age 8 to age 17, and did 4 workouts per week when he was not playing football, I believe 2 workouts per week during football season.  After graduating high school he came to me and transitioned to 9 workouts per week, and broke the American record.

So, when talking about these very high training volumes, I am NOT advocating them as best for everyone.  For the average dude wanting to get stronger, 3 workouts a week works very well.

One further thing to consider, is that even for my best athletes, only 4 workouts (Mon, Wed, Fri afternoons and also Saturday) are truly HEAVY.  There is a very large component of just practicing technique in the other workouts.

I would equate this maybe to a professional thrower or highland games athlete who did truly heavy weight training Mon, Wed, and Friday afternoons, but, 6 days a week, every morning was out doing event practice.

Glenn
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote C. Smith Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 5/01/12 at 7:42am
Gotcha, makes sense. 


(The only difference with HG/Throwing is that we're generally bigger and older and already more broken down, lol)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote glennpendlay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 5/01/12 at 11:39am
Originally posted by Pingleton Pingleton wrote:

Glenn,

Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful response.  Two more follow-up questions, if I may.

First, why do you train back squats more than front squats?

We do a whole lot of cleans, and get a ton of front squatting in from that 

Second, when squatting, how many times per week are your lifters really pushing the squats hard?

All the squat workouts are hard, but Saturdays are always the hardest one.  On Saturdays we start the workouts with squats, and really focus on them.


 Are most of the squats done for reps between 1 and 3, and do you feel this allows your lifters to squat more frequently?  When squatting, how often do they perform reps of 5 or so vs. singles and doubles?

we use singles, doubles, and sets of 5.  If I had to guess id say that in a years time, about equal amounts of each

This whole issue of more frequent vs. less frequent training, particularly when it comes to squatting (since performing singles on the quick lifts is quite different), is a subject that is very interesting and/or confusing to many lifters.

When we squat 4 times a week, we are doing singles in 3 of those workouts, and sets of 5 on the fourth workout, which is the saturday workout BTW.

Again, many thanks.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pingleton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 5/01/12 at 10:38pm
Glenn,

Forgive me, but I have one more follow-up question.  For the vast majority of us who do not include full cleans or squat snatches in our training, what is your opinion on the relative value of front squats vs. Olympic-style back squats, and how would you likely program each one for someone who is only squatting two or possibly three times a week in total?

Again, many thanks!

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote glennpendlay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 5/02/12 at 6:21am
Originally posted by Pingleton Pingleton wrote:

Glenn,

Forgive me, but I have one more follow-up question.  For the vast majority of us who do not include full cleans or squat snatches in our training, what is your opinion on the relative value of front squats vs. Olympic-style back squats, and how would you likely program each one for someone who is only squatting two or possibly three times a week in total?

Again, many thanks!


For someone who is not an Olympic lifter, I would concentrate heavily, maybe even exclusively, on back squats.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Daniel McKim Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 5/02/12 at 7:17am
Originally posted by glennpendlay glennpendlay wrote:

Originally posted by Pingleton Pingleton wrote:

Glenn,

Forgive me, but I have one more follow-up question.  For the vast majority of us who do not include full cleans or squat snatches in our training, what is your opinion on the relative value of front squats vs. Olympic-style back squats, and how would you likely program each one for someone who is only squatting two or possibly three times a week in total?

Again, many thanks!


For someone who is not an Olympic lifter, I would concentrate heavily, maybe even exclusively, on back squats.

I agree with you, sir.  For throwing, I've seen my best gains when I focused more on back squats than front squats.  I wish I would have flipped the importance years ago, but I spent years doing only fronts.  

As a side note, thanks for posting here.  Your insight and expertise on the Olympic lifts is incredibly valuable to those of us who include them (or variations) in our workouts.  Thanks, sir.  
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote glennpendlay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 5/02/12 at 4:24pm
Originally posted by Daniel McKim Daniel McKim wrote:

Originally posted by glennpendlay glennpendlay wrote:

Originally posted by Pingleton Pingleton wrote:

Glenn,

Forgive me, but I have one more follow-up question.  For the vast majority of us who do not include full cleans or squat snatches in our training, what is your opinion on the relative value of front squats vs. Olympic-style back squats, and how would you likely program each one for someone who is only squatting two or possibly three times a week in total?

Again, many thanks!


For someone who is not an Olympic lifter, I would concentrate heavily, maybe even exclusively, on back squats.

I agree with you, sir.  For throwing, I've seen my best gains when I focused more on back squats than front squats.  I wish I would have flipped the importance years ago, but I spent years doing only fronts.  

As a side note, thanks for posting here.  Your insight and expertise on the Olympic lifts is incredibly valuable to those of us who include them (or variations) in our workouts.  Thanks, sir.  


I was reminded today of a little thing that I believe I picked up from Sammy Walker, but cant remember for sure.  The guys challenged each other to who could squat 440lbs for a set of 5 the fastest, Spencer won with 9.3 seconds.  Sroka did it in just over 10 sec but he got off balance on his second rep so that slowed him down.

Nice way to train back squats for a sport like throwing.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pingleton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 5/02/12 at 10:05pm
Sarul used to do this with both squats and bench presses for sets of 6.  Although he was not very strong for a 21m shot putter, he was VERY good at these, which might be a clue to the relevance of this type of work.

Glenn,

How do you know Sammy Walker?  One of my early "training partners", Jack Harkness (a discus thrower who attended Clemson, and was about 6-7 years older than me), was really taught how to do the Olympic lifts by Sammy.  One of my other early "training partners", Rob Gray (former Commonwealth record holder in the discus), trained with Sammy for a while when he attended SMU in the late 1970s.  I have never met Sammy myself.

BTW, could you explain WHY you believe back squats are so much better for athletes than front squats? Although we literally always did back squats "back in the day", and certainly most throwers do them extensively, over the past few years I have come to feel front squats are a more "athletic" movement that might (or might not) transfer to at least some of the throwing events better.  They also certainly stress the low back less.  I am not saying one should abandon back squats, particularly for those who include half-squats on occasion, just that perhaps there should be a balance between the two.  Thoughts?


Edited by Pingleton - 5/03/12 at 3:54am

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote glennpendlay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 5/03/12 at 6:15am
Originally posted by Pingleton Pingleton wrote:

Sarul used to do this with both squats and bench presses for sets of 6.  Although he was not very strong for a 21m shot putter, he was VERY good at these, which might be a clue to the relevance of this type of work.

Glenn,

How do you know Sammy Walker?  One of my early "training partners", Jack Harkness (a discus thrower who attended Clemson, and was about 6-7 years older than me), was really taught how to do the Olympic lifts by Sammy.  One of my other early "training partners", Rob Gray (former Commonwealth record holder in the discus), trained with Sammy for a while when he attended SMU in the late 1970s.  I have never met Sammy myself.

I dont know him all that well.  I believe he has or had at one point a BBQ joint down around Dallas, he brought a couple of lifters to the Texas state weightlifting championships for several years...  

BTW, could you explain WHY you believe back squats are so much better for athletes than front squats?

I dont really think they are "so much better" but, if I had to pick one or the other, i would pick back squats.  a deep, high bar back squat is a pretty balanced exercise, I am not talking about a powerlifting style squat.  you can do more weight than a front squat, and they are more conducive to training fast, meaning doing your reps explosively.  So I just think they are gonna lead to better strength gains cause you are moving more weight faster through a complete range of motion.  and for most people they are more comfortable to do.

And a lot of bigger guys are limited on the front squat more by the rack than their leg strength.  I know I was.  I know my best ever set of front squats, 550lbs for 5 reps, on the 5th rep my legs werent giving out, the bar was sliding off my shoulders.  Its hard to build your legs to their maximal possible strength when you are limited on your exercise by someting other than leg strength.

All that having been said, front squats are great, I havve nothing against them.  Hell 90% of the battle is to just squat hard.  What type of squat you do is not near as important as just squatting hard in the first place.



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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Jim Glover Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 6/08/12 at 1:34pm

As always Glenn delivers the goods.

 

Originally posted by Srokus Srokus wrote:

. . . for a few months they programmed getting strong in things such as overhead squats, strict presses, snatch grip deads, etc. and rarely did snatches and clean and jerks...When they went back to the lifts they found that there actually little improvement if any in their lifts. . . .
 

If it doesn't produce results then you find something else to do.  I originally heard this from Dan John and I think it was in regards to Track and Field athletes.  They'd train any way they could to get faster, throw farther, jump higher, jump farther, etc but if you don't see results in a timely manner then you find something else that works.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote norkasd Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 7/02/12 at 6:01am
  When I was the strongest in the powerlifts, I did no olympic movements.  When I was the strongest in the olympic lifts, I still did sumo deadlifts, power squats and close grip benchs in the same workout, low reps, low sets usually 3x3 every four or five days, added 2 1/2 to 5 lbs each workout for three weeks or so.  Then would use about 50% max for a week and start over.  My lifts were never very good, 95kg snatch, 120kg C&J in the 75kg class using the split style, but I enjoyed going to a few meets and meeting other lifters.
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