Technical chit-chat thread

[Hawkpeter]

Modern sport periodisation is not like that. Everything stays in the program year round, just emphasised to different degrees during different phases. In the off season, you focus on more GPP with maybe one session of moderate-heavy snatch/clean and jerk a week. In comp prep, you focus more on heavy snatch/clean and jerk, with a decrease in volume of squats/pulls and GPP. Not rocket science, just shifting focuses.

Starting out in T&F for me, understanding Charlie Francis' vertical integration model helped tremendously with my first attempts at programming weightlifting.

[brian.degennaro]

Francis' concepts are big influences on my end too, as well as the sprinters I knew in University. In spite of the asterisk on Ben Johnson's and Charlie's careers after Seoul, his methods are very applicable to drug free athletes. His high/low concept works really well and I agree, pivoting if the workout is not going as planned, avoiding doing two high CNS intensive workouts in a row, and the emphasis on recovery and forcing 10 days of easier training after PR performances are things I apply routinely. I think in spite of using drugs like everyone else at the time, Charlie Francis was using them in the traditional sense as restoratives and to enhance the training effect versus utilizing them to introduce and apply more volumes (as was the case of weightlifting in the 80s and 90s).

[strapping]

I don't mean to say that there is body shaming, absolutely not. Only that some athletes in the heavy categories do not embody his idea of ​​a "prototype athlete". Maybe also because their results are not exciting compared to international standards (our best super has a record of 150-185). I think that if there was someone very strong, competitive at world level, obviously he would be in the team.

In that case, there needs to be more tall Italians fed into weightlifting. Real Italian food in every regional cuisine is anabolic, there's no reason for Italy not to be producing supers all over the country.

Starting out in T&F for me, understanding Charlie Francis' vertical integration model helped tremendously with my first attempts at programming weightlifting.

Francis' concepts are big influences on my end too, as well as the sprinters I knew in University. In spite of the asterisk on Ben Johnson's and Charlie's careers after Seoul, his methods are very applicable to drug free athletes. His high/low concept works really well and I agree, pivoting if the workout is not going as planned, avoiding doing two high CNS intensive workouts in a row, and the emphasis on recovery and forcing 10 days of easier training after PR performances are things I apply routinely. I think in spite of using drugs like everyone else at the time, Charlie Francis was using them in the traditional sense as restoratives and to enhance the training effect versus utilizing them to introduce and apply more volumes (as was the case of weightlifting in the 80s and 90s).

I never got around to really digging into Charlie Francis' work directly but from a quick search/YouTube video, it makes sense. Trickier in a team sport environment when you're juggling even more qualities, but the principles are the same I guess. I'm sure my approach was indirectly influenced by his work, people talk about his works as some of the seminal texts in athletic development.

I'm not keen on the idea that intensive sprinting/weightlifting causes a lot of CNS fatigue (overall, peripheral, and perceived fatigue, yes) more than higher volume, relatively specific work but I also realise I'm writing this with 40 years of hindsight. Longer duration, higher volume and more muscle damaging training causes more measurable CNS fatigue, whether it's aerobic work or strength endurance training. IMO that's probably also why it improves work capacity. Intensive work still causes lots of fatigue, but I believe it's more peripheral in nature. Relevant blog article one and two.

Certainly the notion of selected intensive workouts and lighter, more extensive workouts is one that is applicable in weightlifting. If a lifter is really cooking in a particular session and we go heavy, the next couple of sessions will be easier. Post competition, I prefer lifters to do some light classics/variations and then some non-specific training just to pivot for a week or two.

Pivoting if the workout isn't going as planned is just called coaching IMO. When I started out, I would foolishly simply "followed the program" (and was told to) when it wasn't happening and it clearly didn't work. It just left me tired and injured. Now that I'm coaching, I always try to adjust things on the day and ask athletes to let me know truthfully how things are going.

[brian.degennaro]

I'm not keen on the idea that intensive sprinting/weightlifting causes a lot of CNS fatigue (overall, peripheral, and perceived fatigue, yes) more than higher volume, relatively specific work but I also realise I'm writing this with 40 years of hindsight. Longer duration, higher volume and more muscle damaging training causes more measurable CNS fatigue, whether it's aerobic work or strength endurance training. IMO that's probably also why it improves work capacity. Intensive work still causes lots of fatigue, but I believe it's more peripheral in nature. Relevant blog article one and two.

I think what you may have missed was that in Francis's methods, nothing but near or maximal effort speed would not carryover into greater performances. If the intensity was dipping into what he deemed medium effort (76-94%), it was a waste of their time, hence the pivot to rest day, drills, or tempo run. Keep in mind and by my reading, Charlie did not incorporate reps over 120m on the intensive training days, and that was specifically for training speed endurance. If you were not fresh and fast, the speed workout was worthless. Charlie's tempo work would typically comprise days of 50-75% effort runs of 100/200/300/400 repeats at consistent intervals for 2000-4000m (total) x 3 x per week depending the specialty.

I believe a similar theory applies to weightlifting as well.

[strapping]

I think what you may have missed was that in Francis's methods, nothing but near or maximal effort speed would not carryover into greater performances. If the intensity was dipping into what he deemed medium effort (76-94%), it was a waste of their time, hence the pivot to rest day, drills, or tempo run. Keep in mind and by my reading, Charlie did not incorporate reps over 120m on the intensive training days, and that was specifically for training speed endurance. If you were not fresh and fast, the speed workout was worthless. Charlie's tempo work would typically comprise days of 50-75% effort runs of 100/200/300/400 repeats at consistent intervals for 2000-4000m (total) x 3 x per week depending the specialty.

I believe a similar theory applies to weightlifting as well.

Could you elaborate on what that would mean for WL?

[Elle]

What differences do you notice between the two lifts?

https://www.instagram.com/p/DCvJdZcxIWL/

[brian.degennaro]

Could you elaborate on what that would mean for WL?

That the near maximal lifts are going to be the only thing that directly carries over to snatch and C&J improvement and the lower threshold lifts utilized for conditioning/technical work. The middle intensity (whatever a coach wants to deem that percentage) is going to be largely useless except to add more fatigue to training. Keep your heavy days heavy and your light days light in essence.

What differences do you notice between the two lifts?

https://www.instagram.com/p/DCvJdZcxIWL/

Giulia finishes with better leg drive nowadays versus her back and hips.

[Guima73]

Could you elaborate on what that would mean for WL?

That the near maximal lifts are going to be the only thing that directly carries over to snatch and C&J improvement and the lower threshold lifts utilized for conditioning/technical work. The middle intensity (whatever a coach wants to deem that percentage) is going to be largely useless except to add more fatigue to training. Keep your heavy days heavy and your light days light in essence.


Heavy only being 90% and 90%+? Light everything under 80% ?

What differences do you notice between the two lifts?

https://www.instagram.com/p/DCvJdZcxIWL/

Giulia finishes with better leg drive nowadays versus her back and hips.

Forward to minute 46:59 and see Giulia's coach at that time, calling her for not using the legs . Then another coach, Scarantino, immediatly after showing how it his supposed to be done

[strapping]

What differences do you notice between the two lifts?
https://www.instagram.com/p/DCvJdZcxIWL/

2024 22y/o Miserendino has more muscle mass and more strength compared to 2021 Misrendino at 19y/o, particularly in pulling musculature (upper back, maybe lower back/hamstrings). Besides technical changes, stronger is stronger (not to mention, strength enables technical options).

IMO in the 102, she is maintaining a more vertical pull (less knee flexion in transition, shoulders not as far behind the bar).

[strapping]

I was brushing up on energy system development for repeated sprint sports and came across this outstanding video that brought me back to my lecturer telling me our textbooks were wrong in undergrad.

In turn, that reminded me of the discussion we had regarding cardio and energy system demands in weightlifting. Greg Nuckols did a piece years ago on cardio for strength athletes, where he argues that aerobic system development can be a limiting factor for strength athletes or bodybuilders, especially as the session continues.

I think this applies particularly to weightlifters, where everything we do stresses the same muscles/energy stores. Traditionally, it's argued that weightlifting is very phosphagen/ATP-PCr domninant but practically, I think there must be a heavy (anaerobic) glycolytic and aerobic component. No one has time to rest 6-8 minutes between lifts.

Anaerobic glycolysis will already be the dominant energy system after a single near-max work set of 5 reps in the squat in isolation, let alone multiple sets or sets performed after snatch and clean and jerks. I have a sneaking suspicion that even triples (e.g. 3x3) done after a snatch/cj workout would be pretty heavy on anaerobic glycolysis and aerobic contribution. Certainly repeated sets of 5+ reps would be straying into aerobic territory following snatch/clean and jerk.

This does go both ways though - I think sometimes improvements in conditioning can show themselves in xRM improvements that don't carry over to the single effort lift.

Anecdotally, whilst most weight trainees and even some weightlifters may do okay on a relatively low carb diet, I've definitely found lifters and athletes of all types seem to train better with at least 3g of carbs per kg of bodyweight, in some cases preferably more. I think there's a reasonable argument to have more protein than the 1.6g/kg figure (sure, not improving MPS but what about MPB? not well studied), but 1.6g/kg does work well enough for people who don't like eating a lot of protein.