Elle wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 9:01 am
National team coaches are not that good in your opinion?
(my opinion)
National team coach is a political, not technical appointment in ALL countries. Some of them are fantastic coaches, some of them genuinely know almost nothing (including the rules), most of them fall somewhere in between. Giorgi Asanidze is IMO an example of a fantastic coach who happens to be a national coach, even if I don't personally agree with his ideas on technique.
For China, I think a lot of their lifters (particularly the men, moreso than the women) have had their technique get worse, but improve their maximal strength on the national team. Actually, their older lifters had better technique than their current lifters.
Easiest example (of many) is LYU Xiaojun. In my opinion, Lyu Xiaojun's technical peak was in 2009. Best snatch technique and best squat jerk technique we've ever seen from him. No excessive loss of vertical force prior to the explosion in the pull, stayed connected to the bar and fixated strongly, and decelerating it into the bottom rather than sitting under it in both snatch and jerk.
Afterwards, he gained a lot of muscle mass and maximal strength but lost his timing. His squat jerk became a dip and sit under, rather than properly fixating it. He did become a better competitor mentally, but a worse technician especially post London.
They've also mentioned that CHEN Lijun doesn't have desirable technique - I'd agree that his bodily structure and physical condition adds unnecessary rotation in the lifts, but he has the best pulling technique in all of China. It was ugly, but it worked. He was able to keep up with the best snatchers and push for the win in clean and jerks, despite seemingly having much less maximal strength and equal "speed strength" qualities. Less strength, similar speed - the difference was fundamentally sound, weirdly expressed technique.
Many lifters were pushed too hard, or rehabilitated inappropriately. LI Dayin is in unknown shape and I can't be especially impressed with the "back rehab" he was doing. There may be some small skill difficulty in side plank variations but the man has snatched 170+; give him some real exercise prescription "Western experts". The only use of side plank variations for a double bodyweight snatcher is low-load exercise causing some analgesia/symptom modification, it's not S&C. Good exercise, wrong population.
More directly for the women - they tend to fare a lot better than the men in terms of maintaining technique or improving it, but it's still not 100%. LUO Shifang's jerk already looks softer and not as strong as it was prior to her joining the national team. We have no clue where ZHANG Wangli is (presumably retired). LI Yajun more or less peaked as a junior and many of the Chinese women are perpetually injured.
WANG Zhouyu has good technique but is perpetually limited by her hips, which she injured as a junior like 8+ years ago. This is the rare case of the opposite (in some sense) of what I'm arguing for, but it's only fair to present a balanced case.
There are also systemic things taught in the Chinese that I disagree with. Scientific material should be easily available to anyone whose job it is to look for it; if I have the time/energy I can dig some of it up myself.
Many of the lifters, initially mostly women but now including men, also have weeeeeaak hamstrings. This started in China but has now spread to other countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkmenistan, Italian women etc. Performing borderline pause snatches in competition; why? This is like driving a racecar, hitting the brakes to rev the engine harder and "go faster" when you let off the brakes. This is maybe (bad but) acceptable in cleans, however it's non-negotiably bad for the snatch.
The overhead position is also not well trained IMO, especially in jerks. For the jerks, this extends to the split as well. Many of the Chinese athletes (e.g. Tian Tao) have very little intentional development of what I'll call the "anterior overhead system" - abdominals, serratus anterior, anterior delts etc. It's all focused on the traps/rear delts/upper back, with the head sticking way forward. Developing both sides allows for more room for error.
Third point; poor use of the upper body in the three lifts. They all have shitloads of upper body muscle, I just don't think they use it well in the lifts. Compared to the past, current Chinese lifters are more likely to lose connection with the bar in the finish of the snatch/clean and the jerk and allow it to loop in front - Wei Yinting, Shi Zhiyong, Jiang Huihua are examples of this. However, this isn't universally true of all Chinese lifters. Gigachad, Luo Shifang and Pei Xinyi have a good connection to the bar, currently.
None of this is new information, weightlifting is a solved sport. LEE Bae Young, now coaching, had similar opinions on what is happening in South Korea. Huge focus on maximal strength but it doesn't translate to performing more successful attempts at heavier weights in competition.