Author: coffeesgym

By: Edward Baker

The past few years have been excellent for the exposure of Weightlifting. Membership in USAW has almost doubled in the past year and with that almost double the number of USAW certified coaches. Thanks to CrossFit and social media the popularity of this sport is growing and more gyms are becoming interested in learning more about Weightlifting With the booming interest, more people with certifications and degrees are coming out of the woodwork proclaiming to be coaches. And unfortunately, there is a tendency for consumers to assume that those who possess letters after their name are automatically good coaches. Credentials don’t make coaches.

That last statement isn’t to say that there is no validity in possessing credentials. Quite the contrary, obtaining a formal education in the basics of exercise physiology and biomechanics can give an individual foundational knowledge to build upon, and attending different certification courses or seminars can provide new information, or remind and reinforce what an individual has already learned. One criticism of using a formal education to coach, is that much of the literature used is derived from a Physical Therapy setting, but what is applicable to a PT patient does not necessarily apply to a lifter. For example, Karl Klein’s ‘The Knee is Not for Bending’ article featured in Sports Illustrated back in 1962 misled many to believe that full squats caused laxity of ligaments in the knee. While this has been refuted, many exercise science programs still teach this as dogma (including the University of Georgia). Sure, a full squat wouldn’t be advisable for a soccer player who’s doing physical therapy after an ACL surgery, but a hammer thrower would be missing out on the benefits of the development of the glutes (important and powerful hip extensors) that would only help them in their athletic endeavors.

Lacking a formal education in exercise science means it is up to the individual to properly educate themselves on training methodologies, and there are plenty of Weightlifting coaches in this country that have done so. My coach and mentor, John Coffee, is a prime example. While he doesn’t have an Exercise Science degree, he has definitely read his fair share of literature so that it doesn’t hold him back. At 68 years old, he’s still making strides to educate himself on how to be a better coach.

Notice that I stated ‘foundational knowledge’ earlier in the last paragraph; While credentials can provide an excellent basis, a prospective coach must not stop striving to educate themselves. I feel that too often there is a tendency for people to either go into certifications or seminars just to obtain a credential, rather than aiming to further expand their knowledge on training methodologies.

Just as bad of a sin is that one stops trying to learn after completing the certification/seminar, with the mentality that most of what a coach needed to know was within the course material. And there are those individuals who completely scoff at certifications, seminars, or formal education altogether who, ironically, are the ones that would most greatly benefit from each.

Foundational knowledge serves as a great starting point on how to go about training an athlete, but truly learning to be a coach requires actively learning with each athlete you’re entrusted with. Everyone is different and everyone will need to be trained differently. At the end of the day, a large part of coaching is making lots and lots of educated guesses based on education and experience. When you provide a technical cue for an athlete, experience will say that it will correct a problem, but there’s no surefire way of knowing what we say will 100% work. This goes for programming as well. When I started training at Coffee’s, I hung around the gym everyday and got to see John work with people on a daily basis. This has tremendously helped me in my own coaching endeavors. The mark of a good coach is how well they convey the knowledge they possess to their athletes. Anyone can memorize a biomechanical analysis of the execution of a snatch, but that is only half the equation. If a coach can’t give the information to the athlete in a way that they can understand and execute the proper movement pattern, then it’s useless information.

In conclusion, coaches are made by education and experience. From my own personal experience, if you are aspiring to be a coach, find a well‐established, knowledgeable coach and ask if you can shadow them to see how they work with their athletes. “One can never know it all, and one should never stop striving to learn more.”

Photo courtesy of: hookgrip

Smooth Off The Floor
by: Edward Baker

In technical analyses of the Olympic lifts, much attention is appropriated to the latter phases. The incipient phase of the pull is equally, if not more important, and in many cases determines the outcome of a made or missed lift. Echoing the sentiments of John Coffee, “If you can start it right, chances are you’ll end it right.”
The separation of the barbell from the platform must be smooth; not necessarily slow, but in such a way that body positions are not compromised. For example, when an athlete yanks or jolts the barbell off the ground, the back tends to round (it’s also not good practice for the sake of integrity of the shoulders.) Many times the athlete will rush pulling the bar from the floor and commit faults that severely hinder the possibility of successfully completing the lift. These faults include: Not getting the knees back enough, the bar drifting away from the athlete from the ground to the knees, and the bar coming off of the ground too fast.
Not getting the knees back enough will force the athlete to pull around the knees, and this horizontal deviation away from the body will result in more of an abrupt ‘sweep’ as the bar is being pulled from the knees to the hip (a forceful contact of the hips will result in anterior translation of the barbell.) The barbell drifting away from the athlete will result in the same fault.
Many athletes mistakenly assume that if they pull the bar off the ground really fast, then this in turn will mean that their second pull will be faster and that they will be able to get under the bar. The bar needs to be moving with the greatest acceleration as triple extension occurs at the top of the pull. If the bar accelerates off the ground fast, then there is a chance that the bar will actually decelerate as it gets to the hip. (The opposite of what we want.)
Being ‘smooth’ and controlled off the floor will assure that these faults are avoided, John will often iterate “I don’t care if it takes you five seconds to get to the knees,” to stress that hitting the proper positions in the first phase of the lift is more important then trying to come off of the floor fast.

by Edward Baker

The big meet is over, preparation for the next has begun. You didn’t feel like you made quite the progress you’d have hoped. With an insatiable champion’s mentality, you’ll never be quite satisfied. Back to the drawing board to figure out where you went wrong, where to start off, and where you have to finish.
There will be days when the will to lift comes naturally. From warmup to working sets, all of the lifts you make will feel as though you were born holding a barbell. A good lift will further inspire you, and the extra inspiration will enable you to complete even more good lifts in succession. These days come easy.
There will be days when nothing feels quite right. The first warmup feels heavy, the lifts feel irregular and never quite in the groove; even the knurling of the bar feels foreign as you grasp it. And out of nowhere this trickle of bad days becomes a storm, and in no time you’re dejected before even stepping foot in the gym.
Then you remember that you’re in this for the long haul, and have to keep moving forward. The tempest is stagnant; No matter how discouraging, how unpromising, how rocky the path seems, as long as you keep moving forward you’ll escape the storm. And once again will you and the barbell move in harmony.

The Power Jerk: Set Yourself Under
By: Edward Baker

The power or push jerk is a less common, yet equally viable way of executing the jerk portion of the clean & jerk. Weightlifting literature may give it a brief mention, but technical issues are not really addressed. This is presumably because for most, the power jerk serves as no more than an assistance exercise. After collaborating with biomechanists and well respected international coaches (including Pyrros Dimas’s coach, Christos Iakovou) I will begin to address the technical faults that are most prominent with power jerkers. The one we will address today is: Not setting one’s self under the bar.
The two biggest disadvantages of the power jerk are that the athlete must drive the barbell higher (in relation to a split jerk) and that there is a reduction in anteroposterior stability. The reduction in anteroposterior stability means either: If the barbell has horizontal deviation when being driven overhead, or if the athlete isn’t optimally set under to receive the barbell, then there is a significantly reduced chance of a successful jerk. The split jerk is much more forgiving if either of the aforementioned faults occur, and there are many instances in which the athlete can dance around the platform and save the lift.

In the following example, the athlete drives the barbell vertically, but jumps back a couple of inches and has to incline forward at the torso to successfully make the lift. Ideally you’d like for the torso to remain fairly vertical.

Photos thanks to: Hookgrip

Keeping the shoulders and hips in line with the barbell overhead or ‘joint stacking’ is especially important for a power jerker. A vertical torso will also enable the athlete to ride the jerk into a partial squat with maximal poundages (The jerk would be missed out front with an overly inclined torso, just as a squat would.) The feet move out slightly, not back when going from the driving to receiving position of the power jerk. Some higher tiered power jerkers (Dimas, Kakhiasvilis, Bedzhanyan, etc.) jump forward in several instances.

If the barbell is driven in almost a perfectly vertical manner then there may be a need to jump forward a little so that the athlete’s shoulders and hips are in line with the bar (If the bar is starting on the anterior deltoids and being driven overhead in a secure receiving position then this makes sense.) While I certainly wouldn’t advocate consciously displacing the feet forward when receiving a power jerk, let it serve to emphasize the importance of being in an ideal position for receiving the barbell.
I also witness people not making any sort of attempt to go into a receiving position when the bar is driven to arm’s length, they are simply straight up, which means the barbell has to be driven higher, and means that the barbell is much more precarious overhead. Even if the power jerk is being used as an assistance movement, special attention must be given to ensure that the athlete wedges themselves between the barbell and the platform in a nice and secure position.
Just a little sharing of observations I’ve had, I’ll scratch the surface on a couple of other points regarding the power jerk in the future.

By Edward Baker

– Robin Goad, the last American to hold a world record in the snatch, never performed overhead squats in her training.

“The overhead squat is a means to an end rather than an end in itself.” – John Coffee

Recently, a misconception has prevailed, that increasing one’s overhead squat will increase one’s snatch. Other than being used to teach the snatch or as an occasional assistance exercise, the overhead squat has little importance in a weightlifter’s training compared to the full lifts, front and high bar back squats, and pulls. Furthermore, there is no need to try and establish a one rep max overhead squat at any point in a lifter’s career.

As a result, there are numerous scenarios in which the athlete will get to where they’re overhead squatting 100 pounds or more than what they’re capable of snatching. One justification I’ve heard is that “You overhead squat more than you snatch the same reason you front squat more than you clean.” This justification is invalid as the primary determinant on a made or missed snatch is the execution of the pull. If the bar is pulled to an inadequate height, the barbell loops, or the athlete does not set themselves in a position to receive the barbell overhead then the lift will be missed. A very common limiting factor on a clean is leg strength, so leg strength must be developed in order to stand up and then complete the jerk. Soviet studies elicit that the rate of successful jerks increase if one’s front squat is increased. In other words, the easier an athlete can stand up out of a clean, the greater possibility they’ll make the jerk. Leg strength is seldom a limiting factor in standing up out of a snatch.

Of course this is with exception; my friend Rachael Bommicino is very hypermobile and will hit a deep, mechanically disadvantageous bottom position she receives the bar in a snatch. Therefore she includes overhead squats and drop snatches in her routine to accommodate this. This is the very rare exception.

I do use the movement to teach the snatch, or when I’m warming up with the bar before a workout, or I may just throw it in a workout if I get bored. I have no idea who the first to suggest that this was a movement that should ever be maxed out on and kept up with along with one’s snatch, clean and jerk, and squat max. It should never be considered an end. I’m well aware that the overhead squat is a popular exercise to show up in CrossFit competitions, so naturally one would want to practice the movement to some extent if this is your situation. I’m simply trying to dispel the myth that a greater overhead squat yields a greater snatch when it has very little carryover.

By Edward Baker

When I was first around John, I’d ask him various questions about optimizing my training, like “Would there be any big benefit to me doing plyometrics at the end of the workout?” “What kind of assistance movements can I do to help me get stronger at the lifts?” Coffee would give me a response along the lines of “You know, the lifts themselves are plyometric. You also get stronger by doing the lifts!” I feel the need to elicit both of these points.

The Competition Lifts are Plyometric

The competition lifts are plyometric in nature, whether we choose to define the word as “eccentric immediately followed by concentric contraction” or more liberally as “skeletal muscle exerting maximum force as fast as possible”

A myotatic or ‘stretch’ reflex is the phenomenon that is the basis of plyometric physiology; when a muscle is stretched, it will immediately contract to maintain tonus (partial contraction). This characteristic ‘smooths’ the muscle’s actions, and more importantly it is employed to the athlete’s advantage in various phases of the snatch and clean & jerk.

Stretch Reflexes Through the Lifts

Pull Initiation

To initiate the pull, many lifters will raise their hips and then lower them (or repeatedly do this as shown in the video above) to utilize the stretch reflex of the hamstrings (which are recruited about 0.1 seconds after the barbell is separated from the platform.)

Double-Knee Bend

When the barbell has reached the height of the knees, another stretch reflex occurs in the hamstrings as the result of the continual contraction of the quadriceps. The hamstrings will contract and ‘double-knee bend’ will occur as the pull progresses.


Exploding or ‘Jumping’ the Weight Up

From the ‘power’ position, the lifter will fully extend their body or ‘jump’ the weight up before receiving it in the bottom overhead or front squat position.


Jerk Dip

To propel the bar upward for the jerk, the athlete dips to lengthen the quadriceps before it and the thigh extensors contract.


The Competition Lifts are Strength Movements

This may seem obvious, but sometimes I forget when deciding on workouts that the lifts themselves can be considered strength movements (to a lesser degree). Some circles categorize the snatch and clean & jerk as ‘barbell gymnastics’, separating them from strength movements like squats, presses, etc. “You also get stronger by doing the lifts!”