Lessons from 'For the Love of weightlifting' by Cyril Martin

If you do weightlifting and live in the UK, Cyril Martin should not be a name you don’t know. One of the longest serving and still hugely active coaches with a track record of coaching and aiding lifters at the highest levels. Over 50 years in the sport cannot be ignored and I get the impression from his social media and recent book release(s) that Cyril is keen to help as many lifters and coaches as he can.

Without giving too much of his book ‘For the Love of Weightlifting’ away I’ll give an overview of what I took from it. It’s definitely worth a read and I would suggest buying a copy if for no other reason than to give back support to someone who has given a huge part of his life to our sport.

Strength

Coming from an era when lifting was not only the snatch, clean and jerk as we know them now, Cyril used to train for a huge variety of lifts and as such maximal strength played a bigger role. Pressing was still part of the competitive discipline until 1972 and before that there were single arm lifts and feats of strength performed on a far more regular basis. Nowadays the skill and speed elements are arguably as important and we tend to do much less pressing.

It was really interesting to hear how much variety there was in Cyril’s early training; handstands, sprinting, jumping & even longer runs; as well as the usual suspects of squats, pulls, presses and classic lifts (which were a bit different then!). It reminded me how important general preparation is - especially in younger lifters - and that being generally athletic is important to your longevity in the sport of weightlifting.

Variables

One thing that really resonated with me was that programming to achieve too many different things at once was not an effective approach. I think some coaches, including myself in the past, are guilty of trying to improve every aspect of a lifters performance at all times. This may come as a result of seeing people in the early stages of their lifting careers getting better at everything seemingly no matter what they do, but this rate of improvement is rarely sustainable.

Cyril talks about backing off on squats and pulls when pushing the lifts up which isn’t what you hear from many coaches. By periodising using undulating days of heavier and lighter work throughout a training week we can maintain good quality technique and moderate fatigue optimally. I think this is now much more common than the typical ‘max out each lift every day’ then throw in a deload week once in a while approach. It does however rely on the lifter adhering to the lower percentage prescription.

There are some good example programmes in the book and I know in the past Atlas (the famous gym Cyril coaches out of) has hosted coaching workshops and seminars. Hopefully post-COVID this continues and I can get to one.

Track tonnage and rep volume

Just like I wrote recently about hearing from Spencer Arnold, Cyril advises coaches measure tonnage and rep volume on training loads that cause a lot of stress to the physical and nervous systems. The difference here being that Cyril counts only reps done above 80% as having that impact on strength and power. He gives some good recommendations for rep volumes depending on your training age/status.

If you don’t keep a training diary already, start now. Look for patterns in tonnage and rep volume that cause either significant increases in performance or significant decreases in performance. Do more of the former.

Percentages on pulls vs deads

I found it very interesting how Cyril would sometimes programme pulls at what I’d have considered light loads - 85% for example - which I rarely do. It’s not that I don’t see the benefit; to technique practice and positional work, but more that I’d never been programmed anything under 90% for pulls myself historically and have gone as high as 120% in some pulls. The highest I remember seeing recommended in the book was 105%. Maybe it’s just not in this book but it appears that Cyril doesn’t use this high a load on pulls but possibly only for deadlifts.

Cyril says he programmes pulls around 10% higher than the lifts in any phase. Meaning if you are snatching 70% you presumably do pulls at 80%. Maybe I’m overthinking this but programming ‘lighter’ pulls could be because the lifters he has typically worked with are already very strong and so the loads aren’t actually ‘light’. Or it could be the case that he thinks if you can pull 100+% with good positions and speed then you should be simply lifting more anyway. I’m keen to find out more on this from Cyril and to see what his thoughts behind pulls and snatch/clean deadlifts are.

*High pulls would be considered different in my mind and are done at lighter loads…

Competition tapering

Theres a great section towards the end of the book about competition tapering, full of practical ideas and well explained rationale. It’s just a little different to what I’m used to seeing.

A lot of coaches have their own practices for tapering athletes which is based on their own experience as well as what the athlete has done well with in the past. Some coaches like to hit a PB front squat 2 weeks out from comp, a PB power clean or snatch 10-12 days out from comp and then hit openers around 7-8 days out. I found Cyrils approach different to what I’d come across before. The method he talks about in the book (though I understand will vary somewhat between lifters) was the following;

A tough week around 3 weeks from competition where volume is still moderately high and intensity reaches its peak (he references 95% but I’m sure this goes higher in some cases). The following week pulls are dropped completely (again quite different to what I was taught elsewhere) and volume drops significantly - pretty much in half. Some heavy singles in the squat could be done around 90% Cyril suggests.

The final week before competing Cyril gives a very detailed breakdown (which I won’t give away here in full) which includes hitting your openers a couple of times and some lighter powers and some easier singles in the squats (85%).

Everything in this section made total sense to me and although some of it was a little different to my previous experience I’m keen to try his approach. As stated above it’s important to roughly figure out your maximum volume in order to know what 85 and 50% volume weeks actually are.

Thank you Cyril

In summary the book was a great read. As someone who historically struggled to finish a book without falling asleep, I got through this in about a week and have taken some really important things away from it. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about Cyril, his life and training and of course any coaches wanting to learn more about programming and the history of the sport. You can buy it here…