Lessons from #CoachesOnly - Day 2
If you aren’t sure what the Coaches Only conference was go read part one of my review here…
In short, over two evenings a few weeks ago some of the top coaches, academics and an international athlete were hosted by Weightlifting House to give talks on a wide range of training, coaching and lifting topics. It was really enjoyable as a viewer and I want to share just some of what I learned here, with you.
Day 2 speakers were Dr Sergii Pustov (Warm Body, Cold mind - @pustoff), Dr Quinn Henoch (Clinical Athlete - @quinn.henochdpt) and two top American coaches Sean Waxman (Waxmans Gym - @the_sean_waxman) and Spencer Arnold (Power and Grace Performance - @powerandgraceperformance).
After a fantastic first day I was really looking forward to these talks. All speakers gave a lot of information but also stayed around to answer questions and do a round table Q&A after the event. I would highly recommend you sign up for the next one!
Talk 1 - Dr Sergii Pustov presented on Competition strategies. Right the way from how training data influences opening lifts, to warm-ups and attempt selection. It was great hearing someone who has been in the sport so long and in a system that envelops a young lifter so wholly and makes it a huge part of their education. In earning a PhD in sport science Sergii also lifted professionally - achieving a huge 165/200 in the snatch and clean and jerk respectively. He also works as strength & conditioning coach to one of my favourite boxers Aleksandr Usyk.
The biggest take home for me was how frequently he competed while coming up in the sport and how he suggested that any new lifter should aim to compete around 3-4 times a year and increase this up to 6-8 times per year as they progress. This should then drop to 3-5 times per year once a top lifter has been in the sport 12 years plus and just does the major comps.
The data collected from training and previous competition could be used in several different formulae to suggest opening weights in the next competition. Stats on how reliable a lifter is in competition also influence this as well as different ways to predict how a weight cut will effect competition performance.
Performance reliability relates to how many attempts are made or missed and can be tracked over a full career to inform a coaches decisions. Dr Pustov showed some amazing stats from Team China in 2008 and how the female team warmed up with what looked like an insane amount of high intensity singles but it lead to a 100% successful snatch attempts and a 91% success rate in the clean and jerk (only one missed lift).
The actual structure and content of the competition warm up was the final part of the presentation along with some resources - old school soviet block text books and research from the famous coaches of the past. I’ve got some reading to do now…
The second speaker of the evening was someone I’m more familiar with through his social media presence - Dr of Physical Therapy and amateur weightlifter Quinn Henoch. I’ve followed him for some time and enjoyed his content as well as finding a lot of useful stuff for my own rehab/training. Dr Henoch spoke about managing weightlifting injuries and again was very useful and practical. Being more familiar with this area (working alongside physios and being married to one, as well as having studied more of the same content around cause of injury and return to play) less was new to me but it’s always good to get a refresher and different take on the same area.
Much of the presentation focused on what we as coaches can do - as opposed to worrying about all the things we cannot do - when our lifter or ourselves get some form on injury that impacts training. The main take home for me was that many niggles and injuries are LOAD SPECIFIC. This is to say that at X kg there is pain or dysfunction, but that at a lower % of maximum we can still train, practice and progress without necessarily making the injury any worse - sometimes and usually actually helping the recovery.
Whilst in the past I may have looked first to change the movement or restrict the range (both of which are still valid) now I may first consider whether simply lowering the prescribed load is a good strategy. This way we can more likely still derive the desired skill and training outcomes that making too many drastic changes at once would negate. A very interesting talk and some nice practical examples at the end for some of the more common lifting issues.
The third presentation was by well known American coach Sean Waxman. I knew the name and the gym but I had never seen/heard Sean speak. He’s a funny but serious guy and spoke about developing clean lifters in a sport with a horrendous reputation for performance enhancing drugs. This was really interesting to me as it’s so easy to look at the top 10 in almost any major competition and see doping violations of the past or sit waiting for the medals to be stripped. With everything that has gone on behind the scenes over the last 2-3 years it’s a hot topic - Can a lifter win at the highest level if they are clean?
A major point of interest was seeing how Sean thought about the problem. “How can you recreate the adaptations that drugs enhance/elicit without them?”
It’s ‘simply’ a matter of structuring training and recovery in a way that gets as close to the hormonal environment that the PEDs create. The simple part being, of course; very hard, hugely individual, requiring a lot of data and fairly expensive in time and money.
It was really interesting to hear Sean speak about a system in which he focuses on a fairly small number of key exercises (26 in this case) that all have varying degrees of specific transfer to the competition lifts. It is by manipulating these and tracking data like volume and load, to create as much physical adaptation as possible for each lifter.
I think an important part of this whole discussion is that you can sometimes prove someone is doping through testing but it isn’t fool proof. There are loads of suspects and numerous loop holes. We can’t say with 100% certainty who is and who isn’t but countries with a poor record of drug control also tend to have the greatest resources for training and monitoring athletes, so in theory could/should also be at the forefront of leading the way in drug free success.
The final speaker of the weekend was Spencer Arnold. A relatively new coach compared with the other speakers but someone who has been in the sport a few years and was lucky enough to have some freak athletes walk into his gym (his words, paraphrased). A modest and humble guy who certainly down played his knowledge and experience somewhat. I found his talk very useful and have since had a think about the way I measure volume and track load.
Spencer coaches hugely talented American weightlifters Harrison Maurus, Jourdan Delacruz and now (as of Mar ‘21) Katherine Nye among others. His talk focused on Data Collection for Optimal performance and was very thought provoking. It was eye-opening to hear someone who considers himself a relative newbie coach speak about coaching lifters who are potential Olympians.
At Power and Grace Performance Spencer collects total reps, tonnage (kg) and average %. He uses the idea of total reps and ‘impact reps’. Not a new idea per se but one that is not always agreed on. He chooses to record anything above 60% in the average intensity summary. One step further; he also calculates relative intensity as it pertains to each variation used and also peak intensity in each period.
Data collected on this scale is used retrospectively to plan forwards. That is to say that because of it’s largely individual and unpredictable nature, physical responses to training volume and intensity must be looked at and considered on an individual basis. Spencer showed some examples of how his different athletes respond to different loading amounts, variations and deloads.
At current for most of my lifters I record; working sets, tonnage and average intensity. I will be adding rep volume into my data set as it seems a very simple and useable measure. The data gathered over at least 6 months (IMO) should then help paint a picture of what works well for each athlete. That said, it is still only one part of the process as technical coaching and simply selecting the right exercises to drive improvements are still as or more important than the precise qualification of training load. Most data collected in the beginning is purely academic until it is a large enough base to consider reliable to use for future planning.
The talk ended with a Q&A and round table which was again, really interesting and entertaining. Big thanks to Seb and the team at Weightlifting House for putting on such a great event as well as the speakers for providing an insight to the elite level coaching and training. I look forward to the next one! (Just announced to be in June and can be via the W|H website)