ARTICLES
Some old stuff that I am reworking…and love!
Years ago, John Powell and I had a long conversation about training past the age of forty. John, for those of you who may not know, is the former world record holder in the discus and holds two bronze medals from the Olympics…as well as a Silver medal from the world championships at age forty!
John broke down “past forty” training into two basic “phases:” Phase One, which may last from 30 days to 30 years, and Phase Two, the key to superlative performance in not only the Master Athlete, but everyone else, too.
Yet, none of this came clear to me until after the Northwest Regional Masters Track and Field meet when George Mathews mentioned that “the problem with being a Master is the loss of muscle mass.” He noted that at a certain age, you suddenly become frozen, it seems. Hypertrophy, the building of muscle mass, seemed to be the answer.
The problem? The traditional means of periodizing, building up one’s training over a few months was shaped like this: Period One: Hypertrophy (Good old Bodybuilding) Period Two: Basic Strength Time (Go Heavy, Go Hard, Go Home) Period Three: Basic Power Stage (This is when one starts lifting faster in the weight room, more emphasis on speed on the track Competition …compete Period Five: Recovery (an active rest period of a few weeks where one backs way off and lets the mind and muscles heal.
For the older athlete, this may still work, but John noted that there was a key element missing Passion! George also pointed out that the loss of hypertrophy (muscle mass) was the missing.
An overview: Phase One
This could last as long as a whole career. Basically, it is the “nerve and muscle” stage. One learns the techniques of the sport and ingrains a simpler and smoother method of performance. Ideally, one would begin with a full blood profile test, I would argue for HDL and Triglycerides to be monitored throughout one’s adult life. John Powell added testosterone and DHEA levels for men, too.
During training, one strives for, first, correctly performing all the movements…from lifting to jumping to the competitive movement. Second, John recommends repetitive, but rhythmic, sets of “big lifts,” i.e. squats, cleans and snatches.
John had an illumination in his throwing career when he talked with World Shot Put champion Peter Sarul and then members of the British Javelin team…who were very
successful at the time. They told him about this workout:
Power Clean: 60K x 10
Squat: 70K x 10
Power Snatch: 50K x 10
Front Squat: 60K x 10
Crunches: 25
You did these in a circuit, one after another, then tracked your heart rate on completion. You did this cluster for three sets. As your heart rate would go down (over time), obviously your conditioning was better. Also, your total circuit time should try to go down, too.
John discovered that these “fast”workouts focusing on speed and condition, led him to his lifetime best throws. For basic training, John believes that repetition is the mother of instruction in Phase One. He though any drill that one could do over and over…while focusing on making the technique simpler and simpler…would be the key. For a discus thrower, he recommended doing the turn forwards and backwards (without throwing) with an overweight implement, then going through a workout.
In every sport, there are drills that ingrain technique.
But how to move on?
Phase Two
John had only one word: Passion. From the Latin, “to suffer,” I can’t think of a better word to describe the Love/Hate/Suffer/Fury that is required to improve as an athlete. Sadly, many young athletes have all the physical gifts, yet no passion. “The Love of the Game” is a perfect title…for a disappointing movie.
Passion. Well, how do we get it? Master athletes can teach the youth here:
1. Travel to a lot of meets.
2. Hang out with your competition for long periods afterwards.
3. Read everything, watch everything you can about your sport.
4. Travel some more. Hang out some more. Learn more.
5. Spend your money on your sport! 6. See number four above!
Yet, something is missing. I think George hit it on the head when he discussed hypertrophy. For Phase One, we can focus on speed and technique (nerve and muscle), but in Phase Two…as we build passion in our hearts…we need to build muscles in our body. The more I think about this, the more I KNOW IT IS RIGHT!
As a matter of interest, short spurts of intense training increases the natural Growth Hormones of the body…the anti-aging drugs. In Phase Two, a serious attempt to both raise GH and build muscle are a yin-yang relationship!
The research, although it is tough to discover, seems to point to several things, if you want to increase GH (and hypertrophy).
1. Eat some protein before lifting…ten to twenty grams.
2. Monitor rest periods between sets (one minute rests have shown, in some studies, to spike GH)
3. Use “full body” lifts, such as my favorites:
Power Clean and Front Squat Power Curl Clean and Press Overhead Squat
Good Morning or variations Clean grip snatch Power snatch
With Kettlebells, are you kidding me? Goblet Squats, Swings, Snatches, Get Ups, Clean and Presses…the whole RKC!
4. Don’t be afraid to “bodybuild.” Get those arm curls, triceps extensions, pull upswhatever. Put your time in during Phase Two building your Passion and Body.
That’s Good Advice!
I know some that I have can help one rekindle the passion that drives great athletes. Let’s look at a few obvious ideas:
1. Keep a journal. If I could recommend only one thing, it would be to keep this on-going conversation with yourself. As you link the days together and watch the ebbs and flows of your training and life, you can pick out the clues that lead to success in your life …athletically and real!
2. Buy books and videos on your sport. Brian Clay’s discus technique has changed my vision of things! Read magazines, books and internet articles that apply to your sports and try new things!
3. Practice both single and wide focus in your sports. Single focus would be bowling alone on one lane trying to just throw strike balls …ignoring all spares. In your sport of choice, you should occasionally strive to fix just one thing: all your resources should pour into attacking or improving one aspect of training. Wide focus is what a football coach does: the coach measures and adjusts his 92 man team, seven assistants, four managers, bus drivers, et al to deal with the opposing team and the whims of the officiating staff. Both, single and wide focus can be exhausting…but for different reasons.
Single can be “boring,” yet every athlete needs the “groove” from multiple repetitions. Multiple focus can simply over stimulate the senses. The Highland Game experience is a study in multiple focus: dancing, piping, drinking, eating, noise…and up to ten different athletic events with only a few that share any technical skills.
A couple of ideas for training multiple focus: listen to music you hate while you train; train for three sports (throw, lift, carry, whatever) in a single training session; train in extre mes…cold, heat, fasting, time of day, odd locations; learn a new sport!
Finally, invent new ways to train your current sport…seriously, “think outside the box” and restructure your whole training…or just one aspect of training.
“Passion” fuels the athlete far beyond the next workout, the next week or the next season. It also may be the secret cure to aging!
Rest: The Definitive Answer
I enjoy the emails that seem to fill my inbox every morning. People ask me about training insights from everything from winter sports to fighting arts. I help as I can. I get emails about my programs quite often usually variations of this question: “Dan, I am doing the One Lift a Day Program. If I add a second lift, will it still be one lift a day?” No.
The questions that I can never get around to answering well deal with “rest.” How many seconds do you rest after a max deadlift? In my experience, three weeks. How long do you rest after a set of 20 reps with 405 in the Back Squat? It seems to be somewhere between ten minutes and three weeks. Of all the topics in training, “rest” is the hardest one for me to get a handle on for others. Me? Oh, I understand it.
An old article about the death of a friend
It has been happening. Just like my coaches and friends warned me about over twenty years ago. In the past year, three of my friends have died. Two of my childhood heroes are shells of men even though they are only in their fifties. In the tiny throwing community, guys who toss the shot, disc, hammer and javelin, the talk of early deaths, heart attacks, and terrible joint problems are becoming as commonplace of a discussion as the weather.
I saw it happening, too. A mediocre thrower would suddenly start dominating local and regional competition. In Olympic lifting, a lifter who had been making the usual progress would within months add forty pounds in the snatch and sometimes more in the clean and jerk. You could see the other effects, too, the bloated self-confidence, the terrible skin traumas, and then the injuries. It seemed that everywhere one looked you saw blown biceps, dislocated elbows, and popped ligaments as the body failed to keep up with the increased load and intensity over such a short amount of time.
And, we all denied it.
The Dick Smith Interviews: Insights on Isometrics and Overtraining
Thanks to Mike Rinaldi, I had the wonderful opportunity of talking with Dick Smith over a series of telephone interviews. Dick’s background includes World War II experiences, a quarter squat over 1000 pounds and a lifetime of funny insights about the world of athletics. Yet, when you begin to look at the roll call of athletes who looked to him for help, his influence is staggering. Where would American lifting be without the names Lee James, Bob Bednarski, Bill March and Lou Riecke? Among hosts of others, over our discussions, we tended to keep coming back to these four, as well as Tommy Kono. As Kono trained in Hawaii and Dick lived in York (the “home” of American Lifting), it was difficult for the two of them to get together much. Whether the discussion turned to mental toughness, intelligent training or courage in the face of obstacles, the same list of names kept coming up.
Ideally, I hope to organize Dick’s pointers. For the record, I noticed that Dick and I both seem to enjoy the “story” as much as the “point of the story.” Unfortunately for me, I was then faced with pages of notes to reread and attempt to connect point “a” to point “b.”
So, forgive me, if you will if a point seems lost or a principle forgotten. However, three overriding principles dominated our conversations and Dick’s insights:
Not overtraining!
Motivation (The mind of a champion)
Flexibility
Dick still laments the loss of isometric work in the USA.
Learn the Olympic Lifts
When I started lifting, the sport of Olympic lifting was king and all the other lifting sports were snickered at for attracting oddballs.
It was January in Utah and as I looked out my garage door, I saw another blanket of snow layer my driveway. As soon as I finished lifting, I would march back into the house, change shoes and scrap the path clean again.
I have been banging plates and lifting weights since the first Nixon administration. When I started lifting, the sport of Olympic lifting was king and all the other lifting sports were snickered at for attracting “oddballs.” Then came the machine age and these expensive and profit heavy behemoths slowly elbowed out barbells and dumbbells out of the gyms (now spas, fitness centers, and “heavens”) and into the cellars and garages. So, that is why, in snowstorms, my neighbors peer out their frosted windows, look at the steam roaring out of my nose, shake their heads, and go back to watching “Must See TV.”
Systematic Education for Lifters
from Never Let Go, excerpt, pages 89-96
It happens every time I write an article or give a workshop. Someone asks me, “So, uh, Dan, do you think I should do it five times a week or should I do it twice a day?” It doesn’t matter what “it” is — one-arm lifts, Tabata front squats, Olympic lifts — I always get the same perplexing response.
I understand perplexity. As the father of two teenagers, being perplexed defines most of my life. Only recently have I understood the issue from both sides of the question. Responses like the above mystify me because I’ve been training since 1967, and I can therefore discern whether or not something works. Perhaps more importantly, I understand the steps needed to take to add something (an exercise, a training protocol, a supplement) to my training.
Some people have no idea how to do this. If you’re one of those, let me give you a hint: You must begin by understanding how we learn.
Imagine asking a five-year-old to figure out how many square yards of burnt-orange shag carpet would be needed in a room.
Issue One: This five-year-old still counts “one-two-free-four-five-uh?”
Issue Two: Not only does this young scholar not know what a yard is, but he thinks a foot is only made for kicking a ball.
Issue Three: Sure, it’s a simple issue of length times width. Says the kiddo, “What’s ‘times’?”
Goals and Toilet Seats
Men’s Room Epiphany
On our way to Montana for the National Weight Pentathlon, my wife Tiffini and I pulled over for a break. It’s a beautiful drive, but I drink a lot of coffee and I’m 49, so we have to pull over for a lot of “breaks.”
As I went into the men’s room, I noticed a funny thing: some time in the past few weeks, a young gangster decided that the men’s room toilet seat was the place to write his name. This is called “tagging” and I guess, “You’re it.”
So, since that day, this young man’s name has had a variety of sweaty, car-seat wrinkled, flabby old man buttcheeks stretched over the second gift his parents gave him after the gift of life. As a bonus, his name proudly sits inches from drying fecal material and a stench that even gagged me… and I’ve used dry toilets in the Middle East (“dry” as in 120 degrees, no water, and mummified poop).
I began wondering about “all this.”
And what is “all this?” You know, all this: the names, the mottos, and the posturing that makes up so much of the Internet and general society today. I’ve been wondering if we should take a step back and rethink our goals through the lens of what we actually believe.
“What?”
I know that’s the question going through your mind. I’ve written about goal setting here at T-Nation before and I tend to ask the question “What are your goals?” more than any person giving advice on the Internet. That is, of course, if my writing “What are your goals?” counts as actual advice.
No matter what I write about or talk about in a workshop, people always ask me questions that need to be answered only through the lens of their goals. Yet there’s always one important element missing in goal setting, and this is what I want to discuss here.
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