The Struggle is Real - Olympic Lifting

[TaylorFit]

So I wanted to start something on this message boards I could be accountable for and this seems like the place to do it.

 

I'm currently training as an Olympic weightlifter. I compete in 2-4 competitions a year, and I've been doing it for over 3 years (not long I realize)

 

My biggest problem is I've struggled finding a program that really suits me, so I generally end up jumping around and my training lacks focus. I've been slowly getting better but I still have some ways to go, so this is where I'm going to hold myself accountable to a proper program.

 

I started with a coach but unfortunately that's not an avenue available to me anymore so I have to do all my own programming. I do consult with other coaches when I get the chance but it doesn't come up often.

 

At the moment I just came out of a competition. I have a week just messing around a little and stretching out and recovering (as well as an exhibition at the local show) but then next week I start a 9 week program leading up to states which is my first major competition for the year. I hit my goals at this recent comp which has given me the confidence I need to hit what I need to at states.

 

I have to write the program this week though so I'll put more about that when I finish writing it.

 

As for today I got back in and did some light work to see what was really sore and needed a bit of work to loosen up.

 

Started with my standard warm up:

1000m row, Foam rolling, Dynamic Stretching, and some basic body weight stuff.

 

This led into some light hang power snatches at 50kg. Did 5 sets of triples and quickly realized I had some aches and pains that needed addressing.

After that I went in to some Back squats - 2 sets of 10 at 100kg with a pause at the bottom. These felt alright so the bulk of my tightness was in my traps.

 

Hit some stretches for half an hour and the foam roller again and that was it for the day.

 

Till tomorrow,

 

Andrew

[TaylorFit]

Bit more of an interesting day today.

 

Today's training was exhibiting at the local show. I'm from a small town and the weightlifting club here is full of kids and we got asked to put on a bit of a demonstration to show the town what we are doing. I got a little exited but basically I had 25 minutes to hit a relatively heavy snatch and clean and jerk.

 

I think my blood sugar was a bit low all day and I ate a baked potato with mince and stuff in it prior to lifting and I think my insulin sensitivity was way up because I was firing.

 

Hit a 90kg snatch and 120kg power clean and jerk. They both felt pretty easy which is surprising I only came out of a comp a few days ago.

 

 On another note the program is pretty much written. I'm keeping it simple and just modifying a catalyst athletics program slightly to suite my needs.

 

More on that later.

[SpecialSundae]

Following on with interest. I train with a lot of weightlifters and it's always good to see what other people do.

[TaylorFit]

Training:

Rest Day, Whoo! Or not Whoo. Training's my favorite part of the day.

 

Completed my ROMWOD workout. Would have been a lot more relaxing if my 2 yo daughter had gone to bed and she wasn't trying to climb on my back while I was do a lizard pose.

 

My training program for the next 9 weeks is done. I'm happy with it and the load, will see how I go on it. I'm camping this weekend and then easing into it next week and then getting fully into it the following week.

 

Nutrition

I've been having a lot of gut issues for about 4 weeks now and it's been a bit of a quest to get over it. For the last two weeks I've gone pretty much strict paleo with a lot of fasting mixed in to give my gut a chance to recover. Seems to have come good now.

 

Snuck in a little ice cream tonight :).

 

Tomorrow I'm going to go a max deadlift, because why not. I'll put a video up.

[ArgSki77]

4 hours ago, TaylorFit said:

Completed my ROMWOD workout. Would have been a lot more relaxing if my 2 yo daughter had gone to bed and she wasn't trying to climb on my back while I was do a lizard pose.

Following. Like seeing other's reactions the daily ROMWOD. Also interested in weightlifting. Been focused on powerlifting but would like to move towards incorporating weightlifting once my meet is done.

[SpecialSundae]

7 minutes ago, ArgSki77 said:

Following. Like seeing other's reactions the daily ROMWOD. Also interested in weightlifting. Been focused on powerlifting but would like to move towards incorporating weightlifting once my meet is done.

 

I'm sure @TaylorFit will come back with this too, but make sure you get a good coach to help you learn weightlifting. It's SO much more technical than powerlifting!

[TaylorFit]

5 hours ago, ArgSki77 said:

Following. Like seeing other's reactions the daily ROMWOD. Also interested in weightlifting. Been focused on powerlifting but would like to move towards incorporating weightlifting once my meet is done.

 

Sundae is absolutely right on this, the technical proficiency required for weightlifting is very high, a coach is a must for all beginners. If you are looking at moving over to Olympic lifting eventually though the best thing you can do is work on your flexibility and mobility, and then strength work will translate over really well. 

 

But when you do decide to move over definitely find a coach. A weightlifting specific coach as well, please don't go to a crossfit gym to learn how to Olympic lift.

[TaylorFit]

Ok so far today...

 

I'm enjoying my breakfasts lately, opting for a small sweet potato scrambled up with some bacon. and 3 scrambled eggs as a side. (I have carbs in the morning as that is my general training time.

 

Then off to the gym for my heavy deadlifting session. Hit 200kg so was pretty happy with it. I wussed out like the Olympic lifter I am and used straps and a belt. Last time I deadlifting my max was 185kg so it's going up nicely. BW was 99.8kg.

 

Followed the deadlifting session up with an hour and a half of some yoga. I love yoga, everyone should be doing it.

 

Lunch is a baked spud with some mine and avacado. Then tomorrow I'm off camping for a few days.

 

Also have the warrior routine of ROMWOD tonight which is 45mins of passive stretching.

 

All in all good day.

[SpecialSundae]

Solid weightlifter loading there, mate!

 

Red and yellow and black and green... I can lift a rainbow! 

 

Nice PB.

[TaylorFit]

You have to have a good spectrum. It's not just about how you lift the weight but how you look doing it ;).

 

I had the help of some bodybuilder dude standing there telling me how power lifters and Olympic weightlifters are ruining gyms. Kinda made more funny by him doing bicep curls as he tells me this.

[SpecialSundae]

23 minutes ago, TaylorFit said:

You have to have a good spectrum. It's not just about how you lift the weight but how you look doing it ;).

 

I had the help of some bodybuilder dude standing there telling me how power lifters and Olympic weightlifters are ruining gyms. Kinda made more funny by him doing bicep curls as he tells me this.

 

We're going to explode our knees if we squat below parallel... I'll tell you about gorilla guy sometime in a PM. Might make you laugh.

 

I'm spoiled in that the majority of people in my gym are powerlifters or weightlifters (or athletes following an S&C programme) so we get less of the arsery. We also have Eleiko bars and plates, ZKC plates and Ivanko bars. The only thing that sucks is the bench!

[miss_marissa]

6 hours ago, SpecialSundae said:

Solid weightlifter loading there, mate!

 

Red and yellow and black and green... I can lift a rainbow! 

 

Nice PB.

Haha!!! I sung the song in my head lol

 

Congrats on your recent PRs! and welcome to NF.

[TaylorFit]

9 hours ago, SpecialSundae said:

 

We're going to explode our knees if we squat below parallel... I'll tell you about gorilla guy sometime in a PM. Might make you laugh.

 

I'm spoiled in that the majority of people in my gym are powerlifters or weightlifters (or athletes following an S&C programme) so we get less of the arsery. We also have Eleiko bars and plates, ZKC plates and Ivanko bars. The only thing that sucks is the bench!

 

This was actually the first guy I've ever had to put up with lol. We don't get the quality gear but fortunately the owner of the gym is a weightlifter so even though it's a small town we have 4 platforms and a heap of weights, and we've slowly managed to drag most of the town over to the dark side.

 

7 hours ago, miss_marissa said:

Haha!!! I sung the song in my head lol

 

Congrats on your recent PRs! and welcome to NF.

 Thanks!!

[TaylorFit]

And I'm back.

 

Been camping for the last 5 days.

 

5 days of poor eating and chilling out and not chilling out. Camping in theory is relaxing but its a whole lot of setting up, packing up and doing a lot of things the hard way. That said it is the only time I let my brain switch off and focus on the menial things like cooking and doing the dishes. That's what I like the most.

 

I am however very physically exhausted, which is going to make it very hard to wake up at 4am to train tomorrow.

 

Will ease myself into my new training diet through the week and get stuck into it fully next week.

 

 

[TaylorFit]

Ok first real day back in the gym after comp and camping...

 

Needless to say I think my body now hates me, as it hurts quite bad. A few days away from ROMWOD didn't help either as that was 20 minutes of pure torture.

 

I think I need to address what I gave up today as well. I had planned to go see Captain America, was the last viewing in my very remote area, but my lazy ass couldn't get out of bed this morning. As penance I opted to train instead of going. This means I'm not going to get to see it in cinema which makes it the first marvel movie ever that I didn't see on the big screen.

 

Sad times indeed.

 

It hurts to talk about actually...

 

Workout:

Warm up

500m row

Foam Rolling

Dynamic Stretching

an exercise where I load the bar and put it on top of my knees in the squat position (no idea what its called)

some Jepherson Curls

Some warm up stuff for clean and jerks

 

Core Workout

3-Position clean + Jerk 3+1 - 80kgx4, 85kgx4, 90kgx4x4 (that's a clean from ground, bellow the knee, above the knee, and a jerk on the last one)

Clean Pulls - 120kgx3x2, 125kgx3x2

Front Squats - 95kgx3x5

Good Mornings - 50kgx5x3 (these hurt!)

 

Supplementary

Plank - 3x20s holds with 25kg

Russian twists 10kg 10 each side 3 sets

Back extensions - 10kgx10x3

 

Total time 1hr 18mins

 

I came at this workout a bit hard as I wanted to see how quickly I could get it done as generally I have a time cap of 1hr 30mins. By hard I mean I didn't warm up quite enough and had a huge lactic acid buildup at the start. Full cleans for reps really take it out of you.

 

Also didn't help that I didn't eat nearly enough food today. Paid for that.

 

Anyway all in all a good start to the program. This week is more or less identical to next seeing as I'm starting the week mid way through.

 

Definitely going to need to give my legs a bit of extra attention over the next few days as those few missed days have slid me back a bit.

[miss_marissa]

3 hours ago, TaylorFit said:

an exercise where I load the bar and put it on top of my knees in the squat position (no idea what its called)

Torture?

[SpecialSundae]

10 minutes ago, miss_marissa said:

Torture?

Weird shit weightlifters do...

[TaylorFit]

3 hours ago, miss_marissa said:

Torture?

 

3 hours ago, SpecialSundae said:

Weird shit weightlifters do...

 

Lol not heavy, just 50-60kg. Good ankle stretch, I find it makes the squats feel a lot nicer from the start. The only name for it I could find was the barbell ankle stretch. I feel like it needs a better name.

 

So after missing Captain America yesterday I told myself no more sleep ins on training days...

 

Forgot today is the one day I don't have to get up early. I get to sleep in if I wanted. Sadly I had already gotten up and showered so study it is...

[TaylorFit]

 

I did have a photo, there it is.

[jdanger]

I just call that a barbell ankle stretch, groundbreaking I know.

 

Anyway, cool to see some new WL'ers around. Keep up the good work! 

[Sam Ashen]

On 5/19/2016 at 9:45 PM, TaylorFit said:

Then off to the gym for my heavy deadlifting session. Hit 200kg so was pretty happy with it.

 

Hi!

 

At first I thought you cleaned this weight!  O.O

 

<------WL no0b here

[TaylorFit]

What a day. I'm wrecked. Don't know why but my energy levels are rock bottom.

 

Training

Warm up:

My warm up is always the same with the only change being at the end depending on the lift I'm focusing on.

 

Core Workout

Power Snatch - 60kgx3x5

Snatch High Pull - 75kgx3x5

Snatch Push Press + Overhead Squat (5+1) - 65kgx6x5

 

Volume was down a little which was good because I didn't have to rush as much. I was pretty sore as well.

 

Supplementary

Ab Roller - 3x8 - Love to hate these

Russian Twists - 3x10 each side 10kg

Back extensions - 10kgx3x3

 

Total time: 1hr 15mins

 

Yoga: 1hour 45mins, I go to a class. A lot of the people where away so we went for a much more challenging session, it destroyed me.

 

I was very thankful today was a bit lower on the volume.

 

Tomorrow is rest day, thank god. 

[Zera]

What program do you follow?

[TaylorFit]

3 hours ago, Zera said:

What program do you follow?

 

I knew roughly what I wanted so I just went on the catalyst athletics site and grabbed the one I thought best suited my needs and adapted it a little. seeing as all the loading has been figured out and the waves and whatever else it makes things a lot simpler and simple is what I need right now.

 

When I program I tend to put in to much, so I figured if I just stuck to this program for the next 9 weeks leading to states then hopefully I'll manage and improve.

 

I've never been able to follow a program properly because I'd always hurt myself or my knees would be suffering to much but I've got those issues under control now so will see how it plays out.

[TaylorFit]

Some days you just need a doughnut to get you through.