How To Zercher Squat: One Exercise To Rule Them All

TOPIC:

We all want that golden ticket. The one-size-fits-all exercise and perfect program. You know – the one that makes us look like the Hulk as long as we follow that program to the T.

Well folks, that all sounds great. But in reality, we know there is no one-size-fits-all exercise, program, food, or supplement… PERIOD.

However, I have a secret weapon exercise that will get us really close; it has a lot of bang for its buck. It builds massive quads, big glutes, a wide back, and some awesome biceps. Exactly what every athlete needs.

Meet the Zercher Squat

What an exercise! It almost sounds mythical. I would say that outside of most strength and conditioning coaches and the athletes we implemented it with, very few people have heard of a Zercher Squat or know what is.

The Zercher Squat is a heck of an exercise: you hold a barbell in the crease of your arms and squat up and down. What makes it so great? This movement has a lot of details hidden in it for athletes to make major gains:

1. Tension: It creates and teaches you to generate a lot of tension throughout your body. We need to learn how to brace and squeeze. Due to the bar’s placement, we subconsciously, or naturally, must contract all the right places.

2. Toughness/Grit: I’m not going to lie – this movement doesn’t always feel great. Many athletes may need to wrap some form of padding around the bar for a while. That’s just the cost of admission though. The mental fortitude you need to perform the exercise will pay off.

3. Safety: It is very hard to load this exercise to the point of increasing an athlete’s risk of injury. Also, if the athlete gets in trouble, they can just bail by dumping the bar out in front of them. No spotters needed.

4. Mobility: We struggle with many lifting movements due to not being mobile enough to access the correct positions. The Zercher doesn’t require much mobility, and mimics natural movement, making it a good fit for the majority of the athletic population.

Any drawbacks? It can be awkward, but it’s well worth it.

How to Perform a Zercher Squat

1. Set the rack up just below your elbow

2. Put the bar in the crease of your elbows and keep them tight to your sides

4. Squeeze your hands together or have palms facing the ceiling

5. Get your hips under the bar, grab a big belly breath and stand it up from the rack

6. Take a couple steps back, settle the bar, and grab more air if you can to brace

7. Squat down until your elbows touch your thighs or fall in between

8. Stand up. Repeat and get massively athletic.

No Rack? No problem. You can perform a Zercher deadlift with the bar resting on the floor. You can also do a conventional deadlift it, then let the bar rest on your knees, scoop it up at the elbow crease, and go right into your squats. Don’t forget to try Zercher carries for some serious core work.

Zercher Squat From Rack

Deadlift to Zercher Squat

Zercher Deadlift to Zercher Squat

When to Program the Zercher Squat

Add Zerchers as an alternative to any of your current main squat movements. They’re relatively interchangeable for volume and intensity as well. Try changing your program’s back squat to Zercher squats for the next block and see what kind of weight you can handle.

Train strong!

– Ryan

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Previously in this Performance Psychology 2.0 series, we explored the applied training of self-awareness (deeply understanding what your own default coaching tendencies happen to be, especially when triggered by pressure). Additionally, in Part 2, we explored the applied training of self-regulation (the ability to adapt your behavior due to context-specificity, intended outcomes, and the interplay between the two). Put simply, self-awareness gives us insight, while self-regulation helps us to take appropriate action. In this third post in the series, we’re advancing to the final stage of our logical progression in performance psychology: self-reflection. This topic might conjure an image of Auguste Rodin’s statue The Thinker which is probably the most famous artistic manifestation of the concept. It also brings to mind the Latin phrase cogito, ergo sum, which René Descartes proposed in his book Discourse on the Method and is commonly translated as “I think, therefore I am.” 

Yet self-reflection doesn’t just apply to French sculptors or philosophers – it’s also a powerful tool for coaches, athletes, and anyone looking to improve their performance. Before we begin to look at how to apply self-reflection alongside the concepts previously discussed in this series, let’s first define it.

Self-reflection is the filtering process through which you make meaning out of what has occurred by assessing, evaluating, interpreting, and then eventually organizing your thoughts and feelings in an integrative way.

Like breathing, self-reflection is happening all the time unconsciously. Our brains are wired to assign causality to make sense out of what you experience as a means of influencing your future behavior. However, it’s by bringing a higher degree of consciousness and intentionality to how we derive meaning from our experiences that we can increase the probability that we will have significant performance improvements. In As a Man Thinketh, James Allen says it best: “You will be what you WILL to be.” A self-reflection practice helps you to act with more agency. 

Carol Dweck’s work on mindset, specifically whether you have a fixed or growth-oriented one, can prove useful in framing any discussion on self-reflection. First, let’s be clear about what mindset is referring to: It’s a combination of what one believes, how one focuses on tasks, and how one attributes traits and causes to what one experiences. We’re going to concentrate primarily on the latter. At its essence, attribution is the filtering process of what has occurred. But while it does consider the past, attribution also looks to the future because how we think about a particular event, its outcomes, and what these circumstances say about ourselves has more impact on the next occurrence than we might assume.

How you make meaning out of what has occurred is going to influence your beliefs and your focus during the next iteration of an experience.

A growth mindset has more of a mastery orientation than a fixed mindset, and is more concerned about the long-term process than individual results along the way. Someone who is dedicated to the pursuit of mastery views each event as merely a blip in time, rather than the reflection of an infinite reality. In contrast, the fixed mindset can be thought of as more of an outcome or ego orientation, where it’s not about the journey as much as each event’s tangible results. Someone who has a mastery orientation would likely be pleased about their effort in spite of an undesirable outcome, whereas the person with an ego orientation would probably catastrophize a loss and view it as a negative referendum on their character and/or skill level. 

The former filters mistakes as opportunities to do better the next time and improve in the meantime,  while the latter tries to gloss over or ignore any flaws that came to light. Because they’re unwilling to draw attention to their deficiencies, they’re less likely to take risks that might reveal their shortcomings again during subsequent experiences, and they also don’t take the opportunity to improve their skillset. Meanwhile, the person pursuing mastery will not have such fears, will continue to take risks, and will resolve to relentlessly minimize their limiting factors by becoming more skilled and/or extending their work capacity.

// Problem or Opportunity?

When you have a growth mindset, you consider setbacks as potential wake-up calls, sources of more information, and motivators. If you look at an objectively negative or less than ideal result as a way to gain greater feedback about your craft, then it leads right into self-efficacy, which we covered in the post on self-regulation. However, when you have a fixed mindset, you look at that same setback as a label. In this case, in every situation you’re desperately seeking reassurance about your character, skill level, and capability. And when the result isn’t what you’ve hoped for, it’s a threat, a defeat, or an indication that you’re unworthy. This is much different to the person with a growth mindset, who considers the event to be a worthy challenge and vows to be better prepared the next time. 

Think about the aftermath of a tough training session that leaves you huffing and puffing. Do you despair, curse your lack of conditioning, and question whether the effort was worth it? Or do you recognize that while it was a hard workout, it gave you the opportunity to test yourself and showed that you need further work on your cardiovascular fitness? If you’re a coach, do you avoid seeking out such positives and get defensive every time someone offers constructive criticism? Or are you open to your players, your athletes, and fellow coaches giving you feedback on your performance, and then go away and work on your weaknesses? Both are simple but telling examples that illustrate the difference in outlook between fixed and growth mindsets.

// Stability and Instability

Bernard Weiner was one of the pioneers of Attributional Theory. One of his key concepts involved stable and unstable causes for events and how we process these. Here’s a helpful graphical summary:

For our purposes in this article, the difference between a fixed and growth mindset comes into play when making an internally stable or unstable attribution. If someone is constantly seeing things from an internal stable perspective, he or she might always view their performance and potential as fixed. This means they’re unlikely to actively look for ways to improve. On the contrary, someone who has a growth mindset recognizes that results will inevitably fluctuate, acknowledges that competition is inherently chaotic, and tries to find clues for how to build their skillset no matter whether they win or lose. 

There are also two different ways to look at external stability and instability. The person with a growth mindset may identify external stability and recognize the need to work harder or smarter to create positive change. Whereas the individual with a fixed mindset might think that because the external conditions are never going to change, their goal is unachievable. If you’re quick to discount positives and merely believe you just got lucky, then your outlook is fixed. Conversely, if you celebrate your hard work and skill development before getting back to work, then your outlook is indicative of a growth mindset. Similarly, we need to consider how you view potential negatives. Are they an indictment of your character and confirmation that you’ll never be good enough, or merely acceptable bumps in the road that allow you to redouble your efforts? It’s all a matter of perspective. 

If you get to the point of throwing up your hands and saying, “What’s the point in even trying anymore?” it can lead to a feeling of learned helplessness that will inevitably become a self-fulfilling prophecy for your next event. If your mindset is fixed, you’re more likely to blame external factors like the weather, surface conditions, and refereeing decisions. But if you have a growth mindset, you take ownership of your mistakes, consider your effort level and preparations, and use the outcome as fuel to up your game.

// No Use Crying Over Spilled Nails

When evaluating your own attribution or explanatory style (or those of our athletes), context is a crucial component of finding better ways to make meaning from your experiences. This isn’t just a theoretical matter, but has a direct impact on your confidence, the technical aspects of your skillset, and how your beliefs impact your future performances.

In her book Mindset, Carol Dweck gives a great example of causality. Imagine you’re working on a home improvement project and spill a bucket of nails. Would you think, “Gosh, I’m so clumsy/such an idiot” or chuckle to yourself, think, “Oh well,” pick up the nails, and move on? The former is an indicator of a fixed mindset and someone who magnifies their flaws. They’re describing a trait rather than a state. In contrast, the latter demonstrates a growth mindset of a person who considers situations more objectively and responds with the appropriate action. Assigning causality might seem like an instinctive reaction, but it can actually be trained. So if you’re likely to consider yourself a clumsy idiot the next time you make a minor mistake, try to catch yourself, make no self-judgment, and just get on with putting those nails back in the bucket.

The more you’re able to avoid confusing a temporary state for a permanent trait, the more you’ll be able to change a fixed mindset into a growth one.

Locus of Control is another concept related to Attributional Theory that’s worth mentioning. First introduced by psychologist Julian Rotter in the mid-1950s, this concerns how responsive and controllable we view our environment to be. Being able to accurately identify what you can and cannot control is a critical piece of self-reflection. If you have a growth mindset, you’ll probably be better at distinguishing between the two, which will allow you to take ownership of those factors you can impact and not waste mental energy on the factors you can’t. A fixed mindset often confuses controllables and uncontrollables, and so is likely to make errors in attribution that not only distort their impressions of past events, but also negatively impact future ones.

// The Power Of The 3 Ps

So what are you supposed to do if you have trouble objectively assessing what has happened and often let your faulty assumptions set you up for failure? One of the simplest and most useful filters to deploy is the 3 Ps, which comes from Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology. Consider whether or not you’re considering the outcome of an experience to be:

The 3 Ps explanatory styles can help you more objectively and accurately assess your past experiences, which in turn has a positive knock-on effect. A study conducted by Jordan Peterson and Victor Swift and published in PLOS One investigated the impact of false negative feedback on how participants performed their next task, and they found that undue negativity was directly related to higher levels of anxiety, lower expectations, and poorer achievement. How we reflect impacts how we act through either positive or negative feedback loops.

If you consider permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization through a constructive lens, then a breakdown can actually become a breakthrough – but only if you let it.

There’s an ongoing interaction between our beliefs, and how we assign causality to our experiences that affects our actions and beliefs during the next go-round. It sometimes isn’t enough to merely have a positive outlook and growth mindset from the get-go – we need to work at rigorously protecting these and maintaining a mastery orientation. Say you started out with such a posture and focused on your next competition in a task-centric way. Then, for whatever reason, you didn’t achieve the results you’d hoped for. This will likely shake your beliefs to their core, and prevent you from having a growth mindset going forward. Then you have another poor performance, and reinforce a more negative and fixed mindset, as well as lowering your future expectations of success.

My point here is that every moment of self-reflection matters because it feeds into either positive or negative loops that then self-perpetuate for good or ill.

// Bottom-Up and Top-Down Thinking

Daniel Kahneman is another psychologist whose work is relevant to self-reflection. In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, he looks at the neuroscience of two different modes and speeds of thinking. The faster, more involuntary, automatic, and impulsive modes occur in the sub-cortical regions of the brain, and can also be referred to as “bottom-up” functions. The slower, more effortful, deliberative, and ruminative modes occur in the cerebral brain regions and can be thought of as “top-down” functions. Bottom-up thinking is vitally important during competition, when stimuli are bombarding you at such a rapid rate that you don’t have time to ponder your reaction. During practice you will have a greater opportunity to consider your response a bit more carefully as you engage in deep learning. 

Self-reflection comes into play here because when you set aside time to think slowly and assign meaning to events, such analysis is less likely to begin when you least want it to – i.e. when you’re in the heat of competition. Bottom-up processing is what’s needed to tap into intuitive flow and the unhindered execution of behavior that is required for peak performance. Yet if you are living most of your life in this way, you can get stuck in a fixed mindset and can be much more pessimistically swayed in an explanatory style of attribution. Your perception is largely based on bottom-up mental models, and if you don’t challenge your immediate assumptions, consider your instinctive reactions and the resulting emotions in depth, and develop more organized ways of understanding how the brain is making meaning, then you really don’t have an entryway to improving performance.

Deliberate self-reflection is the manner in which you improve upon these bottom-up processes and also build a more communicative bridge between the top-down and bottom-up modes of thought, feelings, and, ultimately, behavior. The book Opening Up by Writing It Down by James Pennebaker and Joshua Smyth gives you an easy way to incorporate meaningful self-reflection into your daily routine: journaling. “An efficient way to understand something is to translate it into words,” Pennebaker and Smyth write. “Our constant rumination, which is inevitable, is using up mental resources. The act of disclosure forces a rethinking of events, and it allows us to understand and assimilate that event in a more integrated way.” 

Simply spending five to 10 minutes a day considering events and looking at them with the 3 Ps filter can go a long way to becoming more self-aware and self-regulating your thought life and the actions and habits it drives more effectively.

Also consider experiences in a reflective manner through the questions of what was good, what could have been better, and then (behaviorally), how would I go about making those things better?

Remember, whether you want to or not, you’re reflecting and assigning causality, meaning, and significance to every experience. You can either let it happen in more of a bottom-up way that can be detrimental to your thinking and future performance, or take ownership over it with intentional self-reflection, and use it in your favor.

If a coach is going to have his or her athletes do plyometrics and lifting alongside sprinting, what sequence should these activities go in?

What technique cues do you give to athletes who’ve never had any formal sprint coaching?

When thinking about sprinting we obviously need to consider intensity because of the speed involved, but how important is volume?

What are the warning signs that an athlete is doing too much?

If an athlete does fall short in competition or start lagging consistently during training, how do you rectify the situation?

I’ll often encourage the athlete to get a massage or get in the sauna – not just for the sake of the recovery these activities encourage, but also to distract them and keep them from over-training more. We also look at the sleep component and make sure that’s dialed in, as well as their nutrition. I frequently say in presentations that you need to be your own Swiss Army knife – coach, psychologist, nutritionist, etc.

// Want to Build Strength, Power, and Endurance? Fix Your Feet First.

“The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.”- Leonardo da Vinci

You’ve got to love the quotability of those clever Renaissance artists, haven’t you? Particularly a multi-discipline savant like da Vinci whose exploration of human anatomy was every bit as progressive as his paintings and sculptures. Yet as memorable as his quote about the foot is, when many of us take off our shoes and socks we don’t see a Louvre-worthy piece of art, but rather a sore, gnarly mess that betrays years of hard training and little in the way of self-care. 

Yet to da Vinci’s point, our feet are indeed an engineering marvel, with 26 bones, 33 joints (20 of which are articulated), and over 100 tendons, ligaments, and muscles. To paraphrase the Biblical story, when our feet are strong and supple they’re like the house built on the rock – able to withstand any storm that competition or life can hurl at us. But when they’re weak, stiff, and immobile, they’re more like the house built on sand, liable to betray us when conditions get stormy. 

In learning from Dr. Kelly Starrett, founder of MobilityWOD and my co-author of Waterman 2.0 for several years, I’ve come to appreciate just how vital healthy feet are to athletic performance and living as a fully-functioning human being. And yet how many of us struggle with conditions like plantar fasciitis, stress fractures, hammer toes, bunions, and the rest? Apparently these problems are pervasive, given that Americans will spend $3.5 billion on orthotics each year by 2020 – not to mention much more on visits to podiatrists and, in extreme cases, on foot surgeries. As with many other areas of healthcare in this country, the more we spend and the fancier the gadgets designed to fix us, the worse our issues seem to become. This also extends to the consumer space, with shoe companies hawking air bags, arch supports, stability plates, and other technologies that supposedly help our feet, but actually leave them more coddled and weaker than ever before. 

Fortunately, all is not lost and there are some tried and true ways to fix your feet without forking over wads of bills. Here goes…

Running is one of the most elemental things we can do as athletes or, for that matter, as human beings. But just because the instinct is hard-wired into our DNA, it doesn’t mean that it’s something you can just put into your programming willy-nilly, particularly when it comes to sprinting. This is because it’s a highly skilled activity that, if done incorrectly, can lead to injury and, if combined with too much Olympic lifting or other high-intensity work, contribute to overload and burnout. 

That said, sprint work properly dosed can increase speed and power for every athlete, as well as reducing ground contact time, improving locomotion, and delivering a whole host of other benefits. To find out how to add sprint work to your coaching toolbox, we called in Derek M. Hansen, a Vancouver-based international sports performance consultant who apprenticed under legendary sprint coach Charlie Francis and works with pro athletes and teams in everything from the NBA to the NFL to, logically enough, track and field. In this first of two installments, Derek shares his pointers on technique, identifies common pitfalls to avoid, and offers suggestions on the choice of running surface and shoes.

Outside of simply getting faster, what advantages can sprinting offer non-track athletes?

When I work with NFL, NBA, or MLS teams, I make them think about the times when they have to sprint in their sport to show them how applicable it is. For football players, that might be running to catch a pass or prevent a reception. So what we do on the track obviously transfers directly to their actual performance. We see that their locomotion usually improves, and so does their jumping, elasticity, and running economy. There’s a crossover effect to anything that requires high CNS activity. Sprinting seems to transfer more than other training activities. Often we see coaches focus on trying to get someone’s squat max up, say from 400 to 500 pounds. But while being stronger is beneficial, it can sometimes have drawbacks, like getting stiffer. Whereas with sprinting, unless you’re doing too much, there’s generally positive lateralization. 

Even endurance athletes need speed more than they might imagine. The world’s best marathon runners are getting close to breaking the two hour barrier, which means they’re doing 26 miles around 4:40. So they must be able to run one mile in 3:50, sub-50 seconds in the 400, and even a fast final 100 or 200. So a distance runner adding in some sprint work can feed into other things. And if you have an athlete who needs to strip off a little fat, nobody has ever faulted sprinters for their body composition. Getting them out on the track to run some sprints twice a week can help reduce their body fat.

When a team brings you in to consult, what’s the first thing you do?

I’ve got to sit down with the coaching staff and differentiate between a true sprint and merely running. Often you find athletes going longer or slower and this being called “sprinting,” when it isn’t really. So we need to delineate between sprinting and running, acceleration and deceleration, and so on, so we can all agree on what we’re talking about and use the same language with the athletes. From there, I like to focus on some basic technical elements by doing a series of drills. These focus on arm and leg action and posture. I usually start people sprinting at only 80 or 85 percent, even once they think they’ve got the technique down, because they still need to focus on the technical aspect. This could continue for three or four weeks. Just like in weightlifting, how you wouldn’t load someone up with what you thought was their max from the get-go. Instead, you’d do plenty of technique work first and build a technical model. Then you’d have a progression and begin to add weight when they were ready.

For coaches who don’t come from a track and field background, what are some common mistakes you see, and how do you correct these?

One of the things I see a lot is coaches believing that more resistance is better. So you see them having their athletes push or pull heavy sleds and using parachutes, and that’s their focus. They seem to think if they use a band that’s good, and if they could add in a chute, sled, and weight belt they’d really be onto something. But that can have adverse effects, because with resistance, you’re staying on the ground loading and taking longer for your muscles to contract. You also see athletes starting to alter their posture and biomechanics. Sometimes I’ll add in a little resistance, but only after an athlete has got the basics down and can move their body efficiently. And if we do add some load, it will never exceed five to 10 percent on top of their bodyweight. 

The same is true of hill work. Some coaches assume that the higher the hill or the steeper the gradient, the better. But when I worked with the Minnesota Vikings to help them build a hill, we ended up with a very mild grade because that’s all the players needed to challenge themselves.

Jamaican sprinters seem to do a lot of their sessions on grass. What are your thoughts on that versus
using a track?

Grass is certainly more forgiving on the joints. But with a track, you can work on speeding reaction times and reducing ground contact because you’re maximizing energy return. One NFL team I work with does a lot on artificial turf, and you can feel it dampening your response time. That can make your tendons stiffen up. So it helps to mix things up. Sometimes you can vary the surface as you move through a periodized plan. Jamaican sprint coaches have their sprinters do most of their volume work on grass early on in the season, and then as they move into the competitive calendar, they start doing more on the track. I have a friend – Mike Hurst – who coaches in Australia. He changes up the surface depending on the time of year because the ground can be baked hard.

If you keep switching up the surfaces, you can emphasize certain traits and vary the stimulus of each session. Planned variability is important because the body adapts to the same stimulus very quickly. If you don’t regularly introduce change, you’ll start to detrain. Choice of surface is just one example of doing a gap analysis, which you need to use continually in coaching. What are your athletes getting too much of? What aren’t they getting enough of? How can you eliminate redundancy? I have to frequently ask myself these questions and then alter my programming based on the answers.

What footwear do you typically recommend for sprinting?

When you’re working on mobility after sprinting, what areas do you target?

We do a lot of work around the hips, adductors, and glutes and make sure our athletes are mobile in the lower back. Most restrictions we find on the periphery can usually be traced back to these areas. It’s also a matter of making your strength work dynamic. Isometric holds like planks have a place, but sprinting requires hip and midsection mobility, so you need to introduce range of motion and stability into exercises. Strength and mobility must be interrelated or you’re going to get issues with stiffness, lack of coordination and activation, and so on. Just as with training itself, we try out lots of different stimuli – sending athletes to a PT, massage, static stretches, using rollers, balls, bands, and other tools. It’s best to have variability in your recovery techniques and, as with every other element of coaching, determine what each situation requires.

Check back soon for Part 2.

I recently happened upon a question in another forum where the reader was concerned that learning the technique of the Olympic lifts might cause him to lose all the strength he’d gained in the previous year or so of strength training. I guess this is a reasonable concern, but it does show that this person has not been talking to anyone who’s coached a number of lifters. This, however, brought to mind the topic for this blog post.

It sounds like the community made up of people interested in learning the technique of the Olympic lifts has just been sadly misinformed about learning technique and motor learning in general.

These statements are coming from people who are involved in activities that don’t involve the motor learning of complex, coordinated activities, and are used to dealing with mediocre to poor athletes.

So many coaches in the strength and conditioning, and physical training community have for many years involved in teaching movements that don’t require much athleticism. Furthermore they’ve often taught them to subjects that were not elite level athletes or were not selected for their motor learning aptitudes.

Not surprisingly, these coaches think that teaching and learning the snatch and clean & jerk are daunting tasks, and have exaggerated the amount of time and coaching needed to master them.

My experience has been that teaching the snatch and clean & jerk to high level gymnasts, divers and dancers is a piece of cake. I’ve done it with a couple of these types of athletes in about a half an hour. Now keep in mind that I’m a weightlifting coach, and I’ve developed a set of strategies for coaching the lifts through years of experience, but I’m not teaching anything near the complexities of some of the tricks that high level divers and gymnasts perform on a fairly common basis.

If this is what your proprioception looks like, learning the Olympic Lifts is a cakewalk. The lesson here is that there is no “one size fits all” answer to this question.

After considering the coaching skills of many of the instructors and coaches, the second issue is the motor learning ability of the trainees in question.

People lacking in motor learning skills, and that have never done anything to improve their kinesthesia are going to need a lot of coaching and a long time to learn the lifts, if they can learn them at all. Some of them simply can’t learn to proficiently snatch and clean & jerk, no matter how much time they take and with the best of coaching. I worked with one such person who decided that at 37 years of age and with no prior athletic experience they wanted to learn the olympic lifts.

At the end of two years we were no further along than we were on the first day.

This taught me to cut my losses and at present I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying subjects who will never learn the lifts well enough to use them as efficient training tools. There are simply better modes of training suited to their needs. These tools don’t need to be for everybody.

So to get back to the original proposition of this article. The amount of time that should be devoted to learning the lifts should depend on the fatigability of the nervous system. This should be somewhere around a half hour to 45 minutes for most people, and only then if working with a competent coach. This should leave plenty of time to maintain previously gained strength.

The more frequently these sessions take place, the faster the technique can be learned. Training five days a week for four to six weeks should be enough for a decent athlete to learn proficient technique, and to begin balancing the development of the body to make use of the Olympic lifts as effective training tools or to consider entering a competition and achieving a satisfactory performance.

In conclusion, the snatch and clean & jerk require a certain degree of athletic proficiency. They are best learned by talented athletes, and they are best coached by experienced knowledgeable individuals. The best results will take place when these two factors are brought together.

On the other hand, there are individuals who have watched weightlifters and taught themselves the technique. In the days before there were any coaches in this country, almost all competitive lifters taught themselves the proper technique.

If you are an individual in good health, with some history of athletic participation, and reasonable range of motion at all the relevant joints, you can learn to snatch and clean & jerk proficiently, if you are willing to take the proper steps of remediating technical weaknesses and practicing proper technique under the supervision of a knowledgeable coach.

I hope you find this information helpful. Find out more at www.takanoathletics.com.

Look at this dude…training with percentages!

During the 1980’s there were 2 common thoughts or beliefs when it came to training. The first was that lifting weights over 90% of a person’s 1 rep maximum weight (1RM) was thought to be dangerous. The second was that the greatest training adaptations occurred between 90-100% of that 1RM. Now I know what you’re thinking, these are 2 completely contradictory thoughts/facts. Can they both be right and if they are, how do we set up our training programs today?

Training with Percentages: The History

Well, we were not the only people to question this thinking. A.S. Prilepin, who was the head coach of the USSR weightlifting team from 1980-1985 (arguably the most successful weight lifting coach in USSR history) had those exact same thoughts. The only difference was, he did something about it, and now we benefit from his work.

Prilepin began to study thousands of Soviet sportsmen during this time. He kept training diaries on all of them, and it is through these diaries that he not only validated training at 90%+ of 1RM, but established a foundation for training at different intensities. It is these guidelines, that he developed, that give you the precise sets, reps, and intensities with which to train that have proven to maximize strength gains.

So how did the Russians do it? I’m glad you asked. First, they took a percentage of the 1RM. Then they assigned reps and sets to this percentage and would have a lifter perform the lifts. They looked at what happened to the speed of the bar, the lifter’s form, and the lifter’s next max. From this research, they determined what sets and rep schemes would work with a given percentage.

For instance, if they had a lifter perform 85 percent of his max, they found that if the lifter did 2–4 reps per set, he would get a positive training result. I.E. he had good form, his bar speed was good, and his max went up. This also showed that if they did 1 rep, then the stimulus wasn’t enough to increase power and strength, and that anything over 4 reps, the bar speed slowed, technique/form broke down and future training sessions were less successful.

After testing, observing and tracking thousands of athletes, Prilepin then developed a table to use as a guideline for training.

Training with Percentages: Prilepin’s Chart

Now, as we take a closer look at the table I want you to notice the Optimal Number of Reps as well as the Optimal Rep Range for each given percentage. Keeping that in mind, let’s look at 85%.

At 85%, the optimal number of reps is 12, with the rep range being 2-4 reps. What that means is that you can do 6 sets of 2, 3 sets of 4, 4 sets of 3, etc, any set and rep range that keeps the total number of reps to 12, within that exercise.

Why the broad rep range? Because everyone reacts to training differently. You are going to need to know yourself as well as the athletes you are training well, in order to maximize the table. You are going to need to know if they react better to higher or lower rep ranges. If it’s higher, do 4 reps per set. If it’s lower, you would do sets of 2.

The sliding rep range also takes into account good vs bad lifting days. If you are having a great day, you can keep going until you hit the higher number of reps within the range. If you are having a bad day, you can hit the lower number.

This also works great for the in-season, off-season and pre-season time periods. Typically, I program using the higher rep guidelines in the Off-Season, the optimal rep ranges during the pre-season and the lower rep ranges in-season, knowing that we will continue to make gains year round, while keeping the intensities high, and manipulating the volume.

Training with Percentages: Sample Programs

Training with percentages…success story!

I’ve used this programming successfully throughout my career. And here’s a hint for you: I’ve always noticed that females respond better to the higher rep ranges, while males respond better to the lower reps ranges. When training with percentages don’t be afraid to play around with sets and reps, while staying within the guidelines. Find your programming groove, and you’ll ensure continued progress of your athletes throughout the year, and throughout their careers.

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The 4-man team, headed by Steve Langton, takes on the competition on Feb 22nd, while the 2-man team just claimed America’s first medal in the event’s history by clinging onto 3rd place and taking the Bronze back to the Land of the Free.

While their feats are no doubt impressive, keep reading to see what it takes to become one of these daredevil Adonises.

Steve Langton demos the incredible powers of Bobsled training. After a month on our Explosive Athlete program, you’ll be able to navigate 3 mobile devices at once…and have gigantic, vascular biceps.

// US Bobsled Team: What it Takes

The chart at the bottom outlines the US Bobsled Team’s combine tryout standards. When you dig into the table, you’ll see some impressive numbers for sure. To be competitive for a spot on the team, you’ll need to have NFL running back worthy speed and power.

What it breaks down to is that athletes will need to be EXPLOSIVE, with heavy Olympic Lifts, solid 3RM Back Squats, and track caliber sprint times in short distance events.

// US Bobsled Team: How to Train

Hit the BIG Lifts Hard

• Olympic Lifts: Snatches and Cleans (Power and Full)
• Deadlifts
• Squats
• Presses (Shoulder Press, Push Press, Bench Press)

Build Burst Speed

You’ll need to have standout start times, burst capacity, and speed up to 60M to be competitive for a spot. With the times necessary to claim a spot, you’ll also have to be a bit of a technician and optimize your running form so you wipe out inefficiencies in your stride and make sure every step counts. To do so, practice speed skill-work just as much as you would practice shooting free throws if you were a basketball player.

If you’re looking for all-around training support, fantastic daily coaching, and a killer program to follow, use Train Heroic’s Explosive Athlete Program, where a major focus is on developing the powerful hip drive, fast turn-over, and punishing strength you’ll need to contend. The program is 4 days of strength and power training per week and has a steady dose of speed and conditioning as well. You can start today for FREE, get daily coaching from top pros, and have all of your results tracked so you can see your progress toward your goals along the way.

// US Bobsled Team: Where to Test

You can’t make the team if you don’t know where to try out. Below are the four locations hosting this year’s combine. Train hard. Show up. Test out.

June 10-12, 2014 (Lake Placid, NY)

July 8-10, 2014 (Lake Placid, NY)

August 2, 2014 (Greenville, SC)

August 26-28, 2014 (Lake Placid, NY)

One of the reasons for your discomfort is probably that you feel bad for the kids on the receiving end of such over-the-top “hyper-parenting.” But if you’re a youth sports coach, you might watch Bell’s documentary series nodding your head because, unfortunately, you’ve been subjected to the rants of irate parents who think their kid should be the star player.

There are cultural factors at work here that are far outside the scope of this article. We’re witnessing an “activities arms race” in which all too many parents feel obliged to keep up with the Joneses by filling every second of children’s lives with activity.

This is largely an extension of how we as adults approach our work and personal lives, overstuffing our calendars, over-extending our commitments, and overdosing on our social media feeds in whatever few minutes are left over each day. The perma-stress created by such hectic lifestyles starts to bubble up through the cracks, which we see manifested in the worst possible way in the outbursts on soccer sidelines and Little League bleachers.

Cultural commentary aside, what are we actually going to do about this issue? We might not be able to solve the parenting-related problems of all the 45 million kids who play organized sports in the U.S., but perhaps we can at least help you create a positive, tantrum-free environment for the few you’re committed to coaching. Here goes…

// Setting Expectations

One way to strike a balance is to establish some ground rules from day one said Whitey Nelson who works with everyone from former international players to under-7 youth teams through his club Misfits Rugby.

“We invite everybody to get together at a pre-season meet-and-greet where parents and their kids can get to know me and my assistant coach,” Nelson said. “This gives me the opportunity to find out what they expect from us and our program, and then for us to set expectations for them on and off the field. For example, there’s a reason we always call the referee ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ – because it conveys respect. This meeting also allows us to explain our culture and values, what the kids will get out of rugby, and why they should play in the first place. This helps to set the tone for the season and encourages candid dialogue from day one.”

Building on Nelson’s approach, you should make it clear that while parents are welcome at practice, they cannot interrupt drills or yell at their child, other kids, or you. And they need to stay out of the actual training area.

You might also need to outline the consequences if a parent starts acting up: they’ll be asked to leave.

Having set such a boundary, you must ruthlessly enforce it. If a mom or dad violates a rule, remind them of it, and be clear that if it happens again, there will be consequences. It’s all too tempting for youth coaches to mollify parents because they’re scared of a mutiny or the team falling apart if too many parents turn against them. But just as teachers in the classroom have to differentiate between what’s acceptable (a polite email exchange about a perceived issue) and unacceptable (interfering with grading), so too must the coach.

And when problems do arise, you need to be proactive and tackle them head on.

“We recently had a Dad who was yelling a lot during a game in a way that was inappropriate,” Nelson said. “Afterwards I asked him why he was so frustrated. He explained that his son wasn’t playing enough. I thought about it for a minute and recognized that he was right. So I apologized and resolved to give his child more of an opportunity in the next game. Then I reminded him that I am an unpaid volunteer who’s trying to manage 60 kids across various teams, as well as having a full-time job, coaching adults, and trying to be a good father and husband. Once he realized that I wasn’t being paid and that our lives were pretty similar, it reset his expectations and helped him value my time more. And because I gave him a voice, he felt that he was being listened to.”

// Modeling the Behavior You Expect

If you want parents to act politely and courteously toward you, your fellow coaches, and game officials, but you treat them like dirt, you’re going to create a dissonance between what you preach and what you practice. Make sure you’re consistent in leading by example and displaying the kind of behavior you’re asking from parents.

The same extends to the children in your charge. If you scream, criticize, and embarrass, then you’re creating a culture that says it’s OK for their parents to do the same both at your practices/games and away from the court, field, or pitch. Instead, try to instruct firmly but without raising your voice, be a constant encourager, and, if a child has a certain issue, talk to them about it away from the group so you don’t shame them in front of their peers.

Such a modus operandi mimics some of the best coaches in the adult sporting world, according to performance specialist and Game Changer author Fergus Connolly.

“When I consulted at Liverpool FC, Brendan Rodgers never had a bad word to say to the team but was always positive,” Connolly said. “At Welsh Rugby, Warren Gatland had a similar approach. He didn’t have much to say to the players during training, but when he did speak, it was to encourage and to break tension with humor. He also smiled a lot, which set the tone for the players. Such things are just as effective at the youth level. If you want well behaved and friendly kids and parents, you have to act that way.”

// Establishing and Maintaining Lines of Communication

One of the issues with bad sports parents is that they’re constantly trying to tell you how to do your job (or, quite likely, your volunteer-basis vocation). We see this in armchair quarterbacking at practices and even more so at games where parents suddenly become self-appointed experts on everything from formation to tactics to substitution patterns.

And if a mom or dad has played the sport themselves, the issue can be exacerbated because they think this lends them credibility to shoot holes in your coaching, lambast the referees, and yell at the kids.

Try to get ahead of such problems by creating an opportunity for parents to speak their mind outside of practice and away from games. Be clear that you don’t think your coaching is perfect and that you welcome suggestions, but that the time for these is before or after practice, not in the middle of it. If you engage in conversation during these times and proactively seek feedback, you’ll foster positive two-way communication.

You can also provide your email address and, if you’re comfortable with giving it out, your phone number and let parents know you’d welcome the chance to discuss issues.

// Preventing a Coaches/Parents Civil War

Once a forceful parent or two turn against their children’s coach, it’s possible for them to poison the well and create an us-and-them divide between their fellow parents and you. To prevent this from happening, you don’t need to become everybody’s best friend, but there are some things you can do to create a sense of comradery and teamwork.

One is to ask volunteers to perform certain tasks, which allows you to delegate responsibility without abdicating.

“The best teams in the world entrust people with responsibility, as it gives everyone a sense of ownership,” Connolly said. “It might be something small, but to the person performing the task, it’s bigger than just picking up cones after practice or helping clean up the locker room. Giving people responsibility makes them feel like they’re a real part of the team and encourages leadership.”

With this in mind, send an email to all parents at the beginning of the season asking people to sign up for certain tasks. Maybe it’s a regular thing like bringing a cooler full of bottled water to each practice or washing game jerseys.

You can also ask for help on the spot as needed. For example, if a one-car family calls to say they can’t make it to practice tonight because their vehicle is in the shop, maybe you fire off a group text asking if somebody can pick the child up and drop them off. Such things foster a sense of community that goes far beyond simply hosting an end-of-year pizza party.

// Keeping the Team Together

“I remind them that we’re giving their child the chance not only to learn a wonderful sport, but also to improve as a human being. Is it worth denying their son or daughter this opportunity because they feel the need to yell and scream? Then I explain that my daughters are becoming confident young women who speak up for those who don’t have a voice simply because they’re playing rugby. I ask them to imagine how much their child would grow if they stay with the team. Then I make it clear that for this to happen, the adult needs to start acting like one. If they can’t, we’ll gladly refund their fees. But we’d prefer to remedy the situation and keep them and their kid around. More often than not, we see this mom or dad radically change, and their child thrives.”

Check back soon for part 2 in our youth sports series.

For this second part in the series, we’re shifting our attention from behavior to physiology – namely, to hydration for young athletes.

To help explode some myths, avoid common pitfalls, and create best practices for coaches and parents alike, we brought in one of the world’s leading hydration and thermoregulation experts, Stacy Sims.

// What happens when kids get dehydrated?

Their physical and cognitive performance starts to decline very rapidly. If they’re dehydrated going into a match or practice, they’re much more likely to get injured. We also see their attention start to wane and wander, which isn’t ideal as a lot of kids have trouble focusing anyway. Another big issue is mood instability. A dehydrated child is likely to have mood swings, be irritable and ill-tempered, and lose their patience quickly.

If you’re a coach and you see behavioral issues on the field, at least some of them are likely due to the fact that your young players are dehydrated.

// Does drinking to thirst work for kids, and if not, why?

No, it doesn’t because children’s thirst and thermoregulation mechanisms are still developing. If they wait to drink until they’re thirsty, they’re already likely to be dehydrated to the degree that it’s affecting their reaction times, mood, and physical capability to perform.

// What do you think is a better strategy?

Sip, sip, sip.

As kids’ stomachs are a lot smaller than adults’, they shouldn’t be chugging a lot of fluids at one time. But they need be reminded to sip water before, during, and after practice. If it’s hot and humid, then parents should put a pinch of sea salt in the water to help the body absorb it better.

// How can coaches improve how they handle young players’ hydration?

Don’t be a hard ass and try to deny or restrict water intake. Instead, it’s best to schedule regular water breaks throughout a practice. Just letting kids bring their own water bottles isn’t enough, as they’re not going to get thirsty like adults do. You have to remind them to drink regularly. It’s also a good idea to have orange slices or some kind of watery fruit. Like the salt I mentioned a minute ago, a little natural sugar helps the body put water to better use.

And if a kid says they need a drink, let them take one no matter what’s going on in practice. As children don’t sweat very much, we see them get very red in the face because they blow off excess heat through vasodilation. So if you see a child looking flushed in the cheeks, it’s most likely an indicator that they need to pause and have some water. They also might need to rest under a tree or some other kind of shade for a little while. They’ll be able to listen, focus, and perform better if they stay hydrated.

// What’s your stance on sports and energy drinks for kids?

Just like soda, they’re a no-go. There’s way too much sugar in sports drinks, plus a lot of artificial colors and preservatives. Kids’ microbiomes are more delicate, and if you’re putting a bunch of junk ingredients into a hot and cranky stomach, it can be very disruptive. With energy drinks, you get all of that stuff plus way more caffeine than a kid can handle, which can be exacerbated by a genetic predisposition to not process caffeine well. We see that for a lot of children, particularly pre-teens and teens: Frappuccinos and other super-sugary coffee shop drinks have replaced sodas, even though they’re often just as bad, if not worse, for developing bodies.

If you are going to let your kids have caffeine, make some cold brew green or black tea, which contains beneficial catechins and other health-promoting properties.

And if you’re trying to wean your kids off sports drinks, think about what their favorite flavor is and recreate that by putting some real fruit in their water. Or some cucumber slices and herbs like that water you see at spas and in hotel lobbies. My daughter loves it when I infuse her water with strawberry and rhubarb. You can also squeeze a little citrus juice into kids’ water bottles before practices and games.

// How can parents and coaches help kids hydrate after they’re done for the day?

Just like it’s important that kids show up well hydrated and sip water throughout a practice, it’s also essential that we top up their fluid level afterwards. This is particularly important if they’ve taken part in a multi-game tournament that’s lasted all day.

As well as drinking more water with sea salt and a little fruit juice, you should encourage them to eat watery fruits and vegetables. Some children have a hard time with veggies, in which case you can sneak them into smoothies. If you put some kale or spinach into a “funky monkey,” the banana and peanut butter will mask the taste of the vegetables, but they’ll still get the benefits. It’s got to be palatable or they’re going to push it away. Try to switch up what you put in so they’re getting a wide variety. I’m not the biggest fan of dairy, but a small serving of organic, low-sugar chocolate milk will provide some protein and help with rehydration.

Too often with active kids we focus all our attention on getting food into their bodies because we know they’re burning extra calories but neglect rehydration, which is even more crucial.