PART 2
After I re-read this, I had to comment on just one more thing. The Author makes the following statement.
“So like I always say, don’t take diet advice from a fat person, or financial advice from a homeless person, why does 99 percent of our Olympic-lifting club teams follow what the head Olympic coaches are doing when they aren’t winning?”
This statement demonstrates maybe better than anything else in the article the complete, COMPLETE misunderstanding of the situation in USA weightlifting by the author. The fact is, to my knowledge, NO ONE outside of Colorado Springs has been following the programs of the last few head coaches at the OTC. To say that 99% of the clubs follow what they say is absolutely, completely WRONG. Just about every team has their own unique training program. Some are similar, for instance myself, Jon Broz, Mike Burgener, Steve Gough and some others follow programs that are similar to the Bulgarian method, all these coaches have their own particular take on things, and all the programs are different, but they could probably be classified as similar. Pete Roselli runs a very, very different program, based on the book by Russian coach Medvedev, really a completely different type of program. Don McCauley has his own unique program, but it is probably influenced most by the Koreans. Kyle Pierce and Gayle Hatch both have their own unique training philosophies and both produce a lot of really STRONG lifters. I could go on and on with a long list of coaches, each having arrived at his or her own unique program via trial and error and experience. And we could probably group these programs into loose groups based on the general characteristics of the program but to my knowledge NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE, copies the program at the OTC.
To say that 99% do just demonstrates a complete and total lack of knowledge of the situation. I want to say again that I have no beef with the author, and given his accomplishments and strength levels am sure that he has a high degree of training knowledge… The problem is that it does not seem like he has much knowledge of what is going on in OL in the USA at this time. And, I am not sure why he would, evidently he is not involved in our sport. I don’t know how the current best milers or marathoners program their training… no big deal. But it is going to be really hard to try to find a solution to a problem if your understanding of the current situation is seriously flawed.
I just watched Max Aita, weighing about 95-96kg, squat 250kg (550lbs) for 5 sets of 5 reps Olympic style, well below parallel and completely raw, no belt even. He did that a few hours ago, this very afternoon. Having been involved in Powerlifting, and having some knowledge of how much equipment can add to a lift, I believe that there are a LOT of powerlifters with huge squats, using the conjugate system, who could not reproduce what Max did today under the same condiions, drug tested, totally raw, weighing around 200 lbs and within a training program that means he was pretty fatigued in the legs and hips before he even started the workout. BTW earlier in the day he had worked up to and missed a 290kg single, a lift he should have made but he was obviously tired.
If what I just described constitutes not being strong or trying hard to get strong, then, well I don’t know.
Well fuck you dude.
You have zero experience.
You are not a coach and have zero experience coaching.
You are repeating what others have said, without any experience to tell if they are right or wrong.
Those others have zero experience in the sport.
Those others have never trained single weightlifter.