Barbell Shrugged - 98- Exactly How National Champion Olympic Lifter Zach Krych Trains The Snatch, Clean and Jerk

Episode Date: January 8, 2014

Snatch, Clean, and Jerk chit chat!

This week on Barbell Shrug, we interview Zach and Sarah Critch and learn what it's like to train at the Olympic Training Center. Yo Rich, what podcast are we listening to? Hey, this is Rich Froning, you're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Welcome to Barbell Shrug, I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson, Chris Moore, with our guests, Zach and Sarah Critch. The Critches. Weightlifting extraordinaires. That is who they are. You're going to point out which one's which.

That one is Zach. That one is Sarah, if you didn't guess. That's good. They're both, they both are very tricky because they both spell their first names wrong, which completely confuses. I was scolded earlier this week for leaving the H off of Zach. And putting it on mine. And adding it onto Sarah. You would think after this much time.

No, that's okay. One of the coaches I work with still puts an H on my name. I'm going to correct me. Yes. I was, I was auto corrected. It wasn't my fault. That's my excuse. All right, guys. We suffer a lot. Before we get started, make sure you go to barbellrect me. Yes. I was autocorrected. It wasn't my fault. That's my excuse. All right, guys.

We suffer a lot. Before we get started, make sure you go to barbellshrug.com. Sign up for the newsletter, and then you might be able to find the eight snatch mistakes that you're making. Maybe. Oh, I watched that. That make you terrible at weightlifting. That was an excellent video.

Thank you. I think we can talk about weightlifting later today. Thank you. There are only eight. There's more than eight. There's only eight things you can do wrong. Eight. That's right. We found them. And the eighth one. The science. That's more than eight. There's only eight things you can do wrong. Eight. That's right.

We found them. And the eighth one. The science. That's actually the most important one. You have to watch the whole video. We found them hiding within the ridges of Rich Froning's abdominal muscles. We actually had seven mistakes for the longest time. Could it be number nine?

No, Sonny. We had seven snatch mistakes. And then we were hanging out with rich froning one day and then we found out there was an eight that we had it was so obvious it was unbelievable but i think you'll enjoy it yeah all right that was the intro now we can have a conversation now we start the show with content cool that was the serious part so right before the show you were saying that because of your wrist injury which if you haven't seen Zach's kind of epic video where he broke both his wrists by dropping like 350 pounds on it something like that basically hit the mic shattered his wrists and so you get lots of questions

from CrossFitters that have achy wrists about like how do you how do you train around these achy wrists all the time like what did you do like right right after you got out of your cast and you could actually like rack a bar or put it overhead but still like your wrists weren't 100 obviously like it's a big problem you get that question all the time and everybody gets that i know you have some really good answers on kind of how to stay strong how do you stay in shape how to practice the movements not lose your lose your former technique even when you have achy wrists so we can start off with that okay yeah that's a very common thing that happens to me. I got a message just a couple weeks ago from a guy's girlfriend who contacted me and was

like, could you please send this guy a message? He just broke his wrist really bad. He saw your video, but he doesn't want to ask for help necessarily. Tough guy. Yeah, tough guy. So I sent him a very heartfelt long message and um he said suck it up dearest friend believe in your dreams reach for the stars but not with that wrist just look at them keep going behind your back well i mean the main thing i have to usually tell

people is is just patience and don't do anything between, know the difference between pain and injury. So like, oh this hurts, but I can push through it, versus this is hurting, my body's telling me to stop. The lesson we all learned from watching the program, the greatest football movie ever, are you hurt, are you injured? This is one of the greatest football movies of all time. That's a true line, yeah.

They stereotype every position perfectly in that movie. I was asked that as a chubby, 10 year old, fat kid running down a football field, I go go I don't know the difference all I know is my life is suffering one of the things that did a lot though is what we did a couple days ago those safety bar squats mm-hmm which have brought back memories squatting with you guys the bar that goes over your shoulders don't have to use your hands at all mm-hmm And so just finding things like that. One of the things I did was I bought a bodybuilding device.

Oh my gosh. Oh yeah? I've heard about this. This is new to me. No, this is terrible. Her reaction makes me think it's like a penis enlarger. But it's just about that embarrassing.

I thought it was going to work. I mean, exactly. This bodybuilder. The concept was... This was called the isolator. Oh my gosh. That cannot be true. What every weightlifter needs. Honestly, in the bodybuilding world,

I'm sure it has its place and a purpose. For me, I was like, this is great. Basically what it is, is how to strengthen your upper body without using your hands. Go on. You wouldn't want to be limited by your grip strength on anything. It's a series of straps that you can wrap around your forearm and your bicep that you then hook into dumbbells and you would do these exercises. He's serious.

We actually got one guess as to where we found this. Any guesses? Arnold's Sports Festival. Yes, it was. Arnold's Sports Festival. Dude, they got every stupid gadget there. I was so excited when I saw that. I still want to buy the gadget where you just grab it and you just go like this.

Yeah, you just spin it. Until you get tired. Easy. Take it easy, man. I got to keep it. I think he's still in the trunk of our car. Did you experiment with this? No, he used it at the Olympic Training Center, I remember.

All the time. So you went to Arnold Sports Festival. Yep. In the expo hall, they were selling these. They were selling the ice lighter. You can go go here's my million dollars yeah you spent all your money actually gave him a little bit of a deal on it yeah they were great i was like they give the guy behind you the same deal i was like i did ask him

like why would somebody buy this if the wrists are okay like i understand for me i can't use my hands but why would my hands work i would totally hold on to stuff. That was the first thing I would do is grab stuff. It's so intuitive. Yeah. It feels so natural, really. Well, and it was such a pain to set up because everything was adjustable. So, he'd be at the training center.

He had all these different straps to adjust. And then try to get the dumbbell attached to it. And they're kind of swinging around while he's trying to do it. So, it's a lot of stability. I mean, it was. That's my life right there. Did you do it? Did you stand like on a bozu ball?

On one leg. Yeah, on one leg at bozu. Adjustable strap. If that's the difference between doing nothing and applying some tension to the muscle and not atrophying, then that's fantastic. Yeah, no, it was great for the rehab device. No, they were selling it for people Well, they weren't selling it as a rehab device.

No, they were selling it for people who didn't want to accidentally use their forearms. That's a good idea. A rehab device for someone to be bodybuilders. There was one guy

who was a Paralympian there. He was a little ahead of rehabilitation, I guess. A guy at the Olympic training center who was a Paralympian. So his problem,

he actually had his hand ripped off when he was younger. You don't have hands? That sounds great. No, seriously. He was on a farm. Really? He got attacked by a tractor accident.

Yeah. He got wrapped up in a rope or something behind a tractor, and somebody started driving away, and it literally just popped his hand right off. Just gone. So he was like, well, this is cool. I could actually isolate these muscles, hence isolator. That's appropriately named. So it was upper body, you do anything with it.

Yeah, I mean I was doing a lot of presses. Presses like get the heavy weight here and I would do pull. It just would take so long to strap up and hook things up. But it worked. It definitely Good thing you were married. Once you got beyond that

you can actually do a little bit of gripping, you could, you could rack a barbell, you could, you could press something overhead and you could pick something up off the ground, actually using your grip. Like what, how did you get back into it once you got to that point? Well, I do think we might've mentioned this earlier, but I gave myself a strict rule. I can only increase five pounds per lift every other day.

That was the most I could do. So it was like the, you know, what about Bob? Baby steps to the door, baby steps to the office kind of thing. Like set yourself a tiny, small. And starting out really easy. Yes. Rock bottom. Yeah.

It was really. Did you start with a female bar? No, I didn't. I didn't start that heavy. So not rock bottom. No, I didn't start that heavy. I started rock bottom. No, I didn't start that heavy. I started lighter. Oh, you started lighter than that.

Yeah, it was the five pound. PVC's and broomsticks and aluminum bars. Training bars. But now you can see, the problem, I'll shake your hand with this. No, I was going to say. Shake that head. I'm going to squeeze. Doug's like, what do you do with that?

I'm going to go left to left. What are you trying to do? That's as hard as I can squeeze now. Oh, really? So, which is pretty. For the doers, that wasn't very hard. We wasn't sure what he was trying to do. Oh, you were starting.

Are you okay? Are you okay? You're already doing it. Oh, shit. So, how do you pick up a 300 pound bar if that's all you can squeeze? Your hook grip just allowed you to do it? If it wasn't for hook grip, it wasn't for the hook grip,

I don't know what... You'd be a lost little boy. I will say this. Anytime I go to a strict weightlifting program, my grip doesn't... It gets weaker because I'm hook gripping everything and then I'm using straps to not limit my hips.

So when I go back to CrossFit, it's like now I've got to work out my grip again. Pull-ups and whatnot. Tommy Kona told me not to hook grip except for weeks out from competition because it makes your grip weaker. We would do a lot of supplemental grip exercises. And I do think holding weight overhead,

especially when it's really heavy, you're squeezing on that weight too. So even without that, doing strength grip exercises, you're getting a lot of forearm strength and everything so in addition to just holding the bar and having periods of the year where you're just focusing on it which in and of itself is a great way to improve shit i know but do you also would you also do for whale thing would you do some farmers walking would you do some things that are specifically just blasting your grip and they're very

yeah unlike what you're training so there's. So there's a place for that. Because I dig it. Yeah, the place was always at the end of the workout. And usually on Saturdays. And sometimes we would just start messing around and making up stuff. Sure, off in the parking lot, couple of motel lows, right?

That's the key. Well, even doing heavy walking lunges. I mean, if you've got a heavy dumbbell in each hand and they're swinging and you're going up and down, I mean be a good grip challenge. Yeah. Our coaches would always program extra stuff. They were usually less diligent on making sure we did that well. So that was more up to the athlete. How late are they going to stay and do all these things? Actually, I wouldn't mind digging into that. So we haven't said this on the show for everyone that doesn't know you. You were a 2010 national champion in weightlifting and used to train at the Olympic Training Center for a number of years.

Maybe dig into that a little bit about what life was like on a day-to-day basis at the OTC and what it was like, not just in the training room, but all the other extra things that they had for you. The extra amenities like chefs and things like that. So go into that a little bit. It is a magical place, the U.S. Olympic Training Center. A place called Colorado. It is great. I moved out there in 2003, and you can live. They give you dorms.

You live on the campus. You get up, and you just get out of bed, walk down to the cafeteria, and what do you want? Do you want an omelet? Do you want, I mean, they'll make you almost kind of any what do you want You want an omelette You want I mean They'll make you Almost kind of Any breakfast thing you want And they have a whole Hot line there

And so for a buffet It's buffet all the time Which is dangerous It opens at like 7 in the morning Until 8.30 at night They have Fruity Pebbles Buffet

All the time They would get that stuff Yeah Fruity Pebbles All the weight class All the weight class athletes Some of those triathletes Oh shit

There's no gluten In Fruity Pebbles There was gluten In the weightlifting program Fuck man There athletes some of those triathletes oh shit there's no gluten and fruity pebbles there was gluten in the weightlifting program fuck man there's no gluten and fruity pebbles that's why it's the perfect

treatment that's true how many gold medals have been lost how many through my research is it rice it's rice

they went through a whole health kick like several years back the olympic training center went through a health kick at one point we just figured this out. Was it when Michelle Obama

got to be the first lady? We're going to get these Olympic athletes in shape. We're going to trim them up. I got there in 2003 and apparently before that there was a milkshake machine, which they got rid of. Oh, Jesus. It is a fantasy place. That's the one thing they should keep.

They had soft serve ice cream. For every athlete, that's not a wake up a weight sport athlete a weight class athlete having a milkshake machine sounds fantastic for putting on weight milkshakes where you have access did you know his he went... He went through... Casey went through a massive growth spurt, right? Yeah. But he forced every... Up to 2008?

He forced every bit of it. He would wake up in the middle of the night and... Do you know the routine? Can you share that? A little bit of it, yeah. Casey had the... He got huge, man. Well, he had the whole hard thing of...

He was always very tall, so he was always trying to put on weight his entire career. Yeah, leverage is always a little bit. And he would wake up in the middle of the night and and drink a protein shake a calorie but had that like ice cream and peanut butter in it i mean just and he drank the whole thing and you go back to bed people think that's like a cool thing like oh man i wish i could wake up in the middle of the night you want to be asleep it's a pain yeah he was miserable like two weeks it's fun and actually for the audience for the record you worked you worked at the Olympic Training Center as well, right? Yes, I worked in the sport physiology lab.

That's how we met. I got to eat in the cafeteria for five months, five, six months. And you were stalking Zach for months before he paid attention to you as well. That's what Zach said. Yeah. That's right. She had to measure my body fat the first day we met. Pinch, pinch.

Saw the whole weightlifting team in their boxers. That's true. That is true. She measured you before she said yes to today before she went in it was a good expression

I'll give them a go she went in shopping it sounds like she did everybody she got everybody's body fat percentage yeah Zach won

if she knew you had bad wrist man would she have said yes to that did she measure your wrist that evening if she knew the future would

bring her, who knows? My children must have strong wrists. We talked about the bathroom scenes before. Anyway, to continue your question,

when I think of the training center, I think of the cafeteria most of the time. They also had to-go boxes, which were great for people who also might want to eat the food. Like all your buddies.

You were the supplier. You're like the dealer on campus. I got in trouble one time. It was a total story. What is getting in trouble like at the Olympic Training Center? Were you scolded? Sherry Von Reason,

who's the nicest lady. On the face of the earth. Yeah. Saw me bringing a sandwich out just to give to Sarah right in front of her office. I mean, it wasn't even sneaky. We weren't even trying to be sneaky.

Yeah, because this was years after Sarah had left there. We've got to teach you how to be more dishonest. Maybe you could. I think we could pull it off. But anyway. I think she told his coach. He's like, don't tell Sarah you were giving me that lesson yesterday. Good times. I thought Paul talked to you. He's like, don't tell Sarah. You were giving me that lesson yesterday. Good times.

I thought Paul talked to you. He doesn't know what to say. This policy is a good one, by the way. You don't know what to say. You just go, I'm not saying anything else. That's right. I'm in the hole. I stopped digging.

That's right. Zach's like, I'm not in the hole. Not digging out. I haven't done anything. He's acknowledged what's happening. He's getting in trouble. He doesn't even know why. Happens to all of us.

That's every man, man. That's every man. Okay, so they had a buffet for you every day. You could eat as much as you wanted, which was tough probably as a guy who had to stick within a certain weight class. You were 85 kilo lifter, is that right? Yeah. Did you have trouble making weight or were you always kind of like right there?

I was strict with my diet, so I got to try everything they had at least once. Right on. If they bring something new and it's deep fried, I don't care. I'm going to eat it. But my average meals were chicken breasts with vegetables and lean stuff and that kind of thing. They also had sports nutritionists who could help you. I thought they gave way too many carbs into the equation for what I was doing with my diet. For a weightlifter, it might be. Yeah. But they were very helpful.

So then you had sports psychologists talk about how stressful it is and how your emotions hurt your... Hurt. Coddling. Coddling. Emotions hurt. Me, emotions. Sour, coach.

It was some deep stuff. Like, they really know their... Like're like wow there's a lot of heady stuff with sports psychology um visualizing the whole you know one second you're visualizing for a long time and it's really it's important i think it's one of the subjects like in school you recognize immediately like this seems really important i should really master this then you realize but i wish it didn't exist in this form that's in this book it's so this is not what i experienced in the junk you start learning how important it is as you get through in your career oh if i could teach this i would totally say these things not what this person's saying yeah i didn't i didn't use it too much but it was definitely there then rehab there's a sports rehab a recovery center place and then it holds a sports

yeah cold punch so ice baths yeah massage okay yeah so a quick schedule for olympic weightlifters you train twice a day once in the morning and evening monday wednesday friday and then once a day tuesday thursday saturday usually after every workout you're um at least every workout once a day you're going to the recovery center, either doing a cold plunge or a contrast bath. So ice cold baths up to as far as you are brave. You ever go over the nipple? Yes.

He went up to his neck. It's the initiation of go under and hold your breath. And your head is going to explode. Oh, yeah. Cold water on your head doesn't feel good. It's a terrible response at first. It's horrible. Anyway, after that, the nipple line is usually where it's comfortable here,

and then here it's just torture. The armpits. Armpits are so sensitive. Yeah, I know. What the heck? So recovery, and then there's just great, any kind of injury you have, they're always there to help you out and look at it. They said PTs and chiros on staff just to give you evals

and check you out whenever you were feeling achy or beat up. Yeah, and then so massage was also part of it. It wasn't as much as you want, but Mike, we were just talking about this. You had a massage earlier today. Yeah. And was it super relaxing and comforting? No. What do people think of it as a massage? There was no soothing music. It's not a sweet earlier today. Yeah. And was it super relaxing and comforting? No.

What do people think of as a massage? There was no soothing music. It's not a Swedish massage. No. It's a sports massage. That's often painful. Was it worse than

the one you had in Raleigh? No. The one in Raleigh, North Carolina takes the cake. What was that? He got scraped. The gua sha scraping.

Oh. Similar to Graston. Yeah. I came out all bruised up. That was the most painful massage I ever had, which was like a month ago. The lady was knuckle deep. Today was like pleasurable compared to that. This is glute.

The lady's hand was like this. Into the knuckles. Where on the glute? Right through the middle of the glute, man. Like right into the belly of the beast. All right. The middle of both. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got it. We got right. The middle of both. Yeah, we got it.

In the butt cheek. He got me. His back ended up being like the color of CTP's new Polaroid camera. Oh, no. My whole shoulder. Motorcycle wreck survivor. Like you had just been scraped across the asphalt. That's really what it looked like. I'm sitting there grabbing the table.

It was great. Nauseous. So they didn't go that far in the training center. No, they did. Oh, they did. He had a period of time that he could not get into the bottom of the squat. His calf was killing him for some reason. They never really diagnosed it. He got acupuncture, got massage.

But I remember him going to the recovery center and seeing the massage therapist work on his calf and just like working on the knots and just, mean he was writhing in pain i couldn't even sit still and she's just like elbow your entire body weight just all the way jen pago if you're listening i hate you oh my gosh she was a lifter too she did not she did not mess around it was it was kind of like okay i have an hour massage so i get four seconds of massage massage massage elbow like not even like warm up the muscle a little bit yeah you know i've been to one massage therapist where she'll warm up the muscles i mean give you a good five minutes of that and then so we're gonna but i've never everyone else has always been like

straight to business yeah that's tough that's tough i'm, I don't want to get my money's worth. I'm not paying for this. Yeah, you know what I mean. And you've learned from porn, that's not the way to go about things. You just don't jump right on. Learn that lesson. Is there anything in the training center

that they didn't have that you wish they did have? What was missing there from that equation? Because usually weightlifting seems like a pretty... Married housing. Yes. And I will say with how great the rehab stuff was, I still went to another chiropractor who would offer his services for free

because he did ART, active release therapy, which I found to be really helpful. And he actually worked with Dr. Leahy. He was one of the kind of founders of it. So a legit ART guy. Yeah. But they can't afford to pay some... of the kind of founders of it. But so there was... A legit ART guy. Yeah, yeah. But, you know,

they can't afford to pay some... Not everybody, like these people have been doing for 20, 30 years to work there, at least. So there was some just recovery things or injury prevention. So like a water array would have been...

Sounds like you're trying to walk a line here and you don't want to piss somebody off. Well, I just know the people and they're all so nice but it would be greater. There's a lot of injuries. Do you think it's just a traditional?

There's a lot of injuries. It has to be a heavily, was it a traditional, heavily formal, buy the book, let's do what has been proven to work kind of thing? Like you have in college

the right rooms where they're going to stem muscles, ice, things that hurt and wrap ankles. That is very. It's a standard approach that we know is going to work and we're not going

to hurt you. We're not going to get on these, the fringes of what could work. We're not going to go there. That's true. That was a big problem in the beginning, especially everyone's like, well, I'm going to go to a sports med, get ice and stem, ice and stem. Yeah. I hurt my hamstring.

Ice and stem so you can't move. Then they started doing laser stuff, which was great. Like they started expanding when stuff, which was great. They started expanding when we got some other people in. One of the things I do remember people complaining about, and I complain about this, is you see somebody get hurt in football or everything, and there are top of the line people there right now,

let's fix this. And with this, it was more like, well, we'll get you an MRI next Thursday, because that's when they can get you in. You want to get back to training, but you've got to wait. And I guess it's the same. We were getting treatment like a normal person would, not how a professional athlete would. You're trying to run a gold medal. It'd be like, can I have some assistance?

My ankle hurts now. I need to be training. I guess the thing I was thinking about when you were describing this is that so when people who don't have access to those kind of perks, food, rest, lack of work stresses, some therapy on staff, if they see you doing what you're doing two-a-days, or they see, to your point, a professional athlete doing something, therein lies the need for a bit of caution when you try to emulate what those guys do, right? Because you're struggling to recover as is, being a gifted athlete and being in a place

where you have nothing to do but train. And it's still tough to recover. So people who work in a corporate job and go, I should start training twice a day. I sleep four hours a night and I eat two meals scattered throughout the day, but I'm gonna give it a go. And what I see most of the time when people come in, if they're doing something like that,

is you're on such a limited time frame, like I've got one hour to train. You're not gonna spend 10, 15 15 20 minutes of that warming up like you probably should you're just like wait now go and then when they get done stripped down the bar and they're out the door back to their job they're not cooling down they're not doing the recovery stuff I should be done but easier said than done oh I know it's tough I went outside like at 8 p.m. my garage my righteous garage gym, which I'd

be dead without by now. But it's like 8 p.m. I put down my beer, and I do some deadlifts. That's literally what I did. I'm like, I'm going to do some deadlifts. And I walk out. I'm like, okay, I need to warm up. I'll start with 135.

I'll do that, and I'll add plates, man, and get heavy. You can adapt to it, but it's not ideal. You can't get really strong like this. Don't warm up with a Modelo. That's not what it's not it's not ideal you can't get really strong like this don't warm up with a modelo that's that's not what you want not that you can't it's just not optimal one of the guys that he was training last week i don't know i don't know how old he is maybe in his low 40s he said for every whatever your age is like that's how many minutes you need to spend warming up if you want to say which that can get i mean it's not a bad and i remember some of the lifters

as they would get closer to 30, 35, all of a sudden, 30 minutes later, they're still taking the bar. And you're like, really? And then eventually they get heavy, but the young kids are halfway done with their workout, and they're still warming up. So as a weightlifter who's good enough to train

at the Olympic Training Center, and who's been doing weightlifting for probably a decade, decade and a half, you obviously at that point, you know plenty about programming. You probably could write your own programming, but they have people at the Olympic Training Center, coaches and whatnot to help you write your own programming. Like how much influence did you have

over your own programming? How much was just handed to you and you were just told do this and you couldn't change it or how did that work? We had more than one coach, right? Yeah, I was gonna say it depends on the coach because we had, my first coach was a guy named Dragomir Sarosalan.

Best name ever. Yeah, it really is. That sounds badass. Yeah, Dragomir. He's probably just chopped your head off. That's right. And there's awesome stories of him coaching, just doing insane things like finish the pull

on this person's max out lift. He's cold and flip flops and just power snatches, you know pounds just like this guy doesn't weigh much at all but he was so mentally tough anyway there's some people coaches like him who have kind of their very strict way um he the influence my my approach was usually i'm gonna do what my coach tells me because if i second guess it too much it might might cause me to not work as hard. Because that's what I would see people is they would usually be second guessing their coach who's an elite coach, awesome coach, and then they would do less sets or they would cut things out

and it just wouldn't. Believe in commitment or right at the top of the things you need. That coach is there for a reason. Yes. One of my favorite coaches I've ever had was probably Zygmunt Schmal says who is the coach there right now and he's from poland he's spry yeah very spry have you seen him yes he's 72 years old he's in better shape than all of us here but he would always be like how are you feeling well how is it that you feel like he was asking us, I feel happy. Have a great time. But he was,

he was very, he had his way and he, and like he wanted you to do these things. You must do this. But if you said, you know, this is hurting. Of course we'll change it.

Of course. You know, there wasn't any guilt trip where you're scared to come to him. Right. From the outside looking in, what I saw more from Zygmunt was he saw each athlete more individually instead of thinking oh i'm training a team of weightlifters he realized that different weightlifters had different things that they needed to work on in different aspects of the

lifts that they needed to work on and so he he wrote different programs like not everybody was going in doing the exact same thing which that's tough tough to do. And if you've got 10, 15 athletes that you're working with at the elite level, to not just have them all do the same weightlifting workout. Was he varying volume between athletes or was it more of the movement? That's a good way to, yeah. It's mostly- Competitions sometimes. But he was more varying, well, he mostly varying the movements.

You have to work on these weaknesses and then the volume would be dependent on injury, time of competition and just your health and that kind of stuff. I mean, as I got older, I realized I can do better if I train one time a day and just make my workout twice as long because then I'm not warming up twice. I have 24 hours of recovery on my joints versus warming up, cooling off, warming up again. I think that's the thing with keeping progress going as you get older is learning how to get

more and more and more done with less and space things out. Lift the weight you need to lift with more and more skill and less and less arousal. The kids who are barking,

like Jared filming now is much more disciplined I guess than Jared filming like two years ago where I see him like exploding with emotion. Now he's much better, but he's settling into his body and form.

That's where it's like Michael Jordan, the second half is queer, right, CTP? Not jumping over people, but still executing and winning championships. Can you give us an example of what just one workout would look like for you in the off season, and then what would look like maybe like two weeks out from a competition okay i will say though weightlifters

don't have an off season because um okay our off season is right after a huge competition you get a week and a half of only doing squats for like uh a week and a half i mean like do squats three times a week and do some pulls and maybe move light snatches with the bar. It's a weight lift. And then you're back in. You're going heavy overhead. Okay, well, that's novel information in and of itself. So a week after a competition when you don't have a competition coming right around the corner, what does that look like? You just squat and go home?

Yeah. Well, sorry, I barely heard the question because when you mentioned off-season, I immediately thought of the shooters, the people who shot and were athletes at the Olympic Training Center because they would have six months off and they're like yeah we're not supposed to do anything for six months like man six months like starting from scratch practice shooting or just like a mental exercise yeah well they

would as like a normal person would do some Don't they also drink for a performance boost? Is that the sport where alcohol is the ergogenic aid? Which one? Alcohol and guns. We should mix those two for the Olympic Games. Isn't a big part of that like being able to relax? Like the guys that just kind of shoot offhand, they'll be like, they shoot between heartbeats. I mean, it's amazing.

And then they just like do it again. And it's just like that. It's like super relaxed. Steady. It's a. They just do it again and it's just like that. It's super relaxed. Steady. It's a sport where you go, how did you perform today, man? Not my best. I didn't lay there still enough. It's a sport.

I didn't keep my heart rate low enough. Interesting. I wanted to be closer to a state of complete death but didn't quite focus. They didn't have an exercise program not some of them did some of them because if they were in good shape then their heart rate would be lower yeah so i was wondering like not all of them so but it wasn't necessarily specific to shooting it was just bilateral isokinetic finger pulls with a cable machine yeah i remember hearing about a guy who would like hold a wine bottle out like this for like an hour.

Just to steady his arm. Working on his shooting arm endurance just for his pistol. Specificity of training. Whatever works for you. I don't know if that's what all Olympians do or whatever. That's what that guy did. That's how Olympians do that. All Olympians.

No matter what sport. Wine bottle pulls. I once held a broomstick at arm's length for 15 minutes. That's amazing. I was training in the Navy. I was held a broomstick at arm's length for 15 minutes. That's amazing. I was training in the Navy to sweep floors. It was crazy. You trained to sweep the floors? Yeah. How do you train?

Come on, man. You're fucking with me. You trained to do the... Okay, whatever. Right after competition, you're doing mostly squats, not a whole lot of volume, more than likely. Right after competition, you're doing mostly squats, not a whole lot of volume, more than likely. Like right after competition, and then it'll peak. Yes, no, it'll peak after that. And then kind of come back down towards competition, as far as volume goes.

For sure. The volume always starts usually with higher rep. That's where you're going to do any kind of hypertrophy, is when you're 12 weeks, 16 weeks out from a competition. And those usually were the lengths of our cycles, 12 to 16, a six week or eight week cycle is just not enough to feel like you're actually going to hit some, get stronger and hit some personal records. So it would start.

That comes with experience too. I mean, a lot of people, they want to try to max out like every weekend. Yeah. And sometimes they're hitting PRs frequently. Well, when you're new,

you can. It just means you're inexperienced. So you're talking about athletes who have been training for a long time i think a lot of people will get caught up and i don't hit prs like i used to so well maybe you should try once every three or four months yeah instead of every weekend and the more elite you are then you try once every three or four years i mean it gets really the more the better you get the more space between yeah yeah you try more often but you actually succeed less often succeed inverse relationship and part of that too is there's a point where you're so efficient with your technique you have to be stronger and faster to make a little gain where people who are getting

better at their technique they're just going to go up and wait every they are going to be able to snatch more a couple weeks later and a couple weeks later um so it would start out if you're in the place where you need to put on some muscle mass, and usually I filled up my weight class pretty quick, so I didn't have to do a lot of tens of the back squats. Thank God, because that was just, I don't want to do tens of the back squats.

It's usually more like fives to fives. He trained with us on Monday. We did eights. Close to the danger zone, but not quite. He did fives today. That's... Yeah. Slacker.

I pretty much only do ones now ever. Ones? Yeah. Yeah. It was that much fun. If you do go from doubles and singles and you just jump to tens out of nowhere and you go heavy, you're going to be sore as shit. Oh, sore.

So sore. Yeah. It was. And so we would do higher rep stuff. Usually break... Sixes. You know. That's right.

Unless you're Casey Bergner, then you had to do all these times. He's trying to put on muscle, trying to be a super heavyweight. Anyway. Set a 10. Milkshake. Exactly. Milkshake. Puke.

Yeah. That was. Okay. So again, just one training session. Walk through the whole thing beginning and I'll try not to interrupt you. All right. Which means Blitzman don't interrupt that's true yeah so i walk in and um introspection introspection to start i'm thinking it's hard to whittle down like

in the one prototype workout well usually i mean i would i would go to the cafeteria like 15 minutes before. I need to eat something. And then I would also have some sort of energy. I mean, a little shot of espresso with some soft serve ice cream. Just a little tiny thing. Something for like sugar and caffeine.

Oh, yeah. And then once I got my lifting stuff on, the nice thing was when you're lifting that much, stretching out isn't, for me, it wasn't a big deal. So I would have to do, I would just have to go through the range of motions, full weight body, squats, jumps. And I probably have snatches, we'll say, for this workout. So I'm going to warm up with, well, I warm my wrists for a while, do some shoulder things, but not very light with that. Most of the warmup is with just the bar. So I start doing sats presses. You're in a full squat, pressing

from the bottom of the snatch. Which everybody should do all the time. Before you snatch, do sats presses. If you don't have shoulder impingement or other difficulties. It feels funny in my back when I do this. It's like these muscles are contracting. It hurts.

I've never used these particular muscles before. If you've never done it before, your thoracic erectors are going to cramp. If your muscles are contracting, you better stop then. I've seen people do like 350 pounds on exercise. We've gotten through the first five minutes. So, sauce press is getting a little bit of weight on there and then the snatch exercise will probably be let's say I have full snatches

that day so it would just say snatches it won't say full snatches but the warm up would be maybe some snatches from above the knee for doubles or triples and you get up to 70-75% and then I would go back down this is my last year how I did it then I would go back down and now I would start doing my actual snatches from the ground.

So you're kind of warmed up with above the knee hitting everything good and snappy. You're pulling from blocks? No, I'm just going from the ground. Okay. Or I pick up and then go to above the knee. And then I'll go from the ground and you'll do at least five or six sets of heavy, like, you know, if I'm aiming for 90% that day all of them at that 90% 75% doesn't count 80% doesn't count between 85 and 90 percent five to

six sets waste of time the accounting was other ones no what's ways who's got time for light weights man so these are singles up to 85% I know these are double if I'm doing 85 to 90, it's probably doubles and maybe some singles if it's 90 or above. But I... Not touch and go CrossFit doubles. No. Pull it and drop it on the ground. So two snatches.

Casually pick it back up and go again. And then you sit down. You don't have to sit down, but you at least have to wait three minutes-ish in between sets. You have to. Otherwise... You get kicked out. If you don't have to. Otherwise, you're dragging your kids. If you don't feel like you should, it's not heavy enough. He snatches you.

Otherwise, if you don't, you're not fully recovered. We don't measure our time, but when people measure our time, we were within 10 seconds. Unless we're talking to someone, we get carried away with something. That's pretty fascinating. It was almost always, oh, I feel I'm ready to go. And we're extremely consistent when you've been doing it that long. Everybody's about the same around three minutes.

I mean, there's some variation, two and a half to three minutes, especially on snatches. If it's clean jerks, you know, maybe 30 seconds longer. I think this is really important for people to hear because a lot of times people are taking, they take 90 seconds and they feel like they're okay, especially with CrossFit because everyone's so into the go, go, go. It's not on every minute on the minute. It's not suffering, it's not working. Yeah, so full recovery is important.

Yeah. For better technique and speed. Especially the stronger you get, the more time you're going to need. That's very true. If your max snatch is 175, you probably don't need four minutes of recovery between sets of singles at 90%. But if you snatch is 175, you probably don't need four minutes of recovery between sets of singles at 90%.

But if you snatch 350, then you probably do. You might need five minutes or longer. And the more, if it's a three position snatch or triples in the snatch, I'm gonna need a little longer recovery than if I'm just doing a single. And then after snatches, I probably have snatch pulls. And this is something I really want every, I love when people do this.

After they do heavy snatches, do snatch pulls, 105, 110% of your best snatch, four or five sets of three. And those, your arms are locked the whole time. It's only the pull portion. There's variations on that. But you try and treat it like you're going to snatch it. We coach people at our gym for Olympic lifting, and okay, I'll do my snatch pulls now,

and they're doing it like they're just doing a deadlift and just kind of finishing. Kind of going through the motions. You might as well not be doing anything. You've got to be mentally prepared. Like you're trying to hit a new PR, and you just missed it. Yeah.

You're obviously going to miss it. Just keep pulling. Just keep pulling. I think that's... You can't oversell the point to where you've got to really be pretending hard. and you just missed it. You're obviously going to miss it. Just keep pulling, just keep pulling. But get psyched up. You can't oversell the point to where you gotta really be pretending hard. Like to the point where it's really hard to hold the focus, you're thinking,

snatch, snatch, snatch, snatch, snatch. Not dead lifting, not showing out, not just doing work. Not just doing the work. I think when people do assistance, it doesn't usually work because they go, well, I'm gonna do that because I did this and this will help that.

And they're thinking, pull. Yeah. But the brain isn't connected to it together. That's how specific it is. If people analyze, like, I'm doing my snatches. I've got to pay attention here. Oh, snatch pulls. Well, now I don't have to focus anymore.

It's like, no, every rep, was that rep good? Was that rep good? And some of them are like, oh, that was awesome. I totally could have snatched that. I think if you don't do that, your assistance work doesn't benefit you at all. Absolutely. It's just a way of you expending excess calories. It doesn't really help you lift more weights. Well, and that's one of the things that we talked about or we've been talking about we

have a only class that meets three times a week at our gym we've been getting like 20 people plus every single class and one of the things that we try to tell them is if you're taking the bar you need to take the bar the same way you're gonna take every weight after the bar like you don't mess around with the bar you don't take the bar half the way you're going to take every weight after the bar. Like you don't mess around with the bar. You don't take the bar half the speed you would take a heavier weight. Like the bar should look perfect. Well, there's no weight on it. Exactly.

It should look perfect. Technically easier. Technically easier. When people go to do a hang snatch and they just pick the bar up terribly. Yes. I'm like, what are you doing? I know, I know. Get your back.

It's a perfect opportunity to practice bar path and you just wasted it. Well, a lot of people. You practiced wrong, so now you got to do it two times to fix that one time. Yeah, you don't only waste, you undo what you've been practicing. Yeah. A lot of people have trouble catching a heavy snatch in the bottom of the squat. They're warming up and they're doing power snatches. They're catching the bar high with these light light weights and then the weight gets heavy and then they can't get in the bottom of the squat you need to catch that barbell in

the bottom the people do that in power thing too they would get so used to the ego takes over and you squat higher and higher higher as things get heavy or you you bench off boards make yourself feel strong and you get to meet where surprise you gotta go is it collapse that's that sound so if you're snatching are you on board with with only pulling as hard as you need to to complete the lift correctly or do you pull as hard as you possibly can every single time no matter what that's a good question and one question I like doing both when you don't pull as hard as you need to it depends that's always the answer

I know the answer I'll swear on what he thought I'll say it depends on what I think you should you should be able to do both and have done both I

to give you a straight answer I almost always pulled as hard as I needed to except when it was like 50% you don't that's dumb it's gonna fly up

and you're not gonna well there's a there's a practical like people will hear that and go okay I'm gonna pull as hard as I can I okay i'm gonna pull as hard as i can and they get the bar out of the rack at a certain percentage it's impractical if you're snatching 40 you can't pull it as hard as you can or you're just gonna fucking throw it like four feet over your head yeah because if you're only pulling something as high as your belly button or high as your nipples or whatever then you and it's 40 of your max you have to like ease up at some point and just, and just drop under and catch it.

Well, I'll, I'll say something about that too. There's a difference between not pulling as hard as you can and not finishing your pull. You always, always have to finish your pull. And sometimes when you tell somebody, well, don't pull as hard as you can on this one, you know, it's not your max weight. Just pull as hard. Then they start cutting their pull and then they're out of position. so easier on your first pull and then pull your second pull you know fast and complete yeah or just make sure the movement's complete because like i remember distinctly doing uh a wad that had a lot of snatches in it and it was all you know all the way through the bottom of the squat um which i'm much more comfortable doing than power snatches because i did a lot more

full snatches than power but I remember thinking during the Metcon I was like I'm getting really tired this is like I don't have to pull it as high as I'm pulling it and I started I would finish my pole but much more almost relaxed like just a little just finish all the way up and then catch it what noise you made I did that during the Met Con too. And then I would catch it at the very, very bottom of the squat. And so I wasn't catching, riding down to the squat and coming back up. And it felt so much easier.

It was so much faster. I was like, oh, I don't have to waste that energy. But I still had to finish the pull. Good. I will say with people we coach, I almost am always telling them, slow down. Slow down the pull. Don't yank it off the ground. So if you're going to be going as fast as you can or

during the pull, it should be at the very very top. That's when it's most important to be really fast. Because if you start moving a lighter weight as fast as you can, you're never going to move your heavy weight that fast and so then it's not the same. It tends to throw people out of position. That's when they knock their knee as they go by or they get behind the bar and get

on their toes because they're just yanking them off floor what i didn't do is when i got to 80 percent treat it like this is an 80 lift 85 85 that's too specific and i would put all my energy into it with the lighter weights then you're just you're just kind of feeling the movement out yeah so you did in your workout you do snatches snatch snatch pulls. Snatch above knee, sauce press, snatch above knee, then snatches. He taught me how to lie.

He's going to teach you how to lie. We talked about that. He taught me first. He's nervous. Every time we bring up this dishonesty thing, he gets nervous. He's got those trusting eyes. I'm not nervous.

Snatches, snatch pulls. Snatches, snatch pulls. Sauce presses before that and a supplemental snatch before that too. Then if I had jerks, I would always do press and split beforehand, which you get in the split position and just like sauce press, you press the weight overhead, but explosively you punch up and that would just fine tune you for that landing position. So you're in the split position.

You're doing explosive pressing. Yeah, bang. Getting a perfect split position. Not just your feet spread apart, it's like the position that's the ideal for landing in. We have that in some of our technique quads, is that right? Did you guys put that in any of the technique quads we did years ago?

We have it in our seminar. No, I think you've got one where you were setting the mic up on the ground. I think we do have it in our in our seminar no i think you've got one with where you were setting oh yeah i drew that thing on the ground graph we did i think we do have some technical was maybe we'll edit those into this episode the key point coming up soon the key point you're taking a lot of time he's like no no you're taking some time before you do the thing to tell your brain here's where we're gonna land okay yeah think about it yeah you got it no because when we catch our jerk we better be punching explosively or else this fucking thing's gonna fall on our head that's that's right that's right okay so

you're doing those explosive presses from the jerk position after snatch pulls yeah in some cases in some cases we wouldn't always do pulls after the snatches some because that is pretty tiring sometimes we don't do that we go right into the clean jerks um and when you're doing these presses if you're doing only snatches you're probably gonna do some pulls if you're gonna move on to clean and jerks probably you might not do the pull or later in the workout right and then for the pressing don't do six sets at a heavy weight it's not the point is to tire out your muscles or even get stronger in that position you can use that some other time this is like you said it's a primer primer yeah and then so you move to um clean and jerks and i really liked doing my the split jerk was my problem.

Missing a jerk was more common for me than a clean. I almost never missed cleans. And so for me to do a warm up, like above the knee clean, plus front squat, plus jerk, or to like a 70, 75% weight, and then go down and do full clean and jerks from the ground was helpful just to get, feel that lighter lighter break it a little tired with the jerk and just make sure everything's snappy and hit landing the right spot and then go to for the heavy clean jerk at the from the ground the thing you're not you worked on the thing you need most first mm-hmm yeah yeah yeah that's right if I

was somebody who the clean you know catching that bouncing upright was a bigger deal I might do something with bouncing in the bottom of a clean with some light weight. It's just an obvious solution. Did you watch Khloekov's tour? All those videos, crazy rushes. I loved all that stuff.

A couple more times, they let out what he thinks is important for him. He goes, well, I feel like my back should be really strong, so I spend a lot of time doing deadlifts. His snatch style, crazy ass Khloekov cloak off rush yeah because my arms need some work but not as much so don't work on them as much it's just intuitive so should I spend an hour you know measure Mike my clean dick against all the other guys in the gym or should I just work out what I

need to work on it's common sense like no no no additional analysis necessary and yes I said... Never heard of it like that. Sorry. Measuring my clean dick against the other guys in the gym. I realize that that may have been a touch inappropriate. Overly competitive with my colleagues. Is that better? I'm confused. I don't even know what that means. I need to... Measuring your... No, no. I'm good. I was like, if you and I have dicks, we want to see whose is longest. We're gonna measure them. in this case our dick is the clean so my dick is bigger I'm not cleaning you bro you're not getting caught up in that challenge you are wise

we'll find out what the other half of Zach's workout looked like. Zach, I'm sorry. We'll tell who won the contest. I'm sorry, Zach. Three, two, one, go. And we're back. We just had the most interesting piece of the conversation of the podcast during the break. It was intense over the break.

I'm sorry. Repeat everything we just said. We came after the dick clean thing. Thanks. I apologize to our fans. Sarah can't share this podcast with her mother now. I know. I was going to have my mom watch, but now I'm not so sure.

Oh, you cookie kids. You need some new friends. Moving on to Klokov. What were we going to talk about? Yeah, I was telling the story. So one of the, those guys went on an epic tour

of the United States doing what you think Russian dudes running around the United States would do, like taking pictures and cracker barrels and shit,

I guess. I just remember, I've already seen a picture of Ilya Ilyin walking down the street eating a big ice cream cone. Looking like the happiest guy just happy to shit

I was so happy for him welcome to America it's not cold and I don't have to drink vodka what have you not cleaning and jerking world records before you know it

of all the things I saw the coolest thing was a picture it's on Hook Grip's excellent Instagram feed those people Hook Grip Nat Artemp

yeah he's great thing that Instagram feed is perfect and those the pictures they're taking it's just it's like all this stuff used to see with Milo but there's one image of him with Zig behind him Zeeman Zeeman's the Polish wonder and in a full squat position hands overhead tight I get you know squat jerk is at the right position squat if using a full squat yeah narrow hands the basic really hard position to be in in the right way for weightlifting and Ziggy's just pointing it out he said yeah this is the moment where he points out if you want to know why this man is the best in the world it's because of position he works every day

even now every day minimum of 30 minutes on position because he goes that's why this man is the best in the world he's got nothing to do he's been off he hasn't lifted weight in a year and he will still be the guy taking gold

in Rio probably because he's excellent because of that thing I only worked 29 minutes that was my problem oh you didn't know explains the risk no

why didn't you tell me it was 30 but it's one thing I realized if you knew then what you don't know another thing you said is if we could all go back and do it if you knew then what you don't know another thing you said is if we all go back

and do it again you said the most you would nail the Zotz press right like you would just drill that you would recommend

that to more people because it's so uncomfortable and so tough make it to where it's the easiest thing in the world the most routine thing in the world

you do is warm up and you're gonna get better absolutely when you start warming up with that you don't have to stretch out all the little tiny things you just force yourself

very uncomfortably into the toughest position you need to be in. And the more you do it, like that picture, he's in the bottom of a squat with his hands narrow. Work to getting your feet together, hands together, full squat with a bar overhead. I mean, that is... I just got a picture of Chad doing that. Chad Vaughn.

Chad Vaughn, yeah. So to start, maybe starting like snatch grip behind the neck, full squat, doing presses like that, and then slowly moving your grip in over time. Second time I hit the mic. Slowly moving your grip in over time, eventually doing front rack presses from a

full squat, and then maybe trying to get your thumbs together, and then eventually your hands together if you're really trying to go for gold. Absolutely. And like Chris said, when we we're off you said if you were to go back you would just start doing the most uncomfortable thing you could think of multiple training sessions a day standing on nails and hot cold 30 minutes a day chanting mantras steamer 29 you should see me in this alternative reality I've got going on my mind mind. But I was going to say, I think the idea of a useful, adding in more training sessions,

people think to do that, you got to be like, you got to, in your mind, you're Rich Froning. Your shirt's off, you're sweating all day, you're making things really intense, like multiple, a training session could be you go out in your garage, you grab your barbell, you do a couple sets of that, you go back inside. That's probably the most useful training, extra training session I would ever think of doing it buzz away out there and I really sucked it's not press I was like I've got 15 minutes I'll go out there just practice the position that's true yeah that's very important I wouldn't say like let's see that five times don't then say you train

five times a day actually work something you do really slowly right Doug would you say it's a I wouldn't be that dude. I need a post-workout shake, plenty of carbs after that. But the idea of adding in extra work, adding in extra work is something you do really slowly, right, Doug? Would you say it's a very smart thing? A little dab, like just moving. Five pounds a day. Five pounds a day. Baby steps. I learned that today.

Every other day. But extra work could be just practice. When I was a power up there, one of the things I would do is I would just speak. Well, you know, you could probably smile. I would just sit around doing this and shit in the lunch line. Oh, yeah. Like practicing exactly what I was going to do over and over again. It rubbed off on me.

I remember one day I walked around and I was doing this. I was like, I don't even bench press. I'm hanging out with Chris too much. It's too much of that. It's not easy to influence. But no, you prime. So when you get to lifting, it's just what you start doing. Everything becomes natural.

Oh, yeah. I mean, for some reason, when I was a lifter, whenever I'd be'd be nervous not nervous about lifting but let's say I'm in a weird uncomfortable situation at a party I'm gonna sink in my mind like a power snatch 300 how that first day go you ever been somewhere in public and like you're thinking about something you're like at the grocery store on the aisle and you're sitting there going you don't you. If someone's looking at you and you're like, oh, shit. Are you going to tell me you hook grip the cart, don't you? I hook the grip the cart.

I used to hook grip everything. This dude, no. This dude will walk around a party shadowboxing. He'll be like... What's happening? All doing fighter stuff. He'll be doing this.

We're at a casino. He's just like... It adds up. That's how bored I am, but yeah, it happens. That at least looks kind of cool. We got kicked out of a casino for... We weren't shadowboxing. We were fighting. That looks kind of cool. We got kicked out of a casino for We weren't shadow boxing.

We were fighting. That looks kind of cool. Punching. Doing mini split jerks. That guy's having a seizure. Attention. You told me a while back when Zygmunt first got there.

Zygmunt? Zygmunt. M-U-n-t you said like he was like basically he had you in an overhead squat position was like digging his foot or knee into your back yeah more upright oh like stretching your back there are a couple of different things to do i think the worst one though is the um we had a wall and it was a bunch it's a gymnastics uh piece of equipment all bars yeah so you would put your hands on one of them and like you'd be at a 90 degree so bent over and he he would be standing on top of you standing on top of you holding on like on your back jumping

to get your arms doing because this is something we don't do in the US. Basically, it's like thoracic mobility. He's not jumping hard, but he's putting his pressure down and you're like, whoa, whoa. I'm wearing this

pressure on my thoracic spine right now. Slides down at the end of it over your hips, do some calf raises. Yeah, yeah. Come on, bro. Come on, bro.

Donkey calf raises. Donkey calf raises. No, that's pretty, that seems like an aggressive stretch if I may be so bold as to label it as such. Yeah, but he did it to girls, too. He was like, everybody needs to do this if your position's okay. Was he the only one standing on people's backs?

He was the only one. He was the smallest one. He had some joy out of it. Yeah, he's a small guy. I couldn't say donkey calf raises without thinking about that one time. We had the two girls in our gym doing donkey calf raises. The one girl sitting on top of the other girl. And every guy in the gym was just like, what's going on over there? That was pretty awesome.

Look how wide those domains are. It was a great day at our gym. We don't prescribe that anymore, right? No, no, no. Didn't quite see the performance. Those were the bigger competitors. That's what made it. That's what made it so terrible.

That may have been the first exercise. I go, this is the stupidest fucking thing ever. That's the first one I abandoned when I started becoming aware of what I was actually doing. Everybody has that moment. Except for two figure competitors training together.

You're in Gold's Gym on that thing. Yeah. You load up all that. Everybody always uses all the weight. Second class library. You can load whatever you want on that. And you're just going, oh, yeah. You can do that all day.

No exertion effort. Somehow you think, I'm getting so huge right now. Suddenly your belly's tending to explode. My calves are going to be so gapingly wide and veiny. What was the K-Star thing said about that, dude? Your veins look like. Oh, no. It's so funny how much time you spend

on hammer curls and curls and calf raises when you begin. I saw, I think it was a real life MTV real life and he got calf implants and it was very hard. Yeah. Heartfelt. I think I watched that one. Calf implants and pec implants are like the two big ones for dudes. I think calf implants come

in right behind boobs overall. Really? It's like boobs and then calf implants. I guess I don't know what other kind of implants people would be getting. Can I ask you, you're the female in the room. Has there ever been a time, think back to your single day. I know you've got the perfect man here. God bless this handsome individual. Speak to the men right now

who may be thinking, I'm thinking about those calf implants. Was there ever a moment in your wildest dreams like when you're drawing and you're you're like at least some Frank's multicolored

school binder and you're making notes of like potential qualities of a husband you go he must have super awesome huge calf muscles

does any girl actually want that shit at any level I don't think it ever occurs to him now he actually has he does have phenomenal calves.

But it never. If you had bird calves, would it work out, you think? I think it would work. You think it would still work between us? I think it would still work. If we had bird calves? I think it would still work. Let's go.

Was it bird calves? No, I think that's kind of absurd. I actually have a funny story that I have to tell because if I don't tell it now, it might not come up ever again. But my grandfather was at the fair once and he had skinny legs. And he was once asked by this stranger, this woman, are those your legs or are you riding a chicken?

You should actually ask him that. He said he had no idea what to say. He was like dumbfounded. You should have just said, I'm riding a chicken. And he tells the story to his grandchildren. At the age of 80, he's still telling the story. So it really stuck with him.

It must have burned. Yeah, that would have. At the end of that story, did he say, so anyway, that's why your legs look like that. I started squatting after I heard that story. That's right. Every day. Squat more. And donkey cat phrases.

For your workout, you do snatches. We're going to make it through. It's the longest workout ever. If you're not doing cleans, you're doing snatch pulls. But you might do the snatch pulls after the cleans. But you do snatches, then your cleans. I thought you were going to simplify this. Make it work.

Let's all shut up and let's talk. Don't work out. So I have to clean and jerks. Zach, would you like to summarize? Okay. So first I go to the cafeteria and I get some soft serve. Well, okay. Warm up for the snatch, sauce presses.

Then a variation in the snatch, but then into the heavy snatches. Warm up for the clean and and jerk which we press and split some variation some variation in clean and jerk and then straight up clean and jerks then I would probably do my clean pulls or snatch pulls depending on not both

which day of the week it was maybe some box jumps five triples let's say in the pulls like you're going to clean it like you're going to snatch it and then some box jumps five triples let's say in the pulls like you're gonna clean it like you're gonna snatch it um and then yeah box jumps afterwards and then how big are these boxes is that weighted or how does that work um like this tall so it's maximum height is this this tall off the table or off the floor off the computer off the floor yeah it was just so much fun. For the people who were listening, the computer was a half an inch below my hand.

It was like five feet, like a five foot box, right? Like a five foot box. And honestly, like just above nipple height, I guess, was usually a good weight. The danger zone.

Yeah. Just above your buttons. Can I ask you this? Is it true that that's a common thing with Zik stuff is that you end on these ballistic movements these plyometric movements a lot of jumping to finish workouts not not like every workout but probably once a week after squats are good to um to do to do jumps we would do squats and jumps uh maybe to mix together sometimes alternating yeah i used to do it every time i squat i warm up with a jump

this is the natural thing to do right like that's squatted, I'd warm up with a jump. It's just a natural thing to do, right? That's the fastest way to warm up. Yeah, just do some jumps. And if you're gonna max out on a box jump, do some squats first or some explosive Olympic lifting because then you just feel like you're floating. All your muscles, all your fibers are active,

ready to go. It's fun. Potentiated. I've definitely tried to jump on things cold. It's not fun. I know. So after that would be donkey calf raises. So how much regular upper body strength work would you do? Would you do dead hang pull-ups ever or incline bench or just.

Sometimes. Or weighted push-ups or rowing. Yeah. Like heavy barbell rows or anything like that. Would you guys add that in at the end of any of your workouts? Yep. Usually we would have like Saturday be a. You know, so one day a week that would be definitely in there and then for certain people

especially people had to put on some more mass that was a four time a week thing you know if your upper body is not as strong as it would need to be you do incline dumbbell presses yep we would do i mean we'd actually with zygmunt we'd have a morning workout morning warm-up before all the workouts at like 8 a.m which is so early so what back then it was so early at school morning warm-up before all the workouts at like 8 a.m which is so early back then it was so early not at school a warm-up before the workout so you had a warm-up at 8 a.m and he would do the warm-up with us and it was all do we eat before this no no that's what that makes sense now it's like a wake up it's like a wake up no way i'm gonna be in the gym training at eight yeah and have that eaten breakfast it in which the main thing was get us up, get your blood moving, and that's when we'd maybe have you do max out

instead of pull-ups. I'm like, okay, that's an interesting time to do it, but woke you up. And it was a little mini competition. What's your opinion on doing regular powerlifting-style deadlifts? Not clean or snatch pulls, or clean or snatch deads, but just regular deads. The heaviest weight you can pick up with a neutral spine.

High hips, flat back. That's a tough one. Mainly because I never did it. And the main reason I didn't do it is low back problems. When I max out for deadlifts, my low back would go out. I have a couple bulging discs. When I would do heavy... Pretty common, yeah.

Even when I do heavy clean pulls, I wouldn't max out for that. So, for me, it was just too risky it wasn't the benefit wasn't gonna be there so you're saying it wasn't necessary it definitely a national champion no it wasn't I mean I never did deadlifts I can never did that and I went to Sarah's gym in Colorado and did 500 for a set of five or something I think oh this is what a deadlift is like I stop yeah really low am I stopping really low? Well, it makes sense. You guys know this, but

it takes more force to accelerate a load than it does to just accelerate it quickly than to move it slowly. We need to have you talk to Louie Simmons. Don't stir the pot. If you're doing clean pulls with 445,

450, and you're actually really accelerating and pulling like you're going to clean it, that's exerting more force than maybe doing a deadlift with 500. And I've done both things. I've spent the last year really trying to go back and rework. I was a powder for a long time and a football player, so my positions were shit. Or limited to what i was required for those things so being upright and not being in a della position was very foreign and new but i realized that by going back and focusing on getting more and more and more in a mechanically good position that sets you up for a proper pool i got all these new training benefits out because

it's totally different i don't for the life of me, man, Doug, maybe you agree, bro, you know? But I do not understand. I do not understand anybody who'd be like, I need to work on my clean and my snatch. Let me do some heavy deadlifts. Like, it's a fucking different thing. It's just not the same thing. I've done them both.

I've been terrible at both. And my advice to you is, I'm not a crazy deadlifter, but yeah, if you deadlift a ton, you're not working the position that sets up a proper second pull. No, you're exactly right. You're in a totally flip-flop position that's one of the things i tell my classes all the time because i have a lot of crossfitters that tend to think they set their

start position for the clean or their start position for the snatch is the same as it is for deadlift and so i'll show them two positions and i'll quiz them like what position is i'm going to show you two positions you tell me which ones which exercise and they have to tell me but um i say you can deadlift why don't they fail and they're all the gym if they we have three people who are in the gym nobody passes everybody failed most of the time that most of the time they get it but we have no members exactly yeah no but you can deadlift the way you clean if you if you really want to you can set up for a clean and just deadlift the way that is how i dead deadlift. And that's the way I deadlift. So you lift clean

and heavy weight with that weight. Yeah, but you can't clean the way you deadlift. It just doesn't, like if you, if you have,

you can't try. You don't want to say you can't do it and get success, but for most people, I'd say it's not the first thing you need to try. to do it, yeah. Yeah, but for most people I'd say it's not going to be the best way to do it.

Yeah. And I also think that when you move away from pulling in that deadlift style, like if you're a powerlifter, do that, obviously. Do it and train that position to get strong and sound. But if you're trying to be versatile and athletic and you're trying to be a good Olympic weightlifter, I think cleaning with a clean style or deadlifting with a clean style deadlift also allows you to train that movement more often. It's less wear and tear. You're mechanically more close to where you're going to need it. It's just a better way to train.

Yeah, improving the deadlift for someone who needs to get better at weightlifting is probably a small percentage of the population would benefit from that. It's probably useful for somebody. Maybe 3% of weightlifters out there could benefit from that, but the low-hanging fruit for most people

is going to be just improved technique. know the person the same person who gets improved power clean from getting a better deadlift probably could have spent more time improving technique and getting saw the same thing with my squatting where i used to be low bar way bent over good morning style hip squatter and then look if you try to clean with that kind of movement pattern you're not going to clean. You'll drop everything. It's not the way you should be squatting. If you're going to squat the most weight, and that's what's important to you, low bar

squatting. If you want to be good at CrossFit and you want to be a good weightlifter, you just have to high bar squat. You got to be upright and your hips had to be underneath your head. How are you going to catch a clean, man? How? Mechanically, how? The physics.

The physics, homie. So in one of the videos we did a while back, I think we did a technique one on it. You and Mike were going over how low you actually need to be catching your cleans. And that's like a pet peeve of yours, if I remember correctly. A lot of people think they're catching at the bottom, but they're not really at the bottom. Yeah. So how do you guys handle that at your gym with people that maybe they don't have the experience or mobility to get into the bottom? And that's part of the reason they're missing heavy cleans.

Yeah. One of the main things I just do with people is get them to feel what it's like. So let's say somebody doesn't have the stability and they're falling backwards every time they're getting low. Well, if I let them just grab onto a pole or something and get into a full squat. And then they say, okay, I'm in a full squat. All right. They have this much more to go. just relax your hips just kind of relax everything down there and it's just and they sink lower like that's what you need to feel like at the bottom

now you want to keep everything upright to have it tight but just get people to notice like oh i didn't even know i could get a little bit lower i thought i was at the bottom because they're parallel and and the great thing about getting all the way down is catching that bounce to shoot you up out of a clean to shoot you up out of a heavy back squat front squat because that balance is so helpful that's why when you see elite Olympic lifters miss a squat they're missing it above parallel they're not missing like right at the bottom it's good they rock it out of that bottom and then that's this that's at least that's the weakest point right above parallel and so yeah that's not weakest point right above parallel.

So yeah, that's another point. So people are not comfortable getting low and not strong there and not at ease there. That's another thing. Zots presses and what, tons of pause squats and shit? Pause squats are great, yeah. I started doing that when I was overcoming my squat limitations, bringing my feet back in

with the heels underneath my butt and working up to 400 with that safety bar and just letting it shove me down as i think constantly like that that mind connection again vertical vertical christ sakes chris get vertical i guess spent like six months just thinking that over and over and slowly you relearn how to squat and be vertical or doing something like that bring sally up song have you guys done that to bring sally up with the squats videos of that so that's so much fun as close as I got to it. And I've had my classes

warm up just doing air squats. Okay, so the bring Sally up song, I don't know who sings it. It's a Moby. But I think it says bring Sally down. Like 30 times. It's a song. It's a three and a half minute song or something. They say it 30 times and whenever they say bring

Sally down, you sit all the way in the bottom of the squat brings out and you stay there until they say bring sally up and then you go right back down as soon as they tell you to go back down did moby write this for crossfitters i don't know but it's worked out beautifully mike i have my classes do that i've had them do that as a warm-up and just air squats so no no that's what you're the time you're down you're almost never up you're almost yeah you don't wait you don't get to wait at the top at all so the people that have a really good squat position they can kind of sit down and and hang out and if you're just doing air squats it's not a big deal but the people that are struggling and they're tipped way forward and

their hips are oh my goodness they're they're falling apart about halfway through the song so but it's a great way to get people to say i'm in yoga and shaking yes there's some skinny lady next to me going you're going picking that sound you can't even squat 100 pounds it means i'm so strong with pain so working on stability is a big thing that and and flexibility and mobility and all that stuff. Sarah does that really, really well. I like when she, I see her working with people and getting them into the full squad

who've never been there before. Because there's a lot of tricks you can do to like just holding on to something, but to get people to feel how deep they're supposed to be. We actually have a guy that's come to two of our seminars and he's coming to our next one again. He works out in another one of our gym locations so he doesn't come to the Oli class regularly. this man's name is i should i say his last name too

i guess he's in the guinness world book of records he's uh norman wonderow that's wonder dude he's in the world book wonder book of world records and he has that name yes i just think it's the coolest thing ever but he's been there for the coolest name he holds the record he holds the record for longest continuous jump rope and I think it's 32 32 or 36 and a half hours

oh Jesus continuous jump rope now he got to stop I think five minutes an hour to rehydrate and use the restroom because you can't

hydrate while you're jumping rope that's like that's really challenging just spraying water continuously open your mouth so you can imagine

this man he's probably I feel like you can't call it continuous at that point you can call it like really challenging that's why that's why they said they stopped doing records for longevity people start that I guess the reason I bring this man up is because you can imagine I think he's probably in his upper 50s or something like that. I don't know how old he is. But he is a phenomenal jump roper, which means his Achilles tendons and his calves, like everything in his calf is about that long. And him trying to squat is just, it's ridiculous.

So the big thing for him coming to our seminars is working on the mobility. And then he worked on, you keep standing on my cord. Jerk. We're going gonna blame that on him okay yes we are anyway um so we've seen him like six months apart with these two seminars that we did he came to and he was working on his mobility working on his mobility in the second seminar he was significantly better than his first one he's coming to our next one in march and he's gonna just keep working on it and um i mean he'll warm up doing jump rope and i'm like quit doing that you're just shortening everything again you've done it that's pretty impressive pretty impressive so now he's trying to work on his overhead squat and it's kind of a cool thing

to see it's funny once that stuff starts falling in line the strength follows yeah that's what i realize now that what i get the more I do those things first and everything else sort of resolves itself. It's got to be one of the most frustrating things for anyone trying to learn weightlifting is having no ankle range of motion at all.

Yes. Because there's basically no hope for you until you fix that. There's no amount of efforts or trying harder or learning good technique. Yeah.

I mean, you can work on your power snatch and work on your power clean, but you can't do anything. That was like one of the best questions I ever got. One of the guys in our six-month muscle gain group, he submits a video. He said something like, my shoulders just feel weak when I'm in overhead squat position. I was like, oh, okay.

So he submits a video, and I'm looking at it, and I go, oh, okay. So he submits a video and I'm looking at it and I go, oh, you need to work on your ankle mobility. You know, it's ankles, hips, and shoulders. Like, yeah. I was like, man, the best thing you could do is free ankles. He's like, well, is there anything I can do to strengthen my shoulders?

I was like, your shoulders aren't meant to be in that position. We don't want your shoulders to get strong like that. You'll probably just rip them out or something's going to go horribly wrong. Here's a good exercise for anyone listening to this right now. Go find a pair of ski boots, strap them on, and then go try to do weightlifting. So you can feel exactly what it's like to have no ankle mobility. That's actually the positions you're in. That's really what it's like for them.

And you will feel totally fucking ridiculous. Because you can't do it correctly. Do you most what's the most common mobility issue is ankles it's either ankles or shoulders ankles yeah well it's interesting because the whole conversation was it was the hardest part of the whole coaching of this athlete was convincing them that ankles were the priority there was nothing to strengthen. It was a stretching issue. It was a mobility issue. Mike, you don't get it, man. He was looking for confirmation,

not your solution. And it's like the people that come in and they ask about doing the squats and they're like, well, but my knee shouldn't pass my toe, right? And I put my hand right in front of their knee while they're standing there. I said, go ahead and try to do a squat.

And of course, they get even close to parallel. They start to fall over backwards. I'm like, okay, now let your knee come forward and tell me why that's a problem. If you have super short legs, it might work. People start getting leaned forward almost immediately. Where did that come from? Who knows?

I actually know. We'll say. Solve our problems. It was back in the 1960s. A guy named Carl Klein. Some douchebag. Published an article about. Carl.

Yeah. It sounds like your name would be Carl. Nice guy. It was actually the first thing that originated the whole problem of not going all the way down in a squat. He was the one that came up with going to parallel because he said that going all the way down in the squat increases shearing force on the knee, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, he did this study. the way down in the squat increases shearing force on the knee, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway,

he did this study, um, with increases at the joint. It was with skeletons. It wasn't, I mean, live subjects. It wasn't anything with,

you know, that you couldn't see. And he could, I mean, it had the ligaments and stuff, but it didn't have any of the musculature. Nothing was contracting. So he couldn't see how the co-contraction of the hamstrings,

just a limb model. Yes. Just like lower shank, like hip hip and knee and ankle yeah so it didn't he didn't have the co-contraction he didn't see how the hamstring was stabilizing you know against the forces and that's the article that was published you know what 50 something years ago now that's what all magazine articles that's what they're referring to it's just like the research that points to the first thing that came out so it's like the research points to fat has been what makes people have heart disease and high cholesterol like he published those articles to exercise physiology the muscle stem commercial like Kim Kardashian leaves goes I'm exercise

physiology I think you should buy this shit he pulls his abs out and he's got the electrical stimulation things all over well he's a doctor for christ's sakes that's discouraging though because it it seems like it was long enough now that we shouldn't still be paying for those mistakes yeah i do remember hearing it was like one piece of research in the 60s that's why i always heard i was like i was like everybody ignores the fact that anybody who's ever had a kid sees them just squatting all day yeah so naturally the knees is all over those toes it's like just completely natural like smothered like smothered hash browns it's just mechanically right. It just feels right.

When you start doing it, you're like, this is better. My knees don't hurt. You think people will be like, wow, that's bullshit. But no, they say,

well, it's just that one thing. That one thing that makes me disregard all this other evidence. And it's being perpetuated in all your standards. Stop reading the running magazine. Globo gym.

Carl, we're coming for you, man. Anyway. That dude's long gone. Hopefully you're dead by now. He's watching the CrossFit games going

why are these people doing it? They're all gonna blow their knees up. They're all gonna die. They're not dead yet but they will. He probably published

another piece of research a decade later saying the opposite and no one ever pays attention to that. By the way we're joking about Carl.

I hope Carl is only modestly debilitated. He can't get up off the floor if he falls because he's only been squatting to parallel all these years. How do Debilitated Well he can't get up Off the floor If he falls Because he's only been Squatting a parallel

All these years Yeah how do you get up If you can't bend your Yeah Let's wrap this up Zach and Sarah Hey You guys have a seminar

Y'all did with us We did And we filmed it Yes And people We recorded it People in the internet land Can have it

Yeah It's on tape That's right CTP taped that's right VHS tapes of it VHS tapes only available to play it in you know I get through a mail order catalog yeah we did yeah yeah so what bonus yesterday you guys film some bonus footage yes to add to the product that we have at barbell shrugug.com. If you've already bought it, come on your way. More value. That's right.

Everyone that's already purchased that product, we're going to send that out to you probably already before you see this episode, hopefully, if we're on the ball and on top of things. CTP. That's right. If you're interested in that product, it's called Snatch and Clean and Jerk Technique.

Makes sense, right? Yeah. You can buy it at barbellshrug.com. Try not to overthink it. That's right. So you guys have a poster that you want to throw out there too? Yep.

Columbusweightlifting. Columbusweightlifting.org. They're a gym and they put on the Arnold, every year the Arnold weightlifting competition. My favorite competition every year. It's a well-run competition. Me and Chris Moore will be there.

Come say hey. That's right. We're going to miss it this year, me and Mike. But Chris and Chris will be there. Will you guys be there? I'm in veterinary school and I have a hard time getting away from school. From all those dogs.

How many goldfish have you treated? They're so cute. We did learn how to do surgery on koi. Okay, didn't learn how. We saw somebody do surgery on a koi fish that had cancer and the fish died. I laughed way too hard for something that died from cancer. How do you do surgery on a fish?

It was crazy. They had water going through an iron lung through the gills. This fish is outside water. Excuse me, this is a fucking fish. Let this thing die, man. Those are expensive. How much is a surgery on a fish? This fish was $500 fucking dollars.

You're in the hospital giving surgery to a fish with a little marine helmet on. I'm not sure. I don't think it was a hospital. I think it was in their kitchen, like right outside where the pool was. So you got that going for you. I really envision like going into the backyard into the koi pond with scuba gear on and a knife. Oh, trying to do surgery in the pond? Yeah.

I walk in that room like, you people have way too much money on your hands and too much free time. This is a koi fish. Well, even when the doctor was talking about it, she kind of had that like, yeah, these people have a lot of money. Save Jonathan and Michael.

That will limit our ability to do all of it. Anyway, I'll be doing surgery on koi fish, so I don't know if I'll be at the Arnold but Columbus weightlifting do you want to tell them what Columbus weightlifting

is actually doing oh yeah oh yeah so the great people at Columbus weightlifting and the coaches there they put together a poster which is

goes through a thing I did a couple about a year ago which was 300 pound grace so grace you do 30 clean jerks and I did it with 30 a year ago, which was 300 pound grace. So grace, you do 30 clean jerks. And I did with 303 pounds for time for time.

Yeah. And so, but I had on film and the basic, the gist of it is they took pictures for just the clean at key points in the lifts for the first lift, the 10th lift, the 20th lift and the 30th lift. And so, you know, I'm getting exhausted, getting getting tired but it's pointing out how these positions and these important things are the same through every single lift as it gets heavier so and it then it gives um you know technical advice and what look make sure you do this here do this here do this it's gonna be very useful for a crossfitter to focus on yeah when they're going through a while

like keep this cue repeat it yeah every where can they find find that at? Columbus. Columbusweightlifting.org. And a great thing, too, is, you know, I hear people talk about when the weight gets heavier doing a WOD, you know, technique just falls apart. Well, if it's heavy, it should not fall apart. It's not going to help you. Because the right way is actually the most efficient way. So ideally, you'd keep doing the correct movement. Yep.

And then half the proceeds from that goes to just basically support athletes at their gym, going to competitions, weightlifters, high schoolers wanting to compete. And also they have at their gym, like Holly Mangold is there. She's a 2012 Olympian. She's training there. Great crew there. Yeah. And then you guys have another couple seminars coming up too?

Yeah, we have one in January, but that's sold out, I think, March. March 1st is our next one in St. Louis Park. St. Louis Park, Minnesota, which is a suburb of Minneapolis. We do most of our seminars in Minneapolis, St. Paul area. This summer, we might do some in the greater, like Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota. There's some gyms in North Dakota that want us to come out, but I'm thinking I probably don't want to drive there at this time of year.

So we're going to wait. We might not make it. We might not make it. It's supposed to be a high of negative 15 on Sunday in Minneapolis. Balmy. Yeah. I don't know what the hell that feels like.

It stings. It's a little chilly. Don't go outside. So we do these seminars throughout. If you're ever in the Minneapolis area, check out CrossFit Minneapolis. And you can see they'll have links to CrossFit St. Louis Park or CrossFit St. Paul. It's all owned by the same guys. We all work together.

And that's where the seminars are. You can see when they are. And we'd be happy to have you there. They're six hours, one day on a Saturday. Where do you sign up for that? You can go to CrossFitMinneapolis.com. You can go to their website and sign up.

Cool. And do you have any Facebook pages, Instagrams, or Twitters or anything for us to follow? We do have a Facebook page, Critch Olympic Lifting Seminar. What was the next word? Olympic Weightlifting. Olympic Lifting and Squat Seminar. Olympic Lifting Seminar. I've been getting my words mixed up today a lot too. lifting seminar do you know what it is what was the next word olympic weightlifting olympic lifting and squat seminar

olympic lifting seminar I've been getting my words mixed up today a lot too we post updates on that google it go to google thanks for coming out guys

thank you cheers everyone later guys wow sweeping edition of the barbell I thought that was great yeah that was fun

that was really fun well done a little bit of everything in there