Barbell Shrugged - The Keys to Becoming a Successful Weightlifter Part 1 of 3

Episode Date: February 5, 2015

Hey everybody, Mike Bledsoe here. If you haven't already checked out our free ebook on improving your snatch, clean and jerk, you can grab a copy over at barbellshrug.com by clicking the icon for it on the right side of the page. What you're about to listen to isn't an episode of the show. It's audio from a three-part conversation we filmed a couple weeks ago in preparation for our new online weightlifting program, FLIGHT. This is part one of three and we talk about the keys to becoming a successful weightlifter. Registration for our online weightlifting program, Flight, is now open

and will be until February 10th. For all the details and to grab your spot, visit flightweightlifting.com. Go check it out now because we're giving away discounts and bonuses the earlier you sign up. What's up ladies and gentlemen, I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson. You might recognize us from the Barbell Shrug podcast. We're standing here with our head weightlifting coach, Alex Macklin. We're going to be talking about the ways to being a successful weightlifter, the journey that you must go through. We brought Alex in because he has a very typical journey.

We got to watch him over how long ago did you start weightlifting? Like four years ago. Four years ago, four or five years ago. He started training, what, five years ago, something like that. He started in a CrossFit gym, discovered weightlifting, and then we got to watch his progression over time. Doug and I aren't as lucky. We actually were introduced to weightlifting in a very good way,

so we don't know what it's like to have the struggle of the shiny object syndrome as much. But we brought Alex in because we think that you're going to see kind of like his journey, and you're going to go, oh, so you're going to know, like kind of learn from his lessons. So you can kind of skip ahead. He got to skip a little bit ahead of a lot of people, but he still had a lot of struggles along the way. And hopefully you can learn from his story a little bit. But first, Alex, why did you start weightlifting? How'd you get into that? Well, actually I didn't start weightlifting first. I started off doing CrossFit because I was overweight and out of shape and I wanted to lose some fat, get a little lean and get healthy. So I started doing CrossFit, lost that weight. But, you know, I wanted to also, I quickly realized that I needed to get better at

weightlifting too to be successful at CrossFit. So I got really into weightlifting. And then, you know, I started to get a lot muscular more muscular and all that kind of stuff and i there were some side benefits as well like you know my girls wanted to grab my butt a lot more i got a lot more confident you know i got to happen more muscular and stronger and i mean you said all that like it was just like well i want to get in shape and so i lost like 30 pounds and i got way stronger and girls started to love me like it was that easy. Yeah. It's not that easy. It's not that easy.

It was a fight. You've been doing this for years now. You had to like grind through some shit. There was a lot of struggle. You got smaller and now you're trying to get, you know, put on muscle so you get stronger. Yeah. But you now, you've been working with our home gym at Faction Strength and Conditioning for a long time in weightlifting.

And you also handle all of our weightlifting programs with Barbell Shrug. You know, we have our training programs, and you're working with those people. And a lot of the people are very new to weightlifting. What are, like, some of the typical problems people have and why they're not very good at snatch and clean and jerk specifically? Well, a lot of people, you know, they're worried about, you know, do I have enough technique? Do I have enough strength or mobility?

They're also really lost in terms of, you know, what kind of program or what programs do I need to start with? You know, how will they do that? Have they found the time to do those programs? And, you know, a big thing, especially with crossfit, is they're worried about losing their conditioning if they just do a weightlifting-specific program. So there's a lot of resistance there.

Yeah, that's a really common fear. It seems intuitive that if you stop doing Metcons and you just do weightlifting and you kind of take that break from your conditioning, that you would lose all your conditioning. But most people find that they go do weightlifting for a while and then they come back stronger with better technique you're stronger number one you have better technique which means the movements are easier to do which

means you spend less energy on them and then you come back and your metcon times usually improve rather than then get worse i think a lot of people end up finding they like weightlifting a lot and then they kind of have this conditioning thing on a pedestal for maybe some reason that's, you know, they think that has to do with physique. And we all know that physique and conditioning really don't go hand in hand that much. A lot of people I know that have the best physiques typically have the most muscle mass, do mostly strength training, and then kind of condition on the side in a way. Yeah. So some of the things that you can start doing right away to be a better weightlifter we talked about is like you know designating some time you know picking a program

for novices uh or you know novices new people um start working finding those mobility restrictions and shoring those up so these are some things that like you can start identifying what's keeping you from being a better weightlifter and start identifying you know and pick it apart i mean you just mentioned a bunch of things like finding the right program yeah mobility technique i mean there's a lot of things that go into being a good weightlifter and i can see why it gets very confusing for people yeah everyone seems to make the same progression where they they have about a year of of training at a crossfit gym and doing mostly mat cons, and then they realize, I'm not making any more progress, and then they start to take on weightlifting and powerlifting and gymnastics,

and they start segmenting out the thing they need to work on the most. And for most people, since weightlifting is the most complicated part and the part that's kind of the hardest thing to learn within CrossFit, most people split off and do a weightlifting-specific program, or they start just focusing on the lifts more. They do weightlifting warm-ups, or they just do more technique work specifically for weightlifting because they realize that's the thing holding them back or they just fall in love with you know snatching cleaning jerk that's how it is for i think probably all of us yeah yeah well it's the

most fun part across it in my opinion too like it's the part that people tend to get addicted to because they they just think it's fun to do yeah right so alex can you tell us a little bit how you got started take us through that journey because we want to talk about this because you you at home can learn from alex's mistakes and kind of skip through this whole uh process uh you know so can you tell us about how you got started and how that journey went for you yeah so like i said at the beginning um you know, I was overweight, you know, post-grad, partied a lot, didn't really take care of myself, ate like crap, you know, really pushing 200 pounds at, you know, 5'7 frame, not a good 200 pounds. And, you know, knew I was kind of on that downward trend on health, but really not really sure, you know, what to do. Ironically,

I met, you know, Doug at a bar one night and showed up and he convinced me to come to CrossFit Memphis. And so I showed up the next day, you know, with that exercise bar one night and showed up and he convinced me to come to CrossFit Memphis. And so I showed up the next day, you know, with that exercise of CrossFit and diet, you know, I lost the weight, but, you know, I quickly realized that I didn't have the strength and I was really inexperienced with the lifts. And, you know, cause I remember not being able to snatch like 95 pounds at, you know, 165 pounds, you know, after, you know, so I'm a very competitive type person, you know, like being at the top. I mean, you don't, you want to be one of the better people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I didn't want to be the chump, you know? So, you know, I realized that the snatches and the cleans and the jerks and things like that really was the hindrance there.

So I knew I needed to, you know, take some time and focus on that. So I look, you know, I was looking at you guys and other high level CrossFitters and, and I knew I needed to, you know, take some time and focus on that. So, you know, I was looking at you guys and other high-level CrossFitters, and I knew I needed to get a lot stronger, at least two things. I needed to get a lot stronger, and I needed to improve my technique for snatch, clean, and jerk. You know, the stuff in the CrossFit classes I was doing just, you know, it wasn't really getting me towards that goal. You know, the workouts were random. You know, I wasn't seeing much gains in terms of strength.

You know, there wasn't enough time in that hour period to really work on the lifts. And, you know, also doing the lifts in the Metcons, you know, we had great coaches. But, you know, there's only so much you can do. And you're trying to do high volume, high rep, you know, Olympic lifts for time. You're not going to do the movement correctly, you know. Yeah, each time you do a snatch or a clean and jerk you're practicing right you can either be getting better at the movement or worse at the movement right right even if you're doing a metcon take the time and do it right every time but when you're running against the clock and the guy next to you screw that and

really the only time i actually practiced weight lifting was going heavy so like near max effort lift so that just was not conducive to getting better at technique at all it's like it's like i'm either gonna do 75 of them as fast as possible or i'm gonna max out for my one exactly i can't figure out why i can't get good at weightlifting so i quickly realized that i need to stop getting doing in metcons and maxing out every day and really really take some time off and focus on weightlifting specifically. So I remember Mike proposed he did a class, like an eight-week weightlifting class. I was like, I am tired of these people not weightlifting the way I'm telling them to.

Yeah. Got to do a class. It only focused on technique, but it was eight weeks, and we didn't do any kind of heavy Olympic lifts at all. Lots of positional work, and that's where it all started, that class. You know, some of the things I started to do as a result of that class was, you know, I still did wads, but I would only do them like two or three times a week.

But, you know, I also worked on getting my strength, you know, my squats up, you know, so I did a dedicated squat program. But, you know, I completely stopped doing Olympic lifts in the Metcons, you know, cause I, I, I wanted to make sure that the stuff I was learning in your class wasn't, you know, losing it, you know, later on try to unlearn what I had learned, you know? Um, so, uh, after that class, I went back to the regular classes, but I still try to practice weightlifting and also try to improve my strength, you know, doing that like two or three times a week um I stopped doing the high volume snatches and cleans completely and jerks and wads for time and just focused on doing them correctly

um you know and as a result of that uh within a few months of consistently practicing my snatch went from like 105 pounds or something like that to like 190 pounds, which is huge. Yeah, I think it was only like, like maybe four or five months, which is small frame of time and weightlifting terms. You know, my, my raw strength got better. My squat numbers improved, my strict press, deadlift, all that went up, started to get more muscular looking, my physique improved. I actually got better at the Metcon. So, like, you know, in the occasional time where I did do a Metcon, you know, like a Fran or whatever, I got faster and better at them because I was stronger and I was able to move the barbell better and with better technique.

Weird, those 95-pound thrusters got lighter when you got stronger. Yeah, and that just boosted everything. Like, my overall confidence in training and the sport of weightlifting just improved just overall. After a while, you know, I started to, you know, see more results with my weightlifting. But, you know, I knew it was only an eight-week course. I was only practicing for a few months. I knew my technique, you know, wasn't totally that great. But I still, I made the second biggest mistake, you know, that you can probably make in the sport of weightlifting is I wasn't following a program so I basically was doing whatever I felt like doing

for that day you know maybe cherry picking and choosing things I saw online you're like oh what I heard there's this website yeah yeah let's do that let's do that today that one's awesome I wasn't working on anything specific to improving my technique anytime you're cherry picking you're most likely picking things you're already kind of good at and you're neglecting the things that you really need to work on. Absolutely,

which is basically what happened as a result of that. The other thing too is people try to pick the thing that looks the hardest. Right, exactly.

Which is maxing out your snatch one day and then you're blowing out your back because that's exactly what happened to me. Oh yeah? So I was trying to

max out my snatch one day and I completely, I mean you were there, I completely blew my i was trying to max out my snatch one day and i completely i mean you were there i completely blew my back out um you know snatch trying to snatch 80 kilos with subpar form like something very you know what should have been a lightweight but uh yeah blew my back out so uh as a result of that i wasn't able to lift at all or really train for about three months and i remember just being so bummed and it sucked because I would go in the gym I do remember you making so much progress and I'm like you're like this is like my disc yeah yeah yeah it sucked because I come in the gym I see everybody getting to do the stuff that I love doing and I couldn't do it and I hated it and I just felt awful and um you know I

I took that time and I knew it was the technique I knew because I looked at old videos of myself and I was like, I'm pulling this off the ground. I feel like everybody knows it's the technique, but they have like, they're just, what's it, denial. What's that word again? Denial. I remember Doug telling me specifically, like, it's not a matter of if, it's when you're going to hurt your back

by doing it this way. And I continued to do it and it happened. So from that point on, I was like, I'm not lifting with crappy technique. Again, like, you have to have, like, the most excellent technique if you're going to be good at the sport and do it safely. So I spent that time when I was injured to just, you know, read up on everything I could. I read Greg Everett's book, Olympic Weightlifting, like, cover to cover.

You know, I scoured the internet for all things about weightlifting techniques, studied bar path videos on YouTube and, you know. And you're also a guy who like, that's, that's the kind of person you are. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to find something, you're going to rip it apart every which way. And that's actually why you end up being our weightlifting coach is because you have the eye, you can pick things apart. Like that's a natural ability.

And then you also have like the personality of someone who's like gonna find out every single thing like you're like do you have any weightlifting books here you go yeah you probably like read it more than i did yeah you're super detail oriented every little nuance of the lifts like yeah you'll learn each and every specific thing that way any mistakes someone's making you can spot it and fucking tell them exactly what to do and that's what i was trying to do so when i came back to weightlifting you know i remember you were saying that getting hurt was actually the best thing that ever happened to me i didn't tell you that yeah so i i made that up yeah the things i stopped doing i stopped i stopped maxing out you know my snatch and clean and jerk you know all the time and and never working on technique i started

following a program that would help develop my strength as well as improve my technique. And I basically stopped training without any kind of direction or input. I started working more with you and getting you to program for me and listening to you, even though you didn't think I was listening. I was listening. I never think anybody's listening to me. And then one day they're successful and they go,

I was listening to you. I was like, what did I say? You're my coach, right? So I should listen to you, right? So because of that, I started to get more successful in weightlifting. I qualified for University Nationals after coming back from that injury. I've been competing there like three years now. So the more I got into weightlifting and the more information I took in,

you know, I really wanted to help more people, people, you know, not make the same mistakes that I did. So, you know, I started, I started trying to teach people at Faction and coach people at Faction, help them with their weightlifting technique. You know, we started a weightlifting one-on-one course at Faction, which did very well. And, you know know that grabbed y'all's attention as well like seeing me coach other people and you know and the rest is really history i that's that's why i'm here today with barbell shrug yeah would you say you're a better weightlifter or a better weightlifting coach i think i'm probably a better coach for sure but you know like coaching people has made me a better has helped me you know be a better weightlifter but yeah um you know, like coaching people has made me a better, has helped me, you know, be a better weightlifter.

But, you know, that, I don't know, that's kind of weird. I think like the best coaches are the people that had to struggle the most. You know, they had mobility restrictions or they weren't naturally gifted, but they struggled and toiled and they got better anyway. The person who like, you know, the first time they ever picked up a bar, they snatched 225 or something, that's not the person to fucking follow. You want to follow the guy who like he had bad hips and his ankles weren't very mobile and he had to fix everything and he had to go through like the hardest thing.

And you're like one of those guys, like you still have to work on mobility. You know, your ankles are still like a challenge to you. And I think that like that makes – that's one of those other things not only do you like dissect everything but you also like are are the struggle for you is real like it's not it's not like it's not like you were weightlifting since you were eight and that's why you're that's why you're good at it and that's why you love it and that's why this and that no it's you didn't start until you're like 20 something and then you had all these problems and you had to you had to go through every step of what anyone else might have to go through so you're gonna better understand any athlete better than someone

who was weightlifting since they were 12 years old in my opinion yeah yeah yeah for a guy like you like you came in with with actually not that great of mobility at all and actually initially i was like he loves weightlifting but i don't know man like his mobility just isn't there i wonder if he's going to stick with it because that's like that's a thing that can really demotivate somebody if if it's that hard just to do the movements with no weight you know because their mobility isn't there that makes people want to quit and you didn't quit at all and your mobility is actually pretty good now yeah so what just kept grinding out what can people learn from your story? Like the quick bullet point summary of like, what are they learning from you?

Like what would you tell people like they need to focus on? I would say you definitely have to dedicate the time and effort and really, if you're really serious about getting into weightlifting and learning how to be a weightlifter, you've got to put the time in. You've got to put the effort.

You've got to study. You've got to practice. And you've really got to try to learn the movements correctly and not spend a whole lot of time, you know, just going heavy all the time and not working and cherry picking and not working on things that you know, you know, these things, you know, you're supposed to be working on things like mobility, if you're having issues with that, or, you know, so you need to, you need to focus on a weightlifting specific program that has an emphasis on technique and mobility and strength development. And even if it's just, you know, two or three days, but you need to get that consistent practice in there to be successful.

And you might have to do that for like six months to two or three years depending on how much work you need to put in. Absolutely. It's not going to happen like I'm going to dedicate the next three weeks to weightlifting. Yeah. That's not it at all. It takes a lifetime I mean really to learn don't tell people that

well I mean you're not going to get good at it in a month you know right it's going to take some time it's going to take like I said

six months to two years seems to be where most people fall it doesn't mean you don't met con at all or work on anything else but you're going to have to focus on weightlifting

for a good block of time and then you can kind of transition back after you really get good at it. Absolutely. And actually last thing before we wrap up, uh, this is video one of a, of a three part series. We're going to come back in a few days and we're going to tell you about the three reasons you're probably struggling with the snatches, cleans and jerks. Uh, so to close out this video, if you haven't downloaded the, the flight online kind of ebook training program guide program guide that CTP and Alex and Mike put together totally without my help

by the way and it's awesome that's probably why it's so good definitely go download that guide it's like 50 or 60 pages or something like that of fucking solid awesome content so if you don't have that yet click the link on this page to download that guide and come back in a few days for video number two.