Barbell Shrugged - The Next Great American Weightlifter - Harrison Maurus - 295

Episode Date: January 10, 2018

Harrison Maurus is a 17 year old weightlifting prodigy and world champion. Last year, Maurus not only won the 2017 Youth World Championships in Bangkok, Thailand, but also set a new Clean & Jerk Youth World Record of 192kg at the men’s 77kg group! Maurus squatted 200kg at age 13, over 3x bodyweight, and just a month ago, earned a bronze medal in both the men’s 77 kg total and clean & jerk at the 2017 IWF Weightlifting World Championships in Anaheim, CA, securing Team USA’s first men’s weightlifting world medals in 20 years. In this episode, we dive into Maurus’ path in the weightlifting world, his special relationship with his coach Kevin Simons (a CrossFit Games competitor), and his programming and coaching.    

Squatted 100 kilos when he was 11, weighing 40 kilos. 150 kilos when he was 12, and then he squatted 200 kilos when he was 13, weighing 65 kilos. So triple bodyweight squat at 13. So I'm like, alright, I think you might have a future in this sport. Oh yeah, just a little bit. We'll be right back. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson, and we're hanging out here at the World Championships for weightlifting, and we're standing here with Kevin Simmons and his athlete Harrison Morris.

And one of the reasons we're standing here is, Harrison, you broke your own world record. Yeah, I broke clean jerk 193, one kilo over my 192 youth world record that I set in Thailand a couple months ago. Yeah, you're 17 years old, 77 kilos. And you're the first American to podium at Worlds in, what, 20 years now? 20 years, that's right. That's right. Keep hearing, yeah.

I don't know, man. So, and Kevin, you're his coach, and you've been in the CrossFit Games a couple times. Yeah, I competed twice as an individual. Yeah, and you have an interesting background in gymnastics. Yeah. And I just overheard you talking over here to doug and you were saying that you actually didn't you never competed in weightlifting i did i did the american open in 2012 while i was still competing in crossfit that's about it gotcha you never pursued

it but now you're coaching a 17 year old that's podium got podiumed at world championships yep it's a big deal it is a big. So you actually started as his gymnastics coach and then switched and transitioned to his weightlifting coach, which is really unique. I never heard of anyone doing exactly that before. Yeah. I was his gymnastics coach his final year in gym, and he quit gymnastics, but we had a really good relationship.

We wanted to keep working together. So at the time, he didn't know what sport he wanted to do like well let's just get you strong and then you can pick and he got strong so fast and realized weightlifting was going to be his sport yeah we actually did a interim year in powerlifting as well strength and conditioning yeah he did gymnastics it's just kind of general strength conditioning and i didn't feel confident coaching weightlifting at the time but so we did power lifting and he said he smashed all the national records when he was I think it's 11 or 12 yeah squatted squad 100 kilos when he was 11 weighing 40 kilos 150 kilos when he was 12 and then he

squad 200 kilos when he's 13 weighing 65 kilos so triple body weight squad at 13 so like all right I think you might have a future in this sport. Is everyone in your family really strong naturally, or is this unique to you? No, I'm actually the first weightlifter that I know of in my family. So, I mean, my dad played soccer, and he was a diver in the Navy, and my mom was a diver as well. So a lot of not so much strength sports, but definitely other sports they played.

Very physical people, it sounds like sounds like yeah they were very active they both you know like hiking and they were very active and like you know so california uh national parks and all that stuff too so yeah so so tell us what it was like you know leading up to this week coming knowing that you were going to be competing at the world championships like like where were you at mentally where were you where we got physically do you have any injuries like were you were going to be competing at the world championships like like where were you at mentally where are you where are we at physically do you have any injuries like were you were you um were you stressed out about it or were you kind of just chill like what was your whole experience like i always get kind of stressed out it's just managing stress when you travel uh if you if you really freak out it gets your gets your head and you know you're gonna psych yourself out so you can't

really think about it too much um it's a lot of visualization of what you want to see happen. So I did that and just thought about it. It's a weird line between thinking about it too much and not thinking about it enough. It's kind of balanced that. Do you coach that? Do you coach him on how to visualize, or is that something you've always done? We definitely talk about it, and I think that's a big role of mine as his coach is make sure that he's in a good head space.

And we talk about the psychology of competing a lot. But we had – this was his best training cycle ever. I think he felt really confident coming into it. Yeah, I stayed pretty much injury-free the entire time. Yeah, we had – It was the best cycle I've had so far, yeah. This whole cycle was great. I mean, when you're lifting close to 200 kilos in the clean and jerk,

it's going to take a toll on your body. But I feel like this cycle we did a really good job managing his intensity and volume and pushing enough to get some adaptations and then coming back a little bit and then pushing a little more and coming back. And I think every cycle we get, we get a little bit better with the whole thing. Finding a program that actually is perfect. Finally tuned in. Every cycle we get a little bit better with the whole thing. Finding a program that actually is perfect, finely tuned.

Kevin, I heard your programs are very detailed, specific. Yeah, they are. More so than a lot of other coaches. What do you attribute that to? I don't know. I'm kind of a numbers guy. I like reading about programming and all the science that goes into it. I really enjoy all of that. And with an athlete at this level, like the better you get,

the more important it is to manage your intensity and volume because, like I said, lifting those big weights, if I'm not managing it, he's going to get hurt. And he's 17. He has a long career ahead of him. So it's really important that we manage it and keep him healthy. Yeah, longevity over, over you know numbers now so yeah so how far out are you writing the programming do you have like a general template you're following but you're managing it day to day and making adjustments or you write a week at a time like what's your preferred method so we write out

i write out i have a general plan for like a 12-week block, usually like three, four-week blocks inside of that. We make adjustments. It's not like anything's written in stone. I've been working with him long enough. I have a pretty good idea of like where he should be throughout the cycle. But we'll have like often it'll be like an intensity range. So he might be doing between 75% and 85% and he's doing, I don't know, between 5 and 7

sets of triples or something. And based on how it's looking, if he's looking good, I'll bring him up. If he's not looking good, we'll take it down. It's kind of a day-by-day thing. He has a general range, but we take it day-by-day.

If he's looking good, I'll push him a little bit, and if he's not looking good, I'll hold him back a little bit. But I feel like we're pretty conservative compared to a lot of lifters. I think he had one miss on his clean and jerk in the last 12 weeks. It was a real weird miss, too. Yeah, it was a weird, uncharacteristic miss. Yeah, I don't miss cleans so i think and i think only made three or four misses on snatched in the whole 12 weeks and they're all pr attempts um so i think i think five five or so misses the whole 12 weeks so it's pretty good yeah i think that's worth highlighting i mean i think

most people who are picking up barbells and going for a snatch or a clean and jerk, missing is daily. Yeah. You know, like if you walk into the typical CrossFit gym or you walk into a lot of weightlifting gyms, you know, people are missing left and right. Yeah. I mean, I know I missed quite a bit growing up. Yeah. Well, I mean, when I send him out on the platform, it's like I want him to – I mean, if he's going to miss, it's because it was like right at the limit of what he's capable of,

not because he just threw an attempt away. I mean, you only get three lifts in the snatch, and so like you can't afford to have a 60% make-to-miss ratio. You're never going to reach your potential. So I hold him back quite a bit. Yeah, so like in competition, we pick openers that hit you know multiple times for several reps at a time so like i doubled 50 before i opened at 50 and it's just that picking something we know we can open with you know that way you can build up on that and he he builds some momentum get the first one on the board

hit something big and then i'll usually let him go for a pr or what he needs in the competition for his final lift. So do you typically look at the program ahead of time and think like, oh, no, that's not going to work for me today. This is hurting or that's hurting or I'm too tired. Or do you just like go into the gym and you just do it, like following it blindly or somewhere in between? No, Kevin listens to what I have to say. I mean, if I go in and, you know, something's bugging me, there wasn't too much bugging me this time. But if something's, you know, a little bit heavy,

we'll knock the percentages down. I mean, there was one day where I was, like, wrecked by back squats or wrecked by clean jerks and snatches on the same day. Well, when he was, like, when he was 10 days out and he's supposed to be feeling wrecked. But that's about it. Yeah, we changed it up a little bit. I'm always looking.

The first thing, when he walks in the door, I look at his face and see if he's happy and he's smiling. I know we can probably push it that day if he walks in and is just like just kind of dragging. It's like, all right, we'll keep it down to the low end of the percentage range and just get some work in today. Yeah. We're good at taking it day by day. I've been working with a kid since he was 10 years old. I know him pretty well yeah it seems to be a really easy way if you know someone really well

how to judge how much energy they have just just look at them like do they look like they're they have energy they look like they want to take a nap yeah absolutely like some people do like a vertical jump test or something like that like a little more technical analytical like getting actual data but like but if you know something really well it sounds like simple is better yeah well i mean it's like i'm looking at those those basic cues but i mean i've seen i've seen all i don't even know how many reps he's done a thousand tens of thousands of reps it's like i'm i'm pretty good by the time he gets up to about 70 like i know if it's a day where we can push it or if he's that bar speed's too slow then we're just gonna take it easy that one of the ways i can tell if it's gonna be a good day is warming up with the bar just doing strict military presses

if they're moving quick and like popping off the shoulders it's gonna be a good day like actually kind of have to try to press the bar then it's gonna be rough but uh it's a good indicator for me yeah so heading out to to hit your world record attempt like how are you feeling right in there in the moment like were you like oh man i don't know if I'm going to get this, but I think I probably can, or were you like, oh, I'm definitely going to get this? No, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to go out there and hit that. I mean, I had already cleaned jerk 95 in training, and I had cleaned front squat jerk 90,

so I knew I was good for way more than what I needed. We took 93 because it was going to put us ahead of the – oh, there was like four people who hit 92. It was a strategic call. Yeah, on their part it was going to put us ahead of the whole. There was like four people who hit 92. It was a strategic call. Yeah, on their part it was very strategic. But I think we took a small jump from 87 to 93 just to place that in because, like, you know, I wasn't – clean jerks felt great, but my legs weren't doing what I wanted them to do.

Yeah, for some reason he was cramping really hard this week. Super hard, yeah. So we did exactly what we needed to do. But before you went out for the final attempt? Yeah, he got up to like in the back hitting 140, warming up. They started seizing up. So pretty much the entire clean and jerk session. Yeah, we had sports med back there like slapping his legs around

and rubbing everything out. Yeah, we did everything we could. He was cramping real hard. I mean, he was cramping bad after the 187. So it's like, the 93 was strategic. But, I mean, he wanted more.

And I honestly think that he would have made the 198 in his final one. 200. Don't call me two kilos short. He would have been good for 200. 198 would have gotten him the gold on clean and jerk and the silver on total. I would have taken that, yeah.

But his BMO was halfway up his leg and seizing, and it was pretty nasty. Yeah. So that was a little disappointing. But then we found out afterwards. We had to pass in his third attempt. And we found out afterwards he still got bronze on the clean and jerk and bronze on the total. Yeah, somehow it worked out.

Yeah. Dude, that's awesome. Yeah. I had a question, but I actually forgot what it was. I'll pass. Phone a friend. Are you playing any other sports? No, all I do is weightlifting right now.

That's what I dedicate all my time to. Roger, what's your biggest aspirations when it comes to weightlifting? I want to make at least one Olympics. Maybe more. Going for more. Nice. 2020 would be my first. I want to make at least one Olympics. Maybe more. Going for more. Nice. 2020 would be my first. That's what I'm really shooting for.

Podium at 2020. All right. Yeah, let's do that. Nice. Yeah, I mean, I'm really impressed by how you're at 17 years old, the word longevity is coming out of your mouth. That's super rare. I mean, when I was 27, that wasn't coming out of my mouth.

He's a smart kid. I was surprised to hear that when he said it too. Yeah. I mean, good coach, good athlete. I mean, I see people continue into their late 30s and still make major international competitions, and I want to stay in the competition game as long as possible. I want to burn myself out in a couple years, make a big spark, and then just disappear.

I want to keep going. I think the athlete that can stay healthiest the longest is eventually going to have the best chance of success. I see him doing three Olympics and being one of the greatest of all time. So it's like, got to keep the kid healthy. Yeah, for sure. What are your best lifts in training?

Actually, I've hit 56 and 95, so just a little bit heavier than when I hit out on the platform. So at the world champions you hit what and what? 55 and 93. So you hit 56 so one kilo more and then 95 which is two kilos more. Yeah that's where that consistency that's why consistency is so important so that when he goes out there when it matters like i know he's good for that 98 percent do you feel like you're like a gamer of sorts where some people like they don't practice well but they but they compete really well some people the opposite they practice really well but they don't compete well or is it even for you i feel like i can do pretty well in both i feel like i

do well in both i don't get psyched out when i miss lifts i mean there's been times where i've missed openers and came back and went two for three and snatched. And same on clean and jerk. I mean, it's just not what I get to. Yeah, he's a great competitor. I mean, I think we pick smart attempts, too. And he's prepared well, so when he goes in, he should feel confident. Like, he's – competence builds confidence. So, I think we get a little bit better every competition.

We get it figured out, yeah. Yeah. I want to take a break real quick when we come back i want to uh dig into i don't know what what else you got going on in your life at 17 years old thanks for watching the show if you'd like to learn more about how to improve your snatch clean and jerk we have a free 55 page ebook you can get at flightweightlifting.com has sample programming specifically for weightlifting, weightlifting how-to technique videos and other tips on how to improve all of your lifts.

Go to flightweightlifting.com and you can download that ebook for free. Download it now. And we're back with Harrison Morris and Kevin Simmons. And yeah, we want to dig into, well, not only, you know, in the first half we covered the fact that you're crushing the weights, podiuming here at Worlds at the age of 17. What's next for you?

So we were actually just looking at this. We were considering moving up a weight class, which is the first thing. Bumped up to an 85. We've got a good six months before his next big competition the next big one's junior worlds in uzbekistan mayish yeah may so that gives us a nice long training cycle so do you feel like it's hard to make this weight class or do you feel like you have so much more room on your frame to to put on more muscle mass i haven't had a hard time making 77 i weighed 76 42 so i mean he's like he's, he's real on top of his nutrition.

Yeah. And he does a good job staying near his weight class. But as his coach, just looking at how tall he is and looking at his frame, I think he's going to be a monster at 85. It's going to be fun. Get some big squats. Yeah. I want to see my squats and my snatches go up. And that will be.

Yeah. I'm excited for that. Eat as much as you want for a while? We've got to do it carefully. We're going to do it right. We're going to do it right. I don't want him putting on much more than a kilo a month. I think that's about what we can do, about a kilo of good tissue a month.

We're going to go into a good hypertrophy block. Do some leg strength, more leg strength. Speak of squats, squats 300. That would be good. More leg strength. Yeah. Good leg strength. Squat 300. That'd be good. Every time you say squat, you start smiling. I like that.

I love squat. Honestly, my favorite thing. I love squatting, yeah. You'll squat over 300. What's your philosophy with nutrition? So I follow RP, work with RP

through USA Weightlifting. I'm not exactly sure how the whole sponsorship thing works, but I've been connected with RP through USA Weightlifting. So Trif exactly sure how the whole sponsorship thing works, but I've been connected with RP through USA Weightlifting. Trifecta sends him all of his meals. Nice. Like, already.

Like, they're awesome. So he gets all of his meals already cooked, sent right to his door, makes the job easy for his mom. Yeah. Especially. Good thing she's a good cook. It's nice. It's nice and easy.

Yeah. That's a killer deal, having all your meals made for you every day. And when he doesn't eat, like when his mom makes him something, then he sends it over my way, so that's nice for me too. He benefits from it too, yeah. So you said a hypertrophy block. What does that look like? I mean, I know different coaches program that differently.

You know, a lot of times it might be between six and ten reps for a lot of things and just a lot more volume. Yeah, i don't think we'll be going up to like tens he'll probably be he'll be doing work in the six like around sixes which for a weightlifter is weightlifter that's i mean that's a lot he's used to i mean maybe 12 weeks out fours and fives on squats and triples on the lifts but now we have so much time we'll probably be doing maybe some eights, mostly sixes, with some things just to keep a little more time under tension.

So maybe a little bit of tempo work, some pause work, and just a lot of sets, just a lot of volume. Awesome. What do you have to do to qualify for the Olympics? They're figuring out the qualification procedures now. Because they're restructuring weight classes, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, really? There's rumors the weight classes might be changing.

We don't even know. We should know after this week, actually. Yeah. Because in the past, it was like you had to earn points as a team. So if your teammates didn't do well, then you might not get as many spots for the Olympics. It sounds like they're thinking about changing that and making it more on an individual basis, which would be great for him.

Like, I really hope that they do that. Right. It sounds like the best way to do it. I think so. Competing as an individual. What does that have to do with the rest of your team? Yeah, right. I mean, it's like you could have the best weightlifter in the world,

but if they're living in a country that doesn't have anybody else and they don't earn any points, the best lifter might not go, which seems crazy to me. Yeah. So I think that that would be a really good change. I hope they do that. I know they changed weight classes a long time ago, and one of the reasons was so many people failed drug tests

after setting a lot of records right I mean like we're just looking at the best like all the best Sinclair's through history and I think you had to go 20 places down to find one that wasn't from the 1980s what does that tell you yeah yeah so do you think that's the why they're doing it this time around because I mean we had a ton of people basically failed the test a couple years ago. Well, and last year too, right? That might be a reason. I think that's a contributing factor, yeah.

Yeah, that might be it. They're also trying to add a women's weight class, or they have the new 90 class. That was different, right? I'm honestly not 100% sure. I think the rumor is that there's going to be potentially 10 weight classes for the world championships and seven for the Olympics. They're figuring all that out right now.

I think the IOC is meeting today, actually. So we're going to find out what's happening for the future of our sport in the next couple days. Do you have any more time to set any more youth world records before you turn 18? Nope. No, unfortunately. This is the last one?

No American Open. This is the last one. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I guess I'm done. So you can't do the American Open? No. Two days after you competed over here, so this is this weekend.

After he set the world record in Thailand, I mean, it was a really hard peak. He gets two big meets a year where I really push him and beat him up a little bit. And we peak real hard. But I think it was a month before he could hit 80%. I'll be right back. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I mean, I've given him the whole week off, and we're going back to some real lightweights and building up again. Because when you're lifting that heavy weight, like you can't do that many big meets in a year. He gets two big meets and two other meets that are kind of just not as hard of a peak, I guess.

What's that recovery look like? How long does it last? I mean, you're saying you couldn't hit 80% for a while. Yeah, well, I'm not going to ask him to either. So, basically we do something like four 12 week blocks in a year.

So that gives us four weeks that are throughout the year. We've got 52 weeks in the year, right? So you've got four weeks that are pretty much off. So he's taking the whole rest of this week off, just recovering. He'll be moving the bar around a little bit. I'll probably start moving again Friday. Do a little bit of body work and but um but pretty easy and then we're going back to

i mean for the hypertrophy probably like 65 for most of his strength lifts and 70 to 75 for his for his olympic lifts take it easy and just kind of build him back up so is it straight back to just squats and cleans and snatches but at those higher rep ranges or do you do a little bit extra of the more supplemental stuff like like lunges and pull-ups and more assistance work like more foundational he already does probably a lot more gpp work than than most people i mean he's especially like farther out from a competition he does uh farmers carriesmer's carries, yoke walks. Yeah, he does like a lot of strongman type work. We took that out a month before – about a month before we started.

You feel like you see a lot of benefit with the strongman work? Oh, yeah. I mean, my jerk stability is, you know, it's really good. I mean, if you overhead walk 200 kilos, you're not going to have a problem, you know, getting a jerk overhead. He did 200 kilos for 100 feet. Overhead yoke walk? Overhead yoke, yeah.

Oh, wow. We do real heavy suitcase deadlifts, suitcase carry plus holds, rope pulls, a lot of sled work. He does a lot more variation than I think most people that come from a weightlifting background would put in. So my background is CrossFit, so I take a lot of the stuff that I think benefits me and put it in his program. I just make sure it's not too much that's going to detract from his real training. Like that yoke walk one time? Gave myself shin splints for about a week and a half?

Yeah, so while I'm out coaching the American Open Series and I get to see his Instagram video of him yoke-walking 900 pounds or something. It was something stupid. I wasn't real happy. 805, I think it was, 805. Your tibias were bending under the load. Well, it's because he had yoke-walked 800. So he had to do 805.

I did 805 and beat him. Of course, of course. It only makes sense. It's probably a good feeling, though, like having an athlete that comes out and can outperform you. As a coach, anytime an athlete does better, whenever I was coaching, anytime an athlete did better than me, I was always happy for that person.

I did a good job. Absolutely. But, I mean, he passed me when I think he was 14. I was competing at the games, and I was at the games, and I think it was that weekend he out-snatched me. Oh, yeah. It's still fun. We still train together occasionally. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Andy. It's still fun. We still train together occasionally.

Yeah, so, like, yeah, we can train together. Like, on Wednesday before he competed, just limit him to 75%, and we could lift together. It's great. It's fun. It's fun. It's a light day. You can jump in.

Yeah. Yeah, we went set for set. It was nice. I like sharing bars. It allows me to rest longer. I get to, like, help him, so it's me to rest longer. I gotta get to like help him. So it's cool. So Harrison, are you going to school? What's the, are you, are you senior this year? Yeah. So I'm a senior in high school still. Yeah. Um, yeah, I had to take two weeks off for this,

uh, world's in AO. So I got a bit of a bit of work to do when I get back. Yeah. Coach is constantly trying to recruit you to like, to wrestle or play football or like to try and try to pull you away from weightlifting and use you for their bidding? Initially they were, but then they kind of just didn't try it again because they got their people and nobody really knows what I do. He's a world champion. He's not going to be doing – I don't think he has any interest in competing in high school sports or anything. I don't want to get hit.

It's probably a good idea. Yeah, yeah. All right. If anyone wants to find you on Instagram, do you have any sponsors you want to mention before we go? Yeah, so I'd like to thank Oliko, Earth Fed Muscle, and Mark Pro. I mean, those guys really helped me out, getting me to Worlds, training on the best bars, taking the best protein, and recovering well. I mean, those guys really helped me out, getting me to Worlds, training on the best bars, taking the best protein, and recovering well.

I mean, that's all you can do. You can find me on Instagram at Harrison Morris, Harrison underscore Morris. That's about it. Pretty simple. What about you, Kevin? I'm pretty terrible about posting on social media, but our gym's Instagram is Team Alpha SC, as in strength and conditioning. So you can go on there, and I'll try to be better about posting some stuff.

From now on, you got to. I got some great athletes coming up, especially a bunch of youth athletes I'm really excited about. So I'll be posting that on there. Got a nine-year-old that's going to go play some awesome nine. A couple people, actually. I got a bunch of kids I think will be making some youth teams. I see the Olympics and a couple of their futures.

You know, I trained him when he was 10. I got a 9-year-old right now who I honestly think is probably just as athletically gifted as he is. I got a couple I'm super excited about. I got one this weekend, too. Yeah, 13-year-olds. And a bunch of senior athletes. Like, everybody's doing great.

So I'm, I'm really happy with, with life right now. Everything's good. Yeah. Nice. Look forward to seeing those athletes come up. Yep.

Yeah. Cool. Thanks guys. For those of you at home, make sure to go subscribe on YouTube, subscribe on iTunes, and we'll see you next week. Thanks guys.

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