Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1240: The Muscle Building & Fat Burning Effects of Oly Lifting With Sonny Webster

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the challenges and benefits of Olympic Lifting with Olympian Sonny Webster. What is Olympic Lifting? (3:30) The difference between power and strength. (5:10) Does getting stronger contribute to more power? (6:08) The prerequisites REQUIRED if you want to start Olympic lifting. (7:08) Are Olympic weightlifting shoes recommended? (8:56) Where does it rank in terms of complexity and skill required? (10:33) How does he define mobility? (14:40) Olympic Weightlifting for Beginners 101. Understanding the process, the think box vs the play box & MORE. (16:04) What role does fatigue play into this modality? (20:30) Teaching Olympic Weightlifting in the CrossFit market. (22:40) Breaking down the triple extension. (29:00) The process of the catch position. (31:20) What are the most common athletes that come to him? (32:29) The best complimentary exercises for Olympic Weightlifting? (34:25) What paradigm-shattering moments has he experienced in his career? (37:00) Where did he get his mobility from and how does he keep it up? (39:30) How often does he chase PR’s? (40:40) Selling Olympic Weightlifting to the masses: What can they expect to gain? (41:45) The importance of getting the RIGHT muscles to work. (44:40) What are the most common injuries? (46:04) For the average person, what element of Olympic Weightlifting would he recommend they start with? (47:21) Should I mobilize or practice movements before or after my workout? (49:08) Is there a technique to brace the core when doing Olympic Weightlifting? (52:00) Weightlifting can be assessable for EVERYONE! (55:33) Practice the skill and master the movement. (57:52)   Related Links/Products Mentioned March Promotion: MAPS Powerlift ½ off! **Code “POWER50” at checkout** Stop Working Out And Start Practicing – Mind Pump Blog What the hell is the Triple Extension – Sonny Webster Do you struggle with the stability in the catch position? - Sonny Webster Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned  Sonny Webster (@sonnywebstergb)  Instagram Website Mathew Fraser (@mathewfras)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we talk all about Olympic lifting and its value for the average lifter. Olympic lifting, as you may know, is one of the more complex ways of lifting weights. And oftentimes people avoid it completely because of its complexity, but they are missing out on some incredible benefits that are unique to Olympic lifting. Now, in this episode, we had somebody who's an expert in Olympic lifting sit in and answer a lot of our questions and talk about Olympic lifting and specifically, sunny Webster.

He's a, he placed actually 14th at the 2016 Summer Olympics. He's a British Olympian weightlifter, very, very smart dude. So we talk about the muscle building and fat burning effects of Olympic lifting. Talk about what it is, how to do it properly, how to set yourself up and get yourself to the point

where you can use these lifts to get great results. Now you can find Sunny Webster on Instagram at Sunny Webster GB. So that's at S-O-N-N-Y-W-E-B-S-T-E-R-G-B. He also has a great website with his own Olympic lifting programs. You got to go check those out. That's sunny webster.com, s-o-n-n-y-w-e-b-s-t-e-r.com. Now before the episode starts, I want to let everybody know that, of course, it's a new month, which means we have a new promotion,

Maps Power Lift. 50% off. I know a lot of you are going to be excited about this. This program is very, very popular. It is a Power Lifting Maps program. So if you've been thinking about competing in Power Lifting, or you want to reap the benefits of Power Lifting, or if you just want to maximize your bench press, your deadlift, and your squat, this program is exceptional.

Again, it's half off. Here's how you get that 50% off discount. Go to maps, powerlift.com, that's MAPS, P-O-W-E-R-L-I-F-T, dotcom, and use the code power50. That's P-O-W-E-R, 50, no space for the discount. I'm trying to remember when you first linked up with you. Should I think I found you? 2018. It was a while ago, yeah.

Yeah, I was a Sunday. I don't even remember. Do you remember what it was? I don't know. I saw, I don't know if I saw a video or something you were talking about. And I just liked the content that you were putting out. And I think at that time, I was looking for somebody in the Olympic lifting space that I thought was putting out really good information.

And I began following you after that. And then since then, we've kind of bouncing back and forth, trying to get you on the show. So excited dude, excited to have you here. Thank you. You came a long way man.

Yeah. Oh, I've been pinballing the world at the moment. Yeah. Yeah, Denver, I saw your stop in Denver. Look, fucking bro, did you see this video? No. Oh, yeah, it looked nasty there.

I've just been in Bamp, and I was like, right, this place is cold, and then got off at Denver. I was like, whoa, next level. They made us walk off the plane. I was like, I'm gonna freeze before I get to the room. They were like spraying, they probably spraying the plane with hot water, or what are we at that? Yeah, it's cool.

Yeah. Yeah, well, you can stand as they now that's cool. Yeah, really. Yeah. I don't know, you can say that now. That's you're cold out here. Beautiful. Yeah, so we wanted to talk to you about Olympic lifting as it relates to the average fitness kind of health, health and fitness consumer. Now we've been in fitness for a long time and Olympic lifting, nobody did it outside of actual Olympic lifters.

Then CrossFit came along and popularized some of the lifts. As a being a trainer, I understood the value of Olympic lifts. I also understand the complexity of Olympic lifting. One thing that always stood out to me was, if you took like a power lifter and a body builder and Olympic lifter and you had them perform athletic endeavors. The Olympic lifters always seem to be just phenomenally athletic. It just has a very functional type of strength and ability. And so I think there's a lot of value for that kind of training, but I think you also, and correct me if I'm wrong, need to approach

it with a high level of caution and make sure that you do things properly. For the people who may not be quite aware, what exactly is Olympic lifting? What does it consist of? What does it look like? What makes it different? Yeah, so Olympic weightlifting is made up of the two competitive movements, which are the snatch in the clean and jerk.

And then, as you've mentioned, I think through, there's various different exercises and stuff that we'll use in terms of the train to develop our ability in a limp at weight lifting. But then there's much simpler movements like the power snatches and the power cleanser, which you'll see more commonly used in any sports that are looking to improve power output or in CrossFit and more simplified movement of the snatch in the clean and jerk and using a complete foot format too. Okay. Now, you said power. What's the difference between power and strength? I'm sure we have listeners right now who hear the two and think of them as being interchangeable and it

doesn't help that power lifting is called power lifting. Even though they're showing strength and power. What is the difference between power and strength? And how do they work with each other? Yeah, so for me, it's like, exactly like you said with powerlifting, powerlifting should be called strengthlifting, and Olympic lifting should be the one that's referred to as the powerful movement, because obviously we're producing

the speed element of Olympic weightlifting that makes it have had a lot more powerful than powerlifting. So for me with the exercises that you'll have in a limpit weight lifting, they do say that it's one of the fastest movements in sport in terms of the snatch and how quickly it's executed. So that's the powerful element of the Olympic list. So strength would be, I'm lifting something heavy.

Power would be, I can lift something quickly. Yeah, explosively. Yeah. Now, how would the average person, how do you think the average person would benefit from that? Why would somebody even want to develop any level of power? Or, you know, let's take a step back. Does getting stronger automatically contribute to more power?

No, not necessarily because this is the thing when you say you start comparing bodybuilders or power lifters against Olympic weight lifters, you can be extremely strong and have an incredible back squat or front squat or deadlift and that not carry over into the Olympic movements. And I think one of the biggest reasons why that doesn't necessarily happen is because of the flexibility and mobility required in the Olympic lifts as well, which is why, you know, you can put me up against say, you know, bass, for example, Sebastian and look at the numbers he's moving, but we've tried many times to get him to do the Olympic movements and he can't get it going anyway. And this because we've got need to produce a lot more force

of a short distance of time. So that being said, what are some of the prerequisites that you look for or you tell someone? Someone walks in the street and they're like, okay, this sounds great. Olympic lifting sounds like something I should be doing or should consider. What are some of the things that you're telling them they need to do first or what are you looking at as a coach? Yeah. So the first thing for me before when someone's getting into Olympic weightlifting, I'm looking at how they can move. So I'll do with any of my guys that I'm coaching or even online, they have to complete a fundamental movement package if you like first before I even think about sticking a bar in their hands. And this is one of the biggest things with Olympic weightlifting,

people get in and they go straight to pick up the bar and go right, let's learn how to Olympic lift. Whereas they miss that huge and most important bit, like I've mentioned about moving well first before even thinking about touching a barbell. So sometimes I can spend up to two, three weeks with an athlete or with someone that's come in the drawing on. On to Olympic weightlifting, Sunny teach me, just trying to get them to be aware of their body and getting all the positions that we need to be in when we're an Olympic weightlifting for it to be most efficient.

And only then do I just go and stick a bar in the hand and start teaching them how to do an overhead squat, for example. Now what are some of the movements that you'll look at and have them do? Are you doing, having them do like a squat assessment or you have them do, looking at risk mobility? What are the things that you look at? Yes, so one of the key things is obviously overhead mobility

and upper thoracic mobility. So that's bringing hands up and behind the headline. That'll be a huge thing that we'd look at. And then obviously squat mobility to be most efficient in the Olympic lifts. You need to be able to sit as deep as possible in a strong and upright position. So those would be my key areas. And then in terms of specific areas that need to be able to sit as deep as possible in a strong and upright position. So those would be my key areas.

And then in terms of specific areas that need to have the mobility, it's gonna be ankles, hips, upper thoracic and shoulders. What do you see most of the issues when someone comes in and wants to work with you? Where do you typically say, okay, this is a common one, I need to work on. Is it the thoracic?

Theracic's one, but that generally comes to it. You can have people that come in from a sporting background that have done, you know, the bench press, etc. and they're very tight in the upper back there, and that will restrict them. But I'd say more commonly, hips, you know, for not many people, though, like in a sport-specific background, like CrossFit, weightlifting, you will see people doing full-range squats, but the general public out there will not know what a false quad looks like. Same thing we see when you will see people doing full-range squats, but the general public out there will not know what a full squat looks like.

Same thing we see when we were training people in gym. You think that because also you're allowed to wear like lifted shoes, right? So kind of like supports that. If you have not the most ideal ankle mobility, you can kind of get away with a little bit more that way. Yeah, well for sure, when that's one of the most popular questions that people ask is like, is it worth getting

Olympic weightlifting shoes when you start out? And for me, weightlifting shoes are far more important if you're a beginner than they are for an expert because they do give you that level of stability. And with the raised heel, obviously means that that ankle doesn't have to be as mobile as it would do in flat shoes. So I'll always recommend it for people, but with it always being new shoes,

people always go for that quick fix. They're like, okay, I'm going to get the latest lifting shoes, and I'm all of a sudden going to have amazing mobility and be able to do a great score. As we do, it's like, in any sport, a new golf club comes out. You're like, oh, yep, that's going to help me hit it. It's 10 yards further. It's that quick fix, you know, and it doesn't, you can't do that with mobility.

But where would you rank in terms of complexity? I know where I would rank it, but I would like to hear from you. Where would you rank in terms of complexity of all the resistance training modalities, right? Powerlifting, bodybuilding, and all the different types of exercises. And then you have Olympic lifting.

Where would you rank it in terms of complexity and skill level or skill needed? Would you rank Olympic lifting at the top in terms of just because of the speed and the form needed? Yeah, I think for sure, looking from an outsider's point of view in Olympic way, if you go even just watching it,

you go that's obviously the most complex one. But as I've spent time working with power lifters, working with bodybuilders, just to broaden my understanding of how they train, there's also a huge element of complexity in the technique behind those movements as well, which for the average viewer, they wouldn't recognize that. So I'd say there's the elements of technique for all of them,

but I think because of the time taken for the Olympic lift to happen, it being so short, it is probably the most... Oh, with that and the joint mobility required for Olympic lifting. Right, you can get away as a power lifter and a bodybuilder and do half reps and short and range of motion on many moves. Obviously, if you're powerlifting, you have to at least break the 90 in a squat to get the lights, right? But other than that, you could get away with a shorter range of motion or Olympic lifting. I mean, to me, that's the real complexity of it is that it requires really good joint mobility

that I find, or at least I found, training clients for decades, those, the average person that walked in the gym just didn't have that. And I'd spend months, sometimes longer, trying to get them to be able to take a joint through four-inch emotion, much less teach a complex movement, like Lippincock. I look at it as like the pinnacle of generating power,

but also like the stability element has to be there too. So you have to be able to move incredibly well, incredibly fast and be able to stabilize it all at the same time. So those three things, have you worked with a body builder and a power lifter, and how would you say, like they differ in terms of trying to then teach them an Olympic lift? What are some of the barriers there?

Yeah, well, I think just going back, like you said, around getting them to move well first and have that stability element. This is one of the biggest things to me when it comes to mobilizing for Olympic weightlifting is you can be mobile and be flexible, but then we need for a limpit weightlifting need to be mobile under load. And therefore, that's one of my biggest approaches in the way that I'm mobilized for a limpit weightlifting is you have to

do the exercises under element of load or a much high level of resistance than what you would get doing a static stretch necessarily, which is why for me using exercises like socks press, doing the actual overhead squat is the best way to actually improve that. So people come to me and they go, you know, I can't do an overhead squat, I can't break parallel. And nine times out of ten, I'm actually asking them just to work through the range they

can, even just with a little bit of load, and then over a period of time, you're able to get lower and lower into that position. Without doing any magic exercise, it just takes time actually, going through that range that you've got, and then go, okay, I can go a little bit lower this time, but what happens is people go, right, this is my level of range that I've got, and then they go, right, I'm just going to start stacking on more weight, and that range gets short and short and short. Whereas, I always say to my guys, right, let's do this with a 20 kilo bar, until you've got a full range, we don't go any heavier than the full, to the 20 kilo bar, and then you

end up developing the strength and stability through the full range, rather than someone gets to, you know, they can power snatch 40 40 kilos and then they go for 50 and all of a sudden they get pushed into a compromising position that results in them hurting themselves. And this is one of the biggest things where you see so many injuries in an Olympic weightlifting because people are dropping into positions that they haven't got that stability and strength in first. So I'm curious in that because there's,

mobility has become such a buzz term in the last decade in our space and Up is popped to all these different certifications and techniques and there's different camps on you know What is the best way to increase mobility? What do you think about things like are you familiar with FRC or Ken stretch? Aldo are you familiar with some of those? No, no, okay, so I know you said you wrote like a mobility course, correct? Correct. Now, are all the exercises, are they all done with like load and challenging range

of motion, or do you have some body weight movements that you're doing and you try and intensify them with some metrics? Yeah, what does some of it look like? Yeah, so for me, like the exercises that wouldn't be in so intense is what I'd like to call glides. So I'm starting to work on, for example, the knee tracking over the toe in the bottom position, okay, but I'm not necessarily in my squat. I may just be putting weight on top of my knee and working on tracking near the toe. So that's what I would refer to as more of a glide and would

be a low intensity movement. Just getting the body used to moving into the range that we're going to want it to do with 100 kilos eventually. And then the more intense ones would be sport-specific, like I said, overhead squats, the socks press, which I'd say is extremely complex for a lot of people to do. The again, is then starting to build that stability overhead through that range. You mentioned time, you know, how it takes time, which 100% completely agree. And when I think of, you know, resistance training exercises, I can rank them in terms of risk versus reward.

And oftentimes, some exercises have, they're very safe when done properly, but if you move them outside of improper form by one or two degrees, they become very dangerous. And other exercises that may not be the case, for example, a dumbbell curl, I can be off, my form can be off by 10%, I'm probably not gonna hurt myself. But I notice with Olympic lifts, if you're off by 10%, your risk of injuries extremely high, which is probably, but if you do it right,

it's not dangerous, right? Which is probably why it takes so much time or you wanna take your time. When you get a new person coming in, no experience Olympic lifting, otherwise healthy, right? How long typically do you take, does it take before you have this person do Olympic lifts with decent load? How long does that process look like?

And be totally honest. Yeah, it depends what we call decent. I definitely say age would come into a huge factor of it in terms of what I'd be looking them to achieve. Well how long would you take them before they do Olympic lifts with just the bar? No experience before you have them do stuff with the bar full Olympic lifts. If they had bad mobility and couldn't get into positions, which I think you're referring to, I would say it would take nearly a month for them to be closer to producing a good movement pattern with a snatch and a clean and jerk.

But one of the biggest things with this is as well as how often are you practicing. And for me when you're learning a limpet weightlifting to begin with, it needs to be at least three times a week to actually start developing a consistent movement pattern. Because sometimes when you go in in your Olympic lifting, you're still on over the bar and every lift looks different. And it's hard to actually develop any consistency, stability through any range, if the movement's not consistent a lot. So that's why there is that need to really have a coach when you're starting a Olympic weightlifting or at least have someone that's consistently watching what you're doing so that you're getting enough feedback to know, okay, this is in the position that I need to be in. Now, do you have a sort of a ritual that you teach somebody coming up, even just to approach

the bar, the grip, where you stand, that whole process so they can try and duplicate it as best as possible? Well, you said process there and that's the key thing for me. And I think with the Olympic weightlifting in general, that psychological side of it is a huge factor that people struggle with that it isn't necessarily talked about. And one of the best ways to me, not only to develop the consistency,

but to overcome that psychological aspect of, if I miss this weight, it's going to hurt me, or if I don't get this, I miss my PB, et cetera, is having the process. So for me, that's a huge part when I'm working with the beginner. It's having what I like to call think box and play box. And I learned that when I was playing golf. And I stepped back behind the bar. And this is where I'm focusing on the technical cues of what my coach or what I'm trying to execute on that session, which may be, for example, staying on flat

feet or keeping the bar closer through the middle. So I do all my thinking in the think box. Once I step out of my think box, the process begins and everyone will have their own things that they'll do in the process, whether it's a flicker, their hair, whether it's an adjustment of their shorts, but that'll do in their process, whether it's a flicker, their hair, whether it's an adjustment of their shorts, but that's part of the process. So I'll always grip right hand first, then left hand, and then I get my feet set.

And then as I start over the bar, and I, which, you know, a lot of beginners will, you guys will know this is feeling as well, and you go, oh God, this is gonna be heavy, sort of a moment. What I do then is I count myself in. So I go five, four, three, two, one, and just purely by thinking about counting,

I distract myself from thinking about those negative thoughts or the things that are going to prevent me from executing the process well. And then when I get to one, I just go. And that way, always having that routine, and then I make the lift, and I put the bar down, and I step back and I go again, I'm starting to develop a consistent routine on getting into my set up position. Yeah, something you said just a few minutes ago, I thought that was very interesting is,

you know, when you're practicing and you're learning, in the beginning, especially every lift looks different. And I totally know what that feels like. I've tried practicing certain, you know, very rudimentary beginner type Olympic lifts, not even the actual Olympic lifts themselves. I know exactly what that feels like. It's like, I do one and I watch the next one. That didn't look like this first one. I have to practice over and over again.

What role does fatigue play in that? In other words, are you letting people, especially when you're teaching them a little lifts, are you pushing them to fatigue or is that like a no-no because when fatigue sets in, I know with other lifts, forum tends to go out the window. Yeah. And again, I think when people think, well, I'm going to practice my Olympic weightlifting today, they think, right, let's go light, let's go with an empty bar, let's do lots of repetitions. But if you're doing sets of maybe five reps with a bar, by set three or four, you're

fatigued and therefore you're not going to be executing the same technique. And you said just with a bar, but I set three or four, you're fatigued, and therefore you're not gonna be executing the same technique. And use it just with the bar. Yeah, of course. And this is the thing for me, and something that when I'm working on my technique with my coach, so when we're coming out of like a strength block and now we're working in transition into developing that strength into strength technique phase,

we're doing maybe 10 sets of one rep working on my technique at 70 to 80%, which is more relative to where I'm gonna be working when I'm going towards a maximum lift, as opposed to doing five sets of five at 40, 50% of my best and just drilling it. This is so important because with other resistance training modalities, fatigue is a part of the programming. Like if I'm doing bodybuilding style training

and I'm going to go workout, I'm trying to get some somewhat fatigue. I'm trying to feel the muscles burn. I'm trying to get a pump, especially as it become more advanced. With Olympic lifting, it's a different mentality, right? It's a totally different mentality. Yeah, that's it. So we don't want to be ever practicing technique under fatigue. I think

in the strength movements that we'll be doing for a limpit weightlifting, either squats, the pulls, yes, then we can work towards... When you do the traditional stuff... Yeah, more traditional compound movements we can work towards fatigue, but when we're working technique for a limpit weightlifting, you want to be thinking low repetition and explode. Yeah repetition and explode. Yeah, and explode closer to those working percentages that you would be doing, junior normal training program. And I think that's a big mistake a lot of people do for beginners

getting into the sport is where the deemed technical practice should take place. So you must, it must be like nails on a chalkboard for you to watch a CrossFit WOD where people are doing Olympic lifts in circuits to fatigue. And then sprinting out. Yeah, is that something that when you look at that, are you just going, wow, what is going on? Or are you considered that completely different sport because if you did consider Olympic

lifting, it would be like that for you. That's a great question. And for me CrossFit has been a huge part of my role in Olympic weightlifting. I started weightlifting in 2005 or 2004 where CrossFit wasn't really a big thing. And I've seen the sort of sport developed far beyond weightlifting. And then I've seen weightlifting become a part of CrossFit.

And without CrossFit for me, I wouldn't really have a job. So I think where there's a lot of weightlifters when CrossFit came about, were like, what is this sport? They're doing terrible practice of the Olympic movements. I was like, okay, now here's an opportunity for me to actually educate the market. And like, you can't expect, if you come in and you've never done gymnastics before, right?

And you have six months experience in gymnastics. I guarantee if a gym mask come in and had a look at your technique on a triple backflip, they'd be like, it's terrible. Sure. Okay, so people forget that how long it takes to actually have good technique in any sport practice. So putting that aside and going right, it's going to take at least a year, two years, before people are going to be executing

the weightlifting in a good movement pattern and naturally going right, let's be patient with these guys and get them moving well first. So for me, if you're looking at a movement that across that would do IE barbell cycling, that is a completely different technique that you would use to do a heavy one RM. And you do have to separate those two movements when you're watching Matt Fraser or Eddie Hall just doing grace or everything did as far as the count, which is ultimately just like a reverse curl versus a one RM lift.

But why always say to the CrossFit guys, and that's why you see the best CrossFit is in the world, the likes of Matt Fraser, no roles and dominating the sport, is because they learnt how to execute a 1RM heavy snatch first before they learnt how to cycle the barbell. And the reason why is because they develop an understanding of where that bar should be in relation to the body first. Explain what you mean by cycle the barbell. So cycling the barbell would be multiple repetitions as fast as you can go. So the sort of focus

when you're cycling a barbell, you may be bouncing the bar off the floor to gain the momentum to go into the next lift. You tend to turn over, which is quite hard to explain, the bar from the top right down to the floor as opposed to dumping it and resetting. So it requires a complete difference. You're kind of pushing it down. Yeah, you're pushing it down, going for speed. Technique does break down under fatigue. It's not, it's not, there's almost two different things in.

I think like you said, you do have to separate that. So when you saw this, you thought, oh, this is an opportunity. And did you go in and start coaching and training crossfitters, how to train more like an Olympic lifter in order to give them, you know, some advantages? Yeah, I think there was a lot of receptive people in the CrossFit community understanding the fact that, okay, this is a really technical element of what we need to do. The people that are teaching us CrossFit won't have a deep understanding on how to coach

a limp-it-weighted thing, and they started to draw weightlifters in, and that's where I came in. And it wasn't just about necessarily teaching the CrossFit community how to weight it correctly, but also help the coaching market out and go, this is the process of what you need to be doing with your guys when they first out. And that would be like the main thing that I would love to change in CrossFit would be,

you remember when there was like an on-ramp course, I don't know if you were aware of that, but it was like a step-by-step thing that athletes had to do first before they could join into a CrossFit class. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to there to that still be a major thing that if you walk into the door at my CrossFit gym, okay, you need to do five, six PT sessions

with an Olympic weightlifting coach. You need to do the same with a gym-nast coach before you're allowed to join in. Some sort of prerequisite. Yeah, because weightlifting, CrossFit gets more people in the door to learn Olympic weightlifting, then the Olympic weightlifting does. Oh, for 100%.

100% I manage gyms for two decades. And just the squat rack, forget Olympic lifting. The squat rack would have dust on it. I'd manage a 40,000 square foot gym. It would have one squat rack, first of all, because nobody cared about squatting. And then the squat rack was always completely empty. Well, I imagine too, it's even difficult to just teach your average person triple extension.

Like, do you have a hard time with that? Or is that pretty easy? But again, triple extension, explain it. It's such a complex thing. And this is, like, again, for me, why I think I've been successful in the teaching of Olympic weight of thing in the cross-set market is because I make it a lot much simpler than that. And although I can do that. Yeah, of course, you can, you know, bore someone to death with,

break-force kinematics, bar path analysis of Olympic weight of thing, but they come in the door, they're going to go, ah, yeah, yes, see you next week, you know, they're going to be straight out. Whereas my process of teaching people, Olympic weight of thing, is to get them to do stuff they already know how to do. So once you've got someone in the correct start position, my focus is on getting them to think about jumping. When they jump, they squeeze their glutes,

their legs hit full extension, and they rise up onto their toe. All things I'd want them to do when they're snatching. But when someone goes jump, you go, yeah, sunny, I know how to do that, no problem. Bang. And all of a sudden, you've got them doing something much more similar to what an extension looks like in a snatcher or a clean without them even knowing what a first or second-poor triplet extension is. So this is what I'm doing when I'm teaching people from scratch, is giving them simple things

to think about that they already know how to do? And that way, that learning curve or the point where I can get them from co-walking through a door, not knowing what a snatch is, to doing a good looking snatch in 40 days happens. That's a great, let's keep going here. That's a really cool, I've never heard anyone explain it like that. Let's break the trip extension down like that.

Let's say you've now got me, I'm in the starting position. You've taught me to jump, kind of squeeze my glutes, like walk me through all the way through. Okay, let's do it. So once we're in our set position, I've got them set feet normally again,

in terms of if I was telling someone, where, where do my feet go in my set position? I go, where would you go if you're gonna jump as hard as you can? That's where you're gonna produce most vertical force. We want vertical force in snatch, cleaned it. There's where your foot position is. Like a vertical jump test, like you reach you now. Of course, that's where you're going to produce most vertical force. We want vertical force in snatch, cleaned it. There's where your foot position is. Like a vertical jump test.

Like you reach you now. Of course, that's where you'd want your feet. So great. Now, we want the bar to stay as close to center of gravity as possible so as close to the body. If the bar is away from us, it makes it very difficult for us to imply force on the bar. And therefore, I say, okay, make sure the bar is touching your shins at the start because

that's going to be over mid-foot and as close to the body as possible. And then for me, it's about getting them to get the bar to mid thigh where we want to explode, okay, without getting away from you. So I, I, I, I, keep the bar touching and push the floor away with the legs, okay. So we're touching now until the bar gets to mid thigh. And then from here is where we want to explode. This is where we want change in speed as opposed to outright speed from the floor.

So I'm very much like, speed is not your friend when you learn a limp at weight lifting. I'm like, let's go nice and slowly because unfortunately people go online, they go on YouTube and they go, okay, snatch and some Chinese guy pops up and he lifts so fast, you missed it in a blink and they go, that's what I need to do.

No, don't do that. Don't do that. Let's take it slow, let's learn how to walk before we can run. So now the bars touching, we're at mid-stay, and now they're thinking about jumping. As they jump, the bar still fires out the hip crease because they hit full extension,

and now the bars accelerate in vertically. Great. Now what we need to do is to get into our receiving position. So my cue is catch, but prior to even talking about and teaching them this part, I've already taught them where their catch position is. So then it becomes the focus of thinking about touching, touching, touching, jumping and catch. And therefore, they're thinking about the, they've got the full movement they're happening already without thinking about Triple extension power position and all of these confusing terms

that people get hung up on when they learn the process of Olympic weight thing. Very, very cool. That's great. Oh, that's awesome. I'm gonna make you shoot that YouTube video by the way. No, no, absolutely. So the catch position, are you gonna have them start in a squat and like basically find out their depth and you know see what's most comfortable for them? So the whole process, if we were to rewind before we even get to set a position, would be the first of all, get them putting a bar over their head in a snatch grip. Now when they're over and they're snatch grip

for anyone listening, it's the wider position on the bar. We're looking for the bar to be over the crown of the head. I'm focused on external rotation and wrist sitting back. Okay. And once someone can get into this position and they're happy, then the focus for me is once that bar's there, forget about it being over the head and just think about what the lower body is doing. Because if we get the lower body to take the majority of the load or the load to sink down to the lower body, the big muscles do the work as opposed to the small ones. So we're locked out now we're overhead. I'm like, okay, now let's begin squatting and you just got to think about the exact same stimulus as you would do in a back squat. And as soon as you put your brains in the legs thinking about getting them to do the overhead squat then. Again, it's 10 times easier because they already know how to do a back squat.

What are the most common athletes that come try to get coaching from you aside from Olympic lifters or people who use Olympic lifting and competition? Like, do you get lots of, you know, for a Zoom crossfitters would probably be a good one. Well, besides crossfitters, you get like, yeah, do you ever do football players? Yeah, do you get football players or soccer players or I think you guys call soccer players football players. Yeah, so rugby is a big one that we get. We get a lot of athletes in sprinters, et cetera, that come in and they just want more time and more practice on their Olympic list, but they're

becomes, they're not so bothered about going into full depth squat. They're like, I just want to learn how to power clean or want to learn how to power snatch because I want to build explosive power. Whereas, like, regardless of that's what you want to do, I still think everyone should have an understanding of how to do the full range movement first. Purely for the element that when you start to lift, submacsimile in a power clean, there's potential that you could get pushed in a little bit further than where your power clean would be.

And that is where people start to get injured. So I'd always want them regardless of whether they decide to use the power movements as their training to have an understanding of the full movement. And again, here comes another problem in the learning of Olympic weight, because people go, right, there's the clean, there's the power clean, there are two different movements. But essentially, we're doing the power clean as an assistance to the full clean. So therefore, the movement is very, it should be pretty much identical

other than the point in which we're receiving the bar is much higher in a power clean than a full clean, which is why when you know I'm snatching or when I'm power snatching a power clean, I think in my head, right, this is just a high clean, this is just a high power, a high snatch so that I'm focusing then on being faster into my receiving position. What are some of the best complimentary exercises for the Olympic lifts? Are there specific resistance training movements that you really like to have people do? It's true. It's over in the head squat. Yeah, stuff like that.

Yeah, so if we, I think a beginner or in your first six months to a year of Olympic weight, I'd always say that your exercise selection is actually very small because we want to develop the movement, range of movement. And if you're getting a beginner to do power snacks, power hang snatch, power hang snatch from blocks, there's all of these different movements that you need to master. Too much. Yeah, too much. So if we're talking about a basic program for a beginner sort of six, six months to a year into their lifting, we'd be looking at doing the full snatch and clean pull, the full pull, so snatch pulls, clean pull, which is for people listening and explosive, almost like an explosive

deadlift, and then we'd be going front squat, back squat. And then once we've got our four basic exercises, then we'd add in variation of maybe the power snaps, the power clean. And then assistance exercises alongside that, which I love, would be something like good mornings or practicing just the split jerk and the power jerk on their own. And therefore now we've got roughly eight to ten exercises. If you're training three times a week, you can make a quite good program out of just using maybe three exercises Monday Wednesday Friday.

Now, do you ever do traditional other traditional resistance training exercises like curls or, you know, a lateral or a barbell row or anything like that? Yeah, and you know, for more competitive athlete or someone that does train five times a week or seven times a week and they've got time to throw in those extra assistance exercises. For sure, it does not hurt to do a little bit of a conventional bodybuilding to develop strength and proprioception in other areas that you wouldn't normally go into during the actual lift, which again is great for injury prevention. However, I wouldn't necessarily throw in too much extra

conditioning for a complete beginner because like I said, the focus needs to be on the movement pan. But for someone like myself, I would maybe have like an hour or a week where I'm just doing a more bodybuilding based session just purely to develop muscle around joints that are going to be understrain my malifting. So I've got slightly hyper extending elbows. For me doing actually a bit of bodybuilding, some barbell curls, again some bench press to gain some stability over my shoulders. Beneficial, great, I'll put that in there.

But if you're in outright beginner, I wouldn't necessarily go into too much effort. So you've been doing this now for 15 plus years, right? And we talk on the show a lot about our personal journeys and weightlifting. And along the way, there was many paradigm shattering moments or aha moments in our career of like, oh shit, I've been doing this wrong forever.

This is the better way to do it. Or things that we like, oh man, I know I've heard a million times that I should be changing the rep range up, but I've been stuck in this once I finally did that. Oh my God, I saw these gains. Can you recall in your 15 years of Olympic lifting those aha type moments or you know Paradigm shattering moments for you were like things really started accelerate? Yeah, so I think you know, I do have to throw my mind back a little bit now, you know 15 years into the sport but I think one of the biggest things came for me

when I started competing internationally and I was traveling around the world, competing at European world championships and I was getting my butt kicked by all of these other athletes and I was watching what they were doing in training and I'd go back to my coach and be like, coach, why aren't we doing as much strength exercises

as these guys are doing? They're squatting so much more regularly than me. They're spending a lot more time doing pools. And when I was a beginner, or I'd say in my first three to four years of Olympic weight of thing, I didn't spend enough time once I had learned how to snatch and clean and jerk doing basic strength movements, which is why now for me, although my mobility is great, my technique is very good. My weakness is a weightlifter, there is my strength. That's the thing that holds me back.

Oh, really? So, I would say like, that was a big moment for me in terms of thinking, right, are my focus, as you get better, once you master a master consistent technique is to actually switch your focus as an elite level lifter from improving your technique and it actually becomes to making the more bigger focus of your training around developing strength and explosive power. So when I started shifting my training to more of the boring exercises, the pools and squats as opposed to doing so much snatch and clean and jerk. I actually saw a big improvement because again, I was like, right, I need to snatch and clean and jerk

three times a week to be able to get my movement pattern and I was doing that and actually fatiguing and my body was breaking down from doing so much of the classic movement. And the minute I went to snatch it once a week and jerk and once a week and the majority of my training the strength base there was there was a big shift then for me. Now do you not where you're at now at your level do you have to still do a lot of mobility work or does just your training take care of that for you right now? Yeah it's a good question and people always say it's me the sunny where did you get your mobility from but I started when I was 13 years old So I was moving well and I have never had in my whole career any more than 10 days off from the gym So therefore I'm consistently going through those ranges and I've maintained a lot of my flexibility from when I was younger

however, I will still twice a week be doing either overhead squats, snatch balance to make sure I'm strengthening and mobilizing the range that I'm going into in the snatch and in the cleans. But people don't necessarily see so much of that because they're like, well, he's doing overhead squats. That's not mobility. But in my mind, it is because I'm going specifically put in my feet in the receiving position for my snatch, for example, and I'm taking a slight pause in the bottom position to stretch it out and to mobilize under load before standing up. Yeah. Now, how often are you chasing PRs as a professional? So I do this thing called Big Friday.

So Big Friday for me, as a competitive weight if the or someone who's got a big training history in the sport, the regularity of PBs is very small. You know, I haven't done a snatch PB in like maybe two years, but I'm training every day towards it. And yeah, it can be extremely tomorrow. Typically you save them for competitions, though. Typically you'd save them for competitions.

So for me, by having like what I call my big Friday, I'll have one day a week where I'll go so maximally in exercise and not necessarily for a one RM, but maybe for a two RM or a threeRM, and that way it helps you stay, I guess, excited through training that you're working towards. PB is not necessarily, and this is the best snatch I've done in my life. It's a daily max in Hangstatch, or it's a daily max in squat triple. So that way, like for me, I'm having at least one time a week where I'm getting the opportunity to push myself so maximum.

Most people are motivated for fitness by aesthetic goals, they wanna change the way they look. What are the body parts or parts of the body that Olympic lifting really trains well? Like if somebody who's listening right now, fitness fanatic, never really consider Olympic lifting, how would you sell that to them? What are the parts of their body they can expect to see better development from or changes

in through doing or incorporating Olympic lifting? Yeah, okay. So definitely legs, I've got a little tree trunk legs. When people look at me, they go, I expected you to be so much bigger knowing how much you lift. I'd say definitely legs, posterior chain, back glutes, the development definitely in these areas, traps from pools, all of that, they're getting an absolute beasting when we're Olympic weightlifting. But not only that, I'd say actually having

been able to move well under load in general when you're Olympic weight, if thing is a very attractive skill, like I said, I can go up and pick up bodybuilding, power lifting and jump straight into doing those drills, having already learned how to do a limper weight if thing, whereas it doesn't work the other way around. So I think that's a very attractive thing and a limper weight lifting is the fact that you all then liken yourself much better into other sports

or any other training styles, having known how to do a limpit weightlifting. I think that's a great point. I think the Olympic lifting in general carries over to almost all sports, a little bit, where all those other ones has little to no carry over as any sports. Yeah, full kinetic change. I mean, just you training explicitly like that probably protects you if you were to go pick up and play basketball for the day

or go play football where a guy like me who trains more strength bodybuilding training most of time. Boy, am I at risk, I get on the beach, I go run, I pull a ham, almost every time. So you've got general health down, but in terms of functional performance, Olympic lifters always surprised the hell out of me. I mean, I've had them training some of my gyms

and they don't play sports, they don't play basketball, surprised the hell out of me. I mean, I've had them train in some of my gyms and, you know, they don't place boards, they don't play basketball, but then you watch them jump or do something athletic and you're like, holy, Toledo. And I know they've done studies on, because we all have a particular capacity for strength, but our body limits us to protect our bodies. So like, the average person might be able to only generate maybe 50% of the real force that they could generate. Maybe if they're stressed or scared or really, really angry, they'd be able to tap into something like 60% or whatever, Olympic lifters consistently test the highest. Like you guys can tap into most of the strength that your body has, which is why I think sometimes

when you see an Olympic lifter lift a crazy amount of weight, it doesn't always match up with the way they look. Like you say, well, he's muscular, but geez, he's not nearly as big as a bodybuilder, but he's lifting like three times as much weight. And it's also getting everything to work in unison, too, like in comparison. That's why I was looting to like a bodybuilder versus like a power lifter. It must be somewhat difficult if they're trying to you know muscle it up with you know trying to use their upper body a lot pulling off the ground versus you know just getting that initial

force all into the ground through your feet and then using your legs primarily to drive it. Yeah and I think that again that's the when we were speaking earlier about having a body bodybuilder a power lift to come into Olympic way. I think, yeah, I'm strong, this is going to be no problem. But it's getting them to get the right muscles working, you know, over the little muscles. And that's what I'm saying with the cues and when I'm teaching people from basics, the focus is on, you know, getting all the big muscles to do the work and getting that acceleration from the legs as opposed to, you know to trying to use the upper body. But what will happen is with someone like that who starts doing a limpit weight of thing, they'll get to that point where they're submaxing me about to struggle.

Say, when I was teaching bass, he gets to 120 and he goes, right now, I just want to use my upper body. But that's where the moment has to stop in terms of where the weights you're training to. So if you get to 100 and you start muscling it up, but you can do 110, 120, you need to stop at that point so that the movement is the thing, like the technique and how well you're moving is the thing that prevents you from going heavier as opposed to your strength

being the limit factor. What are some of the most common injuries? Evolves. Injuries and limpoethin, well you see, I think from an elite point, I'd say, dislocated shoulders, elbows are very common, knee injuries, in a limpoate, a thing a huge,

but again, for me, that becomes, I think, from squatting repetitions. And, you know, I've in the past had, I've had torn both my elbows, I've got three diadrated discs, two disc bulges, one fuser, a bone growth over a disc bulge, I've had issues with both my knees in the past with information problems, et cetera.

And that just became, that came from too much repetition. And as I've got older, I'm not old, but in my training years I am, I'm 25 now, training 15 years, in Olympic weightlifting. What I've had to do is reduce the amount of times I'm going through a full range. So therefore, like I said, now where I was squatting seven times a week when I was training at my hardest in an Olympic weight

of think to now only squat three times a week when I was training at my hardest and an impute way to think to now only squat three times a week. It means that I've managed to maintain not be so injured or have any of these issues and pain problems because I'm not going through the full range of motion as much as I used to before. Let's say average person listening right now works out fitness, fanatic, they want to incorporate an element of Olympic lifting. How would you suggest that they proceed? Which exercise do they pick?

How should they start? Were they programmed that into their normal workout? Yeah, so I'd say the snatch is the hardest one to do, but I'd say for a beginner that would still be where I'd get them to start. You know, it's like when you learn to drive a car and they teach you in a manual first before you learn to an automatically do an England anyway, even though the automatic's easier to drive. That's how I learn. Yeah.

Whereas same thing has to happen with the Olympic weight of the thing, you know, so we teach them how to snatch first. So the first few movements that I would do in my beginner program on my learns lift would get them to develop the overhead squat. So practice with like a broomstick or something? Practice with a broomstick going through that range with an overhead squat and then doing some snatch balance. And then I think you know that they have to go straight into learning how to do the full movements because if it's something that they want to do and this is one of the biggest problems with CrossFit, you want to get into a class

where you're cycling the barbell, and you go, it's a much quicker route if you do a power clean, or if you do a power snatch. However, that's going to bite you in the bum six months down the line, and you go, I really love weightlifting, I want to continue to do it, but you've got so strong catching it in the power That you don't want to sit down and you resort back to that which is which as well I totally understand your question the easiest way To get into it or the movements they need to start doing but you have to go all in to begin with and learn the full-range first Regardless of if you decide further down the line to use simpler formats of the Olympic

lifts to progress your training. All right, so another question with that. Let's say, okay, I'm listening to the podcast. All right, cool. I'm going to practice, I'm going to get a broomstick. I'm going to practice overhead squats or snatch. Do I do that at the beginning of my workout or do it at the end when I finish working everything?

Yeah, I love this question and it comes back back as well to the mobility aspects of Olympic weight. If they're like, should I mobilise or should I practice my movements before or after? Because people are like, oh, you shouldn't stretch before training. But for me, if you can't get in the positions that are required of you in the snatch in the cleaner jet, then you must mobilise first to gain improvement in those ranges before you even think about loading. And when you're least fatigued, and it's the same way as we structure any training program, if your goal is to learn how to do the Olympic movements over the next six months, don't do them right at the end of the session where you're already knackered from bodybuilding,

dinners on the dinner table in 10 minutes, and you're like, I'll just do a little bit before I head off. Make it the priority of your training session, and I think regardless of whether you're talking about weightlifting, whether you're talking about powerlifting, or you're trying to get more ripped, if that's your goal, prioritize it in the way that you program your training.

Spend 20 minutes at the start, your session, when you're freshest, when you've got your biggest attention span, and then practice it then, and then do the less important stuff afterwards. Now, the reality is, you know, an overhead squat or snatch position with the broomstick, as long as you don't have any prior hinges, which is actually generally a whole body mobility movement. I mean, you get to hips, get stuff to the arasic, gets everything kind of to fire. So, would you say, okay, go into a hips, gets a thoracic, gets everything kind of to fire.

So would you say, okay, go into the workout, do some mobility movements first, then do what you're saying, and practice it with like slow. Do you want them to do it slowly with good tension and good form, or do you want them to go through and try and do it fast? Yeah, so I'd be starting off with 20 minutes of mobility. So this is mobilizing the joints and body parts that we need to be mobile and have arranged through first before we touch the barbell.

Once I've done my mobilizing, I would then maybe, instead of a broomstick, I'd pick up maybe a 10 kilo bar or a technique bar just so we've got that element of resistance. And then I'd be beginning like, for example, today, we're gonna work on five sets of five overhead squat with the bar, super light, get going through the range. The next exercise we made, we'd be doing, we'd be starting to practice the process of the

setup and the first pull and getting them to do the transition of the jump. So you're breaking down the elements, okay, before trying to put the full movement together because that's where people go, they look and see the snatch and go, oh, this is gonna be very difficult to actually comprehend, I'm gonna put all this together, whereas you go learn how to overhead squat, learn how to do the force pull,

learn the transition through the middle, and then we sew it together in six weeks time, then you're laughing. I have a question for you. So I watch videos with Olympic lifters and the squat. Just a straight up barbell squat, back squat, and the amount of weight that these top lifters can squat is literally insane. But what really trips me out is you guys are not allowed to use like powerlifting weight belt, right? You can't use that. How would you brace your core? Is there a technique or a way you brace your

core to be able to handle that much load when you're doing a lift? And it's, I know it's different from worrying about, right? It's a different type of brace. What is that look like? Yeah, I think that's, that's a really good question. If someone that for me, you see the majority of people, especially that won't be weight lifters, the way that they squat is very different to the way that I weightlifter squat. And I've been lucky enough to be training with Australian Strength Coach who is a specialist

in powerlifting coaches Thor and the way in which he squats is so much slower than how I squat, he squats with a low bar because it requires less mobility and the way in which he's squatting is thinking, really slow throughout the full range of the motion. Whereas when we're a limpit weight lifting, we're almost catching that bounce of the bottom and using that momentum stretch reflex to help us drive up and out the hot. Now, as though that's great in terms of developing speed through the explosive part of the lift, I'd say in terms of the way that I'm bracing when I'm a limpant weight of things,

I'm not using my belt when I'm building up to sort of 80% I'd say. And I think about bracing in the same way as if someone was to stick my head underwater. And that's what I always say to people, take a nice deep breath and kind of push against your abs as opposed to through your lungs. Okay, when I'm setting and that way then I keep

the tension through my trunk as opposed to necessarily in my lungs and that's what I'm pushing out against. But you'll see like, and what? So are you drawing the core in and tight or are you pushing it out? Like what does that feel like? Yeah, I'm drawing it in. So I'm like punching in the same way as I would do it.

So different from when you use a powerlifting weight belt, this is something that a long time ago, there was this whole debate whether or not your core is less active or more active when you were about, then they did imaging on the core and they said, oh look, you're still activating the core muscles, so wearing a belt is perfectly fine. And I would tell people, it's a different recruitment pattern. When you wear a belt, you're pushing out against the belt. That's the exact opposite

of what you want to do. When you don't wear a belt, right? So if you learn one, you learn how to squat with a belt on, then you take it off. It's going to have to relearn how to brace your core. Yeah, it is very different. It's something I've not spent a lot of time thinking about, but yeah, in the way that you know, I've noticed in terms of where people wear their belt, as well, some people wear their belt so much higher than other specials. The guys with bellies, yeah. So the power of this,

but I'm pushing, yeah, bracing out against my belt when I'm squatting, and then without my belt, you'll see it looks like I'm almost like pregnant almost sometimes when I'm lifting. Because you're bracing then. Well, that's awesome. That's very informative. And I do think that explosive type movements are an essential part of training.

I just think that they should be handled appropriately. I think you need to be very smart when you go into them because if you don't do them right, you can definitely hurt yourself. And I don't think you should train them crazy to fatigue. I think you need to be very respectful, but if you can do that and your patient They reap tremendous benefit. Well, one of the things that I've Fallen in love with and and I wish I've had had somebody like yourself who is who I could go through Olympic lifts and actually get good at it because by no means can I do it very well, but I

Have worked a lot of my mobility. I lacked ankle mobility, I lacked hip mobility, I lacked thoracic mobility, and I spent the last, and this was, you know, during bodybuilding times for me, I had lost all that and become so focused on my aesthetics that I had lost mobility in all these areas. And then when I tried to do a deep squat, do any of those things, it was just impossible. So it took almost a year for me to regain all of that back. And now what I have found is I don't have to do all the,

you know, monotonous type of movements to get to the point where I have the mobility. All I have to do is do like an overhead squat. If I just make sure that I always keep an overhead squat in my routine, that promotes good thoracic mobility, that promotes good hip mobility, that promotes good ankle mobility,

and it's like I don't have to really address all these things as long as I make sure to integrate. That's my favorite part, and where I see tons of value for the average person listening to learn Olympic lifting, because if you can get to a point where you can do it, and even if you don't care to go compete one day or be great in the sport, if you can just keep an element of it in your regular routine, what it requires mobility-wise, I just see the benefits of that

for joint health longevity. And this is it for me, and this is the main point for me being that weight if thing can be accessible for anyone, the average person, they don't need to look at it as a point of a daunting point that I'm going to compete one day and I'm not sure whether I can pick up the sport. Broken down once you've got your range of mobility like you said can be used in every person's training 100% even if it's just elements of the exercises. And you know, that's kind of my role, I guess, in the fitness industry is to show people that it is fun and inaccessible for everyone as long as you can learn how to move well first. So I've thought differently about it too in terms of like training fast twitch muscles. And as we age, like that's one of the first things to go. And so in order to incorporate that in your trainer routine, I find that even more valuable looking into the future.

Yeah, some of the biggest lessons I learned from Olympic lifters, and I don't have a lot of experience with Olympic lifting at all, but I did a lot of study and observation mainly because some of the best resistance training studies you'll find scientific studies are done on Olympic lifters. They've been studied for a very, very long time. Some of the studies came out of the Soviet Union were just phenomenal. It's a it's a Olympic sport. So you have a lot of people interested in it very far less studies done on body building or power lifting or other forms of resistance training. And one of the main things I learned bodybuilding or powerlifting or other forms of resistance training. And one of the main things I learned from Olympic lifting was to treat resistance training as practice.

This is a very, very different understanding than what I was brought up understanding about resistance training where I was reading bodybuilding magazines. It was all about feeling the burn, feeling the pumps. Going to failure, getting fatigued. Then when I started learning about Olympic lifters, they would practice the movements, or like practicing any other skill, and I applied that to my traditional exercises where, you know, some days I do train very intensely,

but many times I go to the gym, and I'm in there to practice all these exercises and my gains went through the roof, my mobility went through the roof, I built more muscle, more body fat, and I applied that as a personal trainer. One of the biggest compliments I can give Olympic lifting is you guys really understand

the science of training and technique better, I'd say the most forms of resistance training. I really like that approach in the way you think about Olympic way of thing is practicing a movement. And you know, with anything in terms of like when I was I was training for Matt Fraser last year and I was just getting into to crossfit at the time and starting to learn the things and he said to me he said, Sunnate, you're not allowed to do a workout or put an exercise

in a workout that you can't do well under fatigue. So in terms of move well through first, before I did that movement under fatigue. And that meant initially, even though I could do every movement in CrossFit, I was making my workouts out of doing like, air squats, press ups, very simple movements. And I was still getting the required similists of a sweaty workout and my heart rate going,

but I could only then put in, so then I do that at the end of my session, the first part of my session would be like, right, I'm gonna practice my pull ups and master the movement of the pull up. And once I've mastered it, only then does it become an exercise that goes into something that I'm gonna be doing

in a workout or under fatigue. And the irony of all of that is, because most people listening are like, like, I just want to look good. I just want to build muscle, I just want to get lean. You get better results that way. I've had clients, oh, I've had clients who are like, I want to get better at pull ups.

And I said, what are you doing? Well, I do pull ups once a week and I go to failure and it's okay, stop doing that. Here's what I want you to do. Put up a pull up bar in your house. And I want you to practice one pull up a pull-up bar in your house, and I want you to practice one pull-up, every few hours or whatever. Every day, just every day you walk by,

do one pull, just practice it, and then watch what happens. Within like a week or two, they've got 30% more reps than they had before, and they had better gains from practicing. And this is funny, we treat every other sport this way. It's like you're teaching a kid, had a play soccer, you don teaching a kid how to play soccer.

You don't say go play soccer to failure. You practice that technique over and over again to get really good at it. And you guys do that phenomenally. So anyway, thanks for coming on the show, man. That's great. Excellent. Thank you very much.

It's been very informative. And I'd say the one point that we, when it comes to resistance training that we don't like to go into details on is Olympic lifting because we have so much respect for the skill and technique that's involved so I appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you very much. I'm excited for you on the YouTube now, man. Right on.

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps for performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having

South Adam and Justin as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump. This is Mindbomb.