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Barbell Strong First O-lifting: No Jerks?

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Hi All,

Jeremy Layport here, Brett just reached out to me to respond to this thread.

When I was first asked to write this O-Lifting course up the mobility issues (and safety) were my number one concern and still are today. This was meant to be more of a general course (Introductory course into O-Lifting) so Push Press was my overhead compromise. The narrow shoulder width grip on the bar and drop under the bar to catch in a jerk requires a lot of thoracic and shoulder mobility. Even a power snatch with its wider grip is easier on the shoulder mobility requirements. With the past two years in pause and me spinning my thumbs I've started to think about pulling the training wheels off this a bit more and teaching full lifts and jerks as well. As will all StrongFirst courses this will be in a constant state of enhancement and refinement as the course grows. I hope this helps you know where my mind set was when writing up this course.

PS - Im split jerking in the photo we used, because I don't have many/any photos during my meets or training. Danny Sawaya took that photo for a promo video he shot in 2014 and its literally one of the only photos I have sadly. Im officially old, I don't social media much or film my training sessions much either. I'll try to start, but it takes added time and effort which I'd rather not spend.
Someone get @j_layport on a podcast!
 
E-sports for the rescue! Nobody knows difference between weightlifting and powerlifting, but every kid knows difference between LoL and WoW :D How sad.
Sooo in college I had a lot of friends in the esport scene. One of them was a professional dota 2 coach.

He would weightlift as he felt overall strength would help him increase his apm. (That is actions per minute for those of you not familiar)
 
Hi All,

Jeremy Layport here, Brett just reached out to me to respond to this thread.

When I was first asked to write this O-Lifting course up the mobility issues (and safety) were my number one concern and still are today. This was meant to be more of a general course (Introductory course into O-Lifting) so Push Press was my overhead compromise. The narrow shoulder width grip on the bar and drop under the bar to catch in a jerk requires a lot of thoracic and shoulder mobility. Even a power snatch with its wider grip is easier on the shoulder mobility requirements. With the past two years in pause and me spinning my thumbs I've started to think about pulling the training wheels off this a bit more and teaching full lifts and jerks as well. As will all StrongFirst courses this will be in a constant state of enhancement and refinement as the course grows. I hope this helps you know where my mind set was when writing up this course.

PS - Im split jerking in the photo we used, because I don't have many/any photos during my meets or training. Danny Sawaya took that photo for a promo video he shot in 2014 and its literally one of the only photos I have sadly. Im officially old, I don't social media much or film my training sessions much either. I'll try to start, but it takes added time and effort which I'd rather not spend.
Deleted.
 
@j_layport One thing I'd be curious to hear StrongFirst's take on is the conditioning aspect of weightlifting competition.

Example today:

1 hour before lift time:

> T - 45 minutes before Snatch: mobility work, activation drills, empty bar work

T-45 to T-0: Snatch warmup and practice for 45 minutes straight, walking the weights up in practice, starting at 60% to 95% (opening attempt), with decreasing rest periods. By the end of that, I was doing 95% snatch singles with 1 minute rest. In total, from 60% to 95%, there were 5 sets of triples, 10 sets of doubles, 10 sets of singles, for a total of 35 snatches. And a bunch of plate loading. ;)

Snatch Platform (had to follow myself): 95% snatch -- 1 minute rest period -- 100% snatch -- 2 minute rest period 105% snatch

After: Rest 5 minutes, drink something, eat something

Clean & Jerk warm up & practice, similar to Snatch, but this time have only 30 minutes to walk the weights up to opening attempts.


I think it might have an interesting tie-in to some of the StrongFirst work on energy system.
 
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that sounds like it would be like an SFL 2 thing, no?
Additional skills and knowledge of the same implement ?
Especially since the Olympic lifts are where you move into a focus on power expression.

Great idea! StrongFirst SFL II ...... And if it was a 3 day cert, that would leave plenty of time for the full lifts.

I did USAW Level 1 in January 2020 and they teach everything up to the full lifts (Snatch, Clean, and Jerk) in 2 days; however, a major difference is that it's not supposed to teach the attendees how to DO the lifts. It's supposed to teach the attendees how to TEACH the lifts. There is not really any time for an attendee to practice the lifts and get coached by co-attendees or by the instructors, other than being a subject for another student to go through the regimented teaching method/sequence. They did offer some time if you wanted to stay after class at the end of Day 2 and get a little coaching.

StrongFirst certs are sort of a hybrid of teaching attendees how to DO and how to TEACH. ... but I would say if anything they are heavier on the DOING -- for the purpose of self-practice and knowledge, and coaching each other to the same end. StrongFirst promotes and relies heavily on developing your own practice, so being proficient and experienced yourself is a major part of that. We do, THEN we teach. That's why there are strength and performance requirements to pass -- you have to have put in some time and effort on the front end. Then you are accountable to learn the method from the ground up as if you had never done it. You practice coaching training partners to develop your coaching eye for what you are learning. Then it all comes together in the technique tests at the end.
 
I’m not sure what their stance is, but back squats are part of the SFL and Zercher squats are one of two movements taught at Barbell 201.

Oh, it was mostly a joke -- Pavel made some remarks in one of the books about being proud of having chicken legs.
 
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