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Here’s a video that popped up and has been getting approximately HELLA hits lately.  Someone took one of Mark’s daily Q&A videos and made a badass compilation video using Mark’s commentary.

Mark and I don’t usually talk much.  But when we do, we either shoot the shit about training or talk about how fat I look when I sit down in my “coaching chair” 3 feet away from the platform that I’m lifting on.  However, I would like to add a few comments on why I like what he says in this video.

First off, this is not science.  It’s lifting weights.  No one ever got big and strong because they were really smart.  In a competitive setting, it is the role of the coach to do ALL the thinking and the role of the lifter to keep his focus on the immediate task at hand; training.  The lifter is the lineman.  I am the quarterback, which is really funny because I suck at football.  It’s great that we live in the age where the internet community has really embraced strength training and it’s many offspring such as powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting.  But in some ways, the internet has really contributed to taking the “sexiness” out of lifting weights.  I can’t believe that I’m about to say this . . . but back in my day (OMG), we didn’t have youtube.  We had Ironmind videos.  We would all get together and watch footage from a Chinese training hall in like 95 or have the world championships play on repeat on a shitty TV set that we kept in the weight room.  Nobody posted on forums.  Nobody read . . . anything really (if you were a coach, you might’ve posted on goheavy).  We all sort of just accepted snatches and clean and jerks for what they were, nothing more.  I’m not saying that educating yourself is wrong, I mean, I pursued a degree in exercise science just so I’d have a little better understanding of training principles and the human body.  But I can honestly say that aside from learning basic human anatomy and physiology, there is not a damn thing that I learned that made me a better weightlifter, which brings me to my next point.

There is a huge difference in being able to describe how to do something and being able to do something.  I’m well versed in training principles, biomechanics and physiology, which aids me as a coach.  This does not translate to Olympic weightlifting.  Not at all.  Furthermore, educating my lifters on why we do certain things or what actually happens when we perform a movement is not necessary.  Just ask one of them.  I don’t tell them shit unless they ask me, after which I’ll provide my rationale (which you should always be able to do as a coach) in plain. Ass. English.  Then I’ll go back to telling them only what I think is necessary for progress.  So just be wary of shit you read on the internet.  But hey, don’t take it from me.  I’m just some “rando” on the internet.