This barbarian just won the title of “King of the Hill.”

1) You are to take 10 snatch attempts between 75-90%, the goal being to make as many attempts at 90% as possible.

2) Your attempts start at 75%.  So realistically, the max number of attempts one could possibly make at 90% is around 7 unless you decide to take what I refer to as a “Derek Su jump.”  Just kidding, Derek.

3)  Each time you miss, you get penalized by having to strip your bar down to 75% and start over.

4)  The lifter who makes the most attempts at 90% is the “Alpha” and should receive some sort of reward as determined by the coach.   Could be booze.  Could be protein powder.  In our case, maybe I’ll let the lifter decide on a special rule or theme for a Friday workout.

And this.

Dan Green is one of the baddest raw powerlifters on the planet.  With a physique cut out of a Frank Frazzeta illustration, Dan looks like he should be holding a battle ax in his mitts rather than a barbell.  Watching this dude work is awesome.  I’m sure he doesn’t remember me, but I remember seeing him power clean the dickens out of 160+ at a few local weightlifting meets some time back.  Oh, and that WR bench press by Spoto? What the hell, man.  Do you know what I can do with 722lbs?  Stare at it and maybe roll the bar back and forth until I get bored.  All the guys from ST performed well too.  Mark showcased his skill with some raw bench presses and suited deadlifts.  I’m pretty sure some of the other guys got some PR’s too.  Basically, my gym is awesome.  Cool stuff happens here on a regular basis.

Any excuse for a Frazetta illustration. Here’s Dan getting psyched up for his 3rd attempt deadlift.

2) Make 3 consecutive singles in a row.

3) Two in a row is “HEATING UP.”

4) Three in a row is “ON FIRE.”

5) You now get to “shoot ’till you miss” at 90+%.  I recommend no more than 5 attempts beyond this point.

6) If you make a PR, “BOOMSHAKALAKA!”

4 week block

Keep in mind, if you’re not on my team, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT YOU FOLLOW THIS ROUTINE. #1) You don’t pay me. #2) I give a lot of verbal instructions/modifications for these workouts. Suffice it to say, some stuff is lost in translation. #3) If you’re on your own with no coach, make your own routine. Snatch and Clean and jerk. The rest is just details. I put this up here so that it’s easily accessible to my athletes and for entertainment purposes only.

And here’s the Prez liftin’ like a boss.

New 4 week block is 90% complete.  Just looking it over a few more times before I post it.

If you’re in the area, please come check it out. Lifting starts at 9 and if you’ve ever been to a weightlifting meet before, then you know that these things usually last through the evening. Wear your tank top, it’s gonna be a hot one.

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.

Everyone from the Cal Strength crew is super chill.  Hopefully we can set something up where we can all train together once every couple months or so.