Friday 20 December 2013

Snow day, technical recap of the hang clean


                SNOW DAY!!! I had a few cancellations this morning and thought I would do a quick recap of something cool we did last week.  I think I should note something that I am quite proud of and is a key point carrying forward for this rant.  About 5 years ago I had a discectomy of my L2, L3, L4, L5 and S1.  I pretty much had all my discs removed from my lower back.  The 5 or 6 years leading up to surgery I lived in severe pain.  I got out of bed every morning looking like a bear humping a football and couldn’t straighten up until I had a hot shower.  I tried every treatment under the sun, but I think the nature of my work, past sporting endeavors and my size played a role in a difficult recovery.  I was also a stubborn idiot which didn’t help.   There is nothing more demoralizing than being strong as hell and not being able to move. As a coach, I had always relied on demonstrating movements but when getting out of bed is difficult, teaching an Olympic lift or squatting pattern is out of the question.  But something great ended up happening amidst the pain and misery (outside of my clients I became a negative prick and was not the person I was before this happened or the person I am now).  I learned how to coach.  When you take away a powerful tool in your toolbox you are forced to use other tools to get the job done.  I learned to break down and correct movements in a way I would have never even considered before.  I don’t wish injury upon any of my fellow coaches, but I hope you get where I am coming from when it comes to coaching technique.  All of this leads up to this little diddy…..

Last week I did a technical session on what I deem one of the most important movements for athletic performance.   Over the years I have seen therapists have some of their athletes demonstrate specific movement patterns for their sport or lifting techniques such as: squatting, deadlifting or Olympic lifting technique to see if their bodies are moving correctly and if they may be ready to return to loading and or sport.  I never really thought of this until recently, but how much does your therapist know about these specific movements? I am not knocking therapists; I am asking a question that needs asking (to be fair, I am doubtful of many coaches that are teaching these movements as well).  I am not implying that a therapist needs to know these movements as in depth as the strength and conditioning coaches that they will be working with to help get these athletes back to play, but surely some base level of knowledge is useful right?

                So I invited our therapy staff, all of our trainers and strength coaches and a few of our elite athletes that train with us here to do a practical session on the pocket or quick hang clean.  The intent was to have everyone have a basic understanding as to the why, when, and how we would use this movement in our programming and which athletes may qualify for the movement.  I invited a few of our athletes because I see benefit in them understanding the movement on a more intimate level and to educate them as if they were learning to be a coach.   On a side note, I demonstrated more hang cleans in this session then I have in the last ten years and my back feels amazing! 

WHY:

·         To learn how to create tension in your body prior to executing a violent movement

·         To teach a violent and synergistic movement that combines a rapid acceleration with a rapid deceleration

·         To teach the importance of understanding how important change of elevation is in sport (specifically multi-directional) and how to manipulate it based off of load

·         To create a connection between the earth and your hips/torso

·         Because 90% of athletes cannot do traditional Olympic lifts correctly due to past injuries, mobility or technical issues or time constraints.  Keep in mind, in the private industry many of our athletes are forced to work on their own and we have to triage movements for safety reasons. Many coaches are sold on forcing the movement from the floor and following the traditional styles of Olympic lifting.  My argument is this; we are building better athletes not better weight lifters and until your athletes qualify to do such a movement get bent

·         To both reinforce the hip hinge pattern and to disguise repetition of said pattern

·         To teach athletes to be explosive with a load.  Traditionally Olympic lifts are thought to be used only for power.  Obviously power is an important attribute for all athletes, but I mention this last because if you don’t understand all of the above points I wouldn’t worry about the power benefits just yet

WHEN:

·         When the athlete can show they can create and hold tension in their spine. As a simple guideline, if the athlete cannot competently execute a Romanian deadlift for the start phase, a simple jump for the drive phase or a front squat for the catch phase you need to back your programming up a bit.  Having said this, there are always exceptions to the rule but I think this is a pretty sound guideline

·         When the athlete is free of injuries and has qualified to do the movement based off the therapists recommendations and you are comfortable with them progressing the movement.

·         I use this movement year round and add or take away from it dependent on my goals for the athletes

·         If there was a movement that was so beneficial that it was worth risking injury or poor motor patterning, I have a feeling we all would be doing it

HOW:

·         If you are learning how to lift via the internet we have problems

·         I am not against talking technique in blog posts, you tube etc. But there is way too much to cover in a short period of time.  If it is your goal to be a therapist or you are a therapist it will probably help you have a clearer picture of what we are trying to achieve as strength coaches. If you are a coach on the other hand, we are in trouble if this is your main source of information

·         I am close to 15 years in my career and I still learn something every day and there is just too much info

 

I would like to wrap up by clearing something that pisses me off about the industry.  There seems to be this movement from ex or current athletes turned coach (specifically power lifters, Olympic lifters and guys that don’t look like they ever played a sport in their lives) how getting stronger is the only answer to performance and if I wrote this ten years ago I would have said the same.  But as someone that was an athlete in 3 different contact sports I can tell you this needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  There are a lot of factors in contact sports and if you are programming these movements and ignoring the loads put on your athletes bodies outside the weight room you should be slapped.  I also need to be clear; I load the shit out of my athletes as should you but only after careful scrutiny of the given situation. 

The fact is simple, if you watch an elite power or Olympic lifter train leading up to heavy loads their form is usually flawless.  And as loads increase technique decreases.  The same can be said for any sport and just substitute load with fatigue. I get that, but what we can’t lose sight of is the fact that no Olympic lifter or power lifter in the history of the world (this is an assumption actually) has ever been blindsided while under extreme load by another athlete in the snow or rain.  Their ultimate goal has no variability in it. There is no contact, extreme cold or heat it is just linear in fashion.  And do not get me wrong, I am a huge fan of both sports (I was devastated when Powerlifting USA stopped production!), but they are their own sports.  We should use and modify their lifts according to the population we are working with.  Draw from them, use their knowledge as the strongest and most powerful people in the world but only use what is applicable to your athletes!

As always, please feel free to email me with your questions or complaints.

Yours in Strength,

Joe McCullum

 

 “Pain is not my enemy, it is my call to greatness”  -Henry Rollins

Friday 13 December 2013

A few thoughts on culture in daily life



Recently I wrote an article on the importance of culture in sport and how it is something we are missing in Canada.  I have been thinking a lot about it lately as this is something that I put a lot of merit into if we want to further sport in this country.  These thoughts have led me to think about some of the negative aspects of culture as well and not just in sport.  As always, this is my opinion.  And the beauty of my opinion or anyone else’s for that matter you have the option to stop reading or blocking me from the social media platforms I post on as I do to you when you post pictures of your chick pea and kale salad.
            I don’t care if you do yoga, Pilates, crossfit, barre method, power lifting, Olympic lifting, bosu, kettle bells, spin, jazzercise, prancersize or whatever form of exercise you choose.  I also don’t care whether your diet follows the vegan, vegetarian, paleo, high protein/low carb, blood type, zone, 4 hour body protocols.  And I certainly don’t care what your religious, political, philosophical, self-helping views are.  What I do care about is what pictures you put up on facebook, twitter and Instagram telling everyone what you are associated or indoctrinated with.  I find it fascinating that people feel the need to be associated with groups or specific styles that reflect their lives and even more fascinating that there is a need to tell everyone about it.  I know this sounds crazy, but what if everyone did their own thing with the understanding that what works for them may not work for others and pushing a methodology down people’s throat is certainly not a way to convert heathens to believe what you believe or do what you do.  What if we preached balance?  As in you take a little from each of the above methods and you make it your own.  What if you be you (I stole that from Jen Kish on Twitter. I don’t know Jen but I know she is an amazing representative for our national women’s 7’s and 15’s program)? Not you being a prancersizing, paleo, republican?


            All of the things I mentioned above have components that are great and I don’t want to take anything away from that. What I do have a problem with are the people that attach themselves vehemently to these methods as if nothing else works.  I hate to break it to people, but if any of these alone were that great we would all be fucking awesome.
Culture is important in every aspect of life, but when it becomes your be all to end all we tend to close off opportunities for something far greater.  Just as when we put a mentor on a pedestal, we tend to lose the ability to question and end up following blindly. If we can’t question or choose not to question methods, we most certainly will struggle to progress in any avenue of life.

            Everyone loves to jump on band wagons or fads and I am not insinuating that any of the above are fads, but if you find yourself closing off or discounting value in them you cannot progress whatever you’re doing.  For those of you that know me, you are aware that I hate a lot of things.  For those of you that know me well, you know that I believe in balance and all things offered may have a role in creating something better (even the stuff I hate).  I’ve discounted many things in my younger years and over time I have learned to or at least tried to learn how to find the good in things and toss what I deem as useless so that I can create balance for both myself and my clients.

            For all that attach themselves to specific entities as a means to fulfill a void I have a few simple answers for you.  

·         Look for balance in everything.  Instead of making yourself a part of these methods, make these methods a part of you

·         Give more of yourself to others.  Don’t just say you donate this or do that, live it.  Don’t discount the ability to help someone in need; it may just be what you’re searching for even if your regurgitated self-help book tells you otherwise

·         Don’t be afraid to tell it like it is.   Unlike angry birds, we don’t have unlimited lives.  It’s closer to candy crush where once you screw up you just have to wait 24 hours and you can start again

·         You can’t rush experience.  This goes for everything in life from work to relationships and once you realize this you will be a little closer to peace

As always, thanks for reading and I look forward to the hate mail I will be receiving shortly.   I will close with one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite weirdo poets “Drink from the well of your self and begin again” –Charles Bukowski “Mind and Heart”

Monday 2 December 2013

The importance of sport today


                This past weekend reaffirmed my thoughts on the importance of sport.  There is a lot going on these days with funding cut backs and general misunderstanding of the need for sport in our society.  My observations and interactions with public high school coaches have me wondering if there will be high school sport or even moderately useful functioning physical education departments within the next ten years.  I will not get into the politics involved but I will share my thoughts on the importance of sport based off of what I was a part of this past weekend. 

                The Carson Graham Eagles matched up against John Barsby (the only team we had lost to this year) for the provincial championship at B.C. Place this past Saturday.  We had a great week of practice and the boys showed up ready to play.  We have had our ups and downs like all teams do, but this team was different than last year’s team (although it is made of the same kids as last year plus a few new grade 10’s and 11’s).  We transitioned from a group of underachievers to a group of overachievers in an instant.  Our opening drive had us coming out on fire and scoring after a great series of plays. It was a highly physical game with points going back and forth for both sides. In the end, Barsby won the game in the dying minutes and took the lead by one point.  The boys had just under: 90 seconds to make a comeback.  We marched the ball down to the opposing team’s 20 yard line putting us into field goal range with just :1 second  left on the clock.  Unfortunately we were unable to get the ball off in time and the game was over at the whistle.  What does this have to do with the importance of sport you ask?  How about these kids learned something that school or even their parents cannot do for them!

They learned; humility, hard work doesn’t always pay off the way you would like it to, mental and physical toughness, creativity, teamwork and discipline. Now, if you are a teacher or parent, you may not see the value in these things, but as someone that trains and leads a group of staff members I can tell you these traits are more important than a few letters after their last name.  I am by no means taking away from the value of education, but if we want well rounded citizens as our husbands, daughters, wives, friends, brothers, sisters, team mates etc. I think sport teaches a lesson that is being missed by academia.

After the game the head coach asked me to say a few words.  I may or may not have dropped a few “F” bombs, but what I did say is that I have been there.  20 years ago to be exact.  My only two memories of high school football were going undefeated in the league play and losing in the final game.  I explained how that one game had more of an effect on my life than winning a conference championship in University or any bowl games.  That I still use that feeling as a means to drive me to do the best I can do every day.  That a loss is only a loss if we don’t learn something from it and most importantly that the score is not reflective of their performance.  Because I saw kids that were softer than baby poo at the beginning of the season that would take any little injury as a means to get out and flip it to find a way to continue on.  Sport is important to me, like it is to the other 6 coaches that are Carson Graham alumni.  We see value in it that parents, teachers and others may not fully understand.  I saw a room of 30 kids and coaches cry.  Share emotion that would be laughed at normally because the only time it is acceptable for a man to cry is when they watch Old Yeller. 

I was fortunate enough to spend some professional development time in the U.S. last month and the one thing that caught my eye was a poster that was in every coach’s office.  It read “THE ‘IT’, TO CAPTURE THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF OUR PLAYERS”.  I feel like we encapsulated that this weekend.  We helped give an opportunity to kids from all walks of life achieve something great even though they didn’t win their final game. 

I know there are plenty of great articles that preach the importance of sport from a physical standpoint or from the standpoint of an employer when looking to make a hire.  But to me, it goes way further than that.  You have ex-players, coaches, friends and family coming to support something special.  The head coach that retired after I graduated made the trip over from the island to support the boys, as did numerous ex-players and supporters.  It is a mixed bag of emotions for all, but if it brings that many people together for a common goal, it has to be good doesn’t it? 

Anywho, to end this rant. Put your kids in sport to help them learn some valuable lessons that can’t be learned from the google.

Yours in Strength,

Joe McCullum