I have been coached by Giles for the last few years, and during that time he has given me much advice on how to address my considerable competition nerves. I’ve implemented his suggestions and am performing better as a result! Now Giles has brought his advice and experience together in this post, which I hope you find as useful as I have. Over to Giles…

As a weightlifter I was not a natural competitor, it was something I had to learn.

I was practically dragged to my first competition, bombed out at my first Commonwealth Games and performed badly at my second Commonwealth Games when I felt the pressure of being the favourite after Stefan Botev pulled out. I suspect that if Botev had lifted, I would have performed better as an also-ran.

Although disappointing, the second Commonwealths was certainly an improvement over the first, and my third Commonwealth Games was to be the best performance of my weightlifting career.

I had controlled my debilitating nerves, allowing me to focus on the task at hand and fulfil my potential.

Admit the problem

The first stage of controlling your competition nerves is to accept that there’s a problem which needs addressing. It is easy to admit to a physical weakness (that you need more leg strength if you want to get up with your cleans for example) and take the appropriate measures. A mental weakness is more difficult to accept but is just as trainable as a physical one.

Once you have decided that you need to work on your approach, familiarity and routine are your friends. What follows are some tips which worked for me.

Train for competition

When you are training, imagine you are in a competition. Lift correctly and try to picture a referee telling you to put the bar down at the end of each lift. That extra half second under the weight will accustom you competition rules so you don’t have to adapt to them on the day.

Change your training “spot”

You never know what you’ll be looking at when you lift in a competition so it’s a bad idea to get used to always lifting in the same spot in the gym. If your gym has more than one platform, train on a different platform each workout; if not, try turning to face a different way for some training sessions. It is also helpful to regularly visit other gyms for a workout.

All of this makes you more focused on the bar and platform than on the environment around. The one thing all competitions have in common is that you will be lifting a heavy weight on a platform. Whatever the environment, from a local gym competition to the Olympic Games, the competitor stands on a platform on his / her own and performs a snatch or clean & jerk with a weight which is challenging to them. Focusing on this helps you to stop focusing on, and being intimidated by, the surrounding environment.

Build a pre-training and pre-competition routine

Before each training session, watch the same video of your favourite lifter to inspire you to train hard. If possible, edit this together with video of your best performance so you start to associate your best performance and your favourite lifter with good training sessions. Listen to the same piece of music before each training session and eat the same pre-training snack.

If you routinely do all of these things, it is easy to do the same before each competition. This gives you a link between competing and training, reminds you that they are basically the same thing and helps settle your nerves. I used to use a different tune in the build up for each competition (ranging from Hanson to Motorhead) but kept the same video, Waldemar Malak lifting in the 1992 Olympic Games followed by some of my own lifting.

If nerves are affecting your performance, why not give these techniques a try? For me, they made the difference between missing all my lifts and getting a gold medal. It was worth taking the chance.

Giles adds: thanks to Professor Dave Collins, sports scientist and psychologist, who nagged me into trying these techniques and in doing so contributed significantly to my eventual successes.

Do you get nervous when competing? Have you tried any strategies to overcome them? Share your experiences in the comments below!

An olympic weightlifting coach for some twenty years, Pendlay has until now stayed largely within the weightlifting and strength sports world, referenced by the likes of Mark Rippetoe, with whom he has worked extensively (you may have noticed Pendlay credited in Rippetoe’s books).

But now with a snazzy, content-rich website at www.californiastrength.com, a new DVD published by On Target (the same folks who brought you Dan John’s Never Let Go DVD series), and even an interview on T-Nation, Glenn Pendlay is set to be everyone’s new favourite weightlifting guru!

I don’t mean to take the mickey, as this guy is the real deal. With the renewed interest in olympic weightlifting (due largely to the growth of Crossfit), it is fantastic to have a serious weightlifting coach putting good quality material out there in an accessible format.

And that is exactly what this two-disc DVD set represents. This is Glenn Pendlay’s method for teaching the snatch and the clean & jerk to complete beginners. You can use this DVD to learn the lifts yourself; you can also use it to teach others.

I have already used Pendlay’s method to teach people – both in a workshop setting and in a one-to-one setting – and I really like it. It is effective, it gets people doing the lifts quickly, and it drills good technique right from the beginning.

His progressions are simple (he focusses just on three key positions), systematic and easy to communicate. He is very clear about what needs to be corrected and how best to do this.

Like the Dan John DVDs, the presentation is a workshop delivered to a real audience. It’s possible to play along at home, and also useful from a coaching  point of view to see Glenn’s methods implemented with a variety of different body types and levels of skill.

‘Ideal’ technique is demonstrated by one of Pendlay’s star weightlifters, Jon North, who is the number one ranked 94kg lifter in the US.

Pendlay has a comfortable presentation style. He’s relaxed and clear; like his method, there is little that is extraneous or by-the-by. Pendlay mentions his credentials at the start of the workshop: he studied with Alexey Medvedev, Soviet national coach, in Moscow and started coaching soon afterwards in the early nineties. He has coached national champions in the US at all ages and currently has a crop of promising young elite weightlifters at his club, California Strength.

This is an excellent DVD for learning and teaching the olympic lifts. Glenn is making a visit to the UK soon and I am looking forward to learning more in person – and will of course share any insights with you.

You can buy the DVD from me here (the best option if you are in the UK) or from the US publisher here (makes more sense if you are in the US).

Dan John’s DVDs on Olympic Lifting for Beginners and Perfecting Your Kettlebell Form are also available in the gubernatrix shop.

More from gubernatrix

• What’s the difference between powerlifting, olympic weightlifting and strongman?
• Basic barbell programmes reviewed
• Coach Dan John answers your questions
• Show up, lift things
• Review of Dan John seminar in Ireland

Mikhail Koklyaev, arguably the only man on the planet who is world class in all these sports

The short answer

I have been asked this question many times! The quickest way to explain is to describe the events, as anyone who is interested enough to ask has probably seen some in action:

• Powerlifting is the squat, bench press and deadlift.
• Olympic weightlifting is the snatch and the clean & jerk.
• Strongman is a variety of events such as atlas stones, farmer’s walk, log clean and press, carrying/loading medley.

So much for the 30 second answer. But there’s much more to it than that!

What are powerlifting, weightlifting and strongman and why do people care?

They are all strength sports. You can do them competitively or just do them in the gym. In fact many studio gyms, Crossfit affiliates and internet gurus now regularly feature moves and skills from these sports in their programmes (such as power clean or farmers walk) and naturally people are curious as to where they come from.

Incidentally these are not the only strength sports. Others include all-round weightlifting, highland games, grip, arm wrestling, girevoy sport (kettlebells) and the heavy athletics events of hammer, shot put, discus, javelin and weight pentathlon (although these are also in their own category of ‘throwing sports’).

You won’t see any of these on television in the UK however as the British media is obsessed with team sports, motor sports and running (and once every four years the ‘sitting down’ sports of cycling, rowing and sailing). But that’s a rant for another time…

We can't even watch strongman at Christmas any more!

Isn’t ‘weightlifting’ just lifting weights?

Technically, weightlifting is the sport of the snatch and the clean & jerk. However most people use ‘weightlifting’ as a generic term to mean any lifting of a weight. So those involved in the sport of weightlifting have taken to referring to it as olympic weightlifting or even olympic lifting, as it is the only weight lifting sport that features in the Olympics.

What about bodybuilding?

Bodybuilding involves lifting weights, but the goal is aesthetic, not a performance goal. The competition is about who has the most pleasing physique, not who is the strongest or fastest.

So the lifts are different – what else?

These sports test different types of strength. Powerlifting tests absolute strength as the bar is moved a relatively short distance in a relatively uncomplicated manner, making these events the heaviest in terms of poundage.The powerlifting events are sometimes referred to as the slow lifts, because you simply have to move a weight from point A to point B in whatever time it takes. Sometimes the lift can grind out for several seconds.

World record holder Andy Bolton deadlifting an extremely heavy bar

In olympic weightlifting the bar must be moved at speed. The bar starts on the floor and is pulled up to waist height but then the lifter must drop under the bar at speed in order to catch it overhead. For this reason olympic weightlifting has the reputation of being the most technically difficult of the three sports.

Dmitry Klokov in different phases of the snatch

In strongman, all types of strength are tested – strength, strength-speed, endurance, grip, even cardiovascular conditioning, over a full day of several events. Usually the winner is the competitor who is the most consistent, the best all-rounder.

Don’t you have to be huge to do powerlifting, weightlifting or strongman?

Chen Xiexia of China, under 48kg gold medal winner in Beijing

No, not at all. They are all weight class sports, like boxing or martial arts, so it doesn’t matter what weight you are, you will fit into one of the categories. As an example, in weightlifting the women’s categories start at under 48kg, and the men’s start at under 56kg.

Strongman is a bit different. It used to be that competitions were just ‘open’, i.e. no weight classes. However weight classes such as under 105kg and under 90kg have been introduced, giving the lighter guys a chance to be competitive. Strongwoman still tends to be ‘open’ but there have been under 75kg competitions and FK.UK went even further by introducing weight classes of under 61kg and 61kg and over for women (similar to the lightweight/heavyweight split in rowing).

How do you learn these sports?

With all of these sports, you will progress better with a coach and training partners, just as in any sport. In the UK, there are many gyms which specialise in one or more of these sports. They don’t advertise in the way that chain gyms do, so you might think they don’t exist. But they are there – in fact, I am willing to bet there is at least one in your town!

Any decent powerlifting, strongman or weightlifting gym will have experienced lifters – usually the owner of the gym and the regulars – who will be happy to show a newcomer the ropes and find a group for them to train with.

Don’t worry if you feel that you are ‘not that strong’. Experienced lifters don’t look for great strength in newbies; they look for attitude and work ethic.

There are also many online resources, including this website! I have a range of articles on lifting technique and many stories of my experiences in competitive strength sports. There’s also a list of useful links at the bottom of this post.

Can you learn olympic weightlifting from videos?

Yes and no. You can learn enough to get started and have a bit of fun – and often that is all people are interested in. But you need a real live coach to learn the lifts properly.

It’s a sport in which you need a lot of feedback on your movement, particularly in the early stages. Watching a video will tell you what the movement should look like and give you some drills but it will tell you nothing about what you are actually doing. Which might be some way from the video!

A full-length teaching video such as Dan John’s ‘Olympic Lifting for Beginners’ is the best option if you don’t have access to a coach or club.

Here are some ideas to get you started: olympic weightlifting – starting out

What about elite competition?

If you want to win an Olympic medal you will need to take up weightlifting as that is the only one that is currently an Olympic sport. Athletes with a disability compete in Paralympic powerlifting, which is the bench press only.

GB powerlifter Natalie Blake prepares for the bench press in Beijing. She benches over twice her bodyweight.

Globally, olympic lifting is the best organised sport as it has a single international federation, the IWF. Each country has a national governing body. In the UK, this is BWLA. If you want to get into competition, compete nationally and perhaps even represent your country, you will need to join your national federation and start lifting in their competitions.

Powerlifting has a glut of international federations; most people compete in one, maybe two. So there’s no single powerlifting competition where all the world’s best powerlifters lift against each other (apart from paraylmpic powerlifting). In your country, there may be several federations. I’ve lost count of how many there are in the UK – it’s at least five!

Strongman has no single international federation either, but the World’s Strongest Man brand is the best known competition. There are others though, including the Arnold and Fortissimus. In the UK, most strongman competitions are put on by individuals and you don’t have to be a member of a club or federation to compete in them. You just put your name down and pay the entry fee.

How do I get involved?

Like any sport, the best way to get involved is to find a local club and join it. Strength sports are minority sports in the UK, so don’t be surprised if you have to dig around for information or travel a bit further to find your nearest club. The upside is that you’ll probably be welcomed with open arms – all minority sports love new members!

Videos

Powerlifting – IPF promotional video

Weightlifting – Andrei Aramnau at the Beijing olympics

Strongman – Pudzianowski and Savickas in the final of WSM 2009

Useful forums (UK only)

Sugden Barbell – strongman, powerlifting and weightlifting
Powerlifting UK – powerlifting and strongman
Powerlifting UK’s list of powerlifting gyms (not exhaustive but somewhere to start)
FK.UK – weightlifting, Crossfit, general strength and conditioning
Muscletalk – bodybuilding, powerlifting and strongman

More from gubernatrix

• Scenes from a powerlifting year
• Strength revelations: what I’ve learned from strongman
• Olympic weightlifting: starting out
• Basic barbell programmes reviewed

This is a guest post by strength & conditioning coach Phil Nourse. Phil is a certified weightlifting coach by both BWLA and USAW. This post follows on neatly from my last post on basic barbell programmes as it introduces a different approach (from Steve Justa) and discusses the use of intensity in the training cycle. Over to Phil…

Renowned American powerlifter Arthur ‘Superman’ Jones once said, “There is a difference between lifting more and actually getting stronger.”

The point Jones was making was that lifting heavy weights in training does not actually mean that our pure strength will increase. Of course in weightlifting and powerlifting our strength is benchmarked by our performance in competition. Russian strength guru Pavel Tstatsouline says of this approach, “train light, compete heavy.”

In my experience of competitive weightlifting in the UK and USA this approach is often overlooked or rejected in favour of an irrational obsession with intensity. Why is this the case?

Perhaps it is a fascination with certain aspects of eastern bloc philosophy including the so-called Bulgarian approach.

It may also be the culture of ‘hard work’ which permeates this sport as well as many other aspects of strength training and sports in general. Right from the teenage wannabe bodybuilder through to competitive track and field athletes one very frequently comes across the attitude that if hard and frequent is good, harder and more frequent will be better. Commendable but, I would argue, possibly naïve.

Lastly, and this will be controversial, I feel that the sport of weightlifting often places itself upon a pedestal and is incredibly introspective, whereas if it were to take a more extrospective view it may learn something from other strength sports, particular the experiences of elite powerlifters. One only has to read works on powerlifting to realise that their sport is very outward looking and open minded to learning from other strength sports; most often, weightlifting.

Examples in powerlifting of success achieved through the “train light, compete heavy” approach are numerous. Andy Bolton (pictured, above) pulled a world record 455kg deadlift having taken no more than 340kg for a triple in the preceeding 8-week training cycle. (Both lifts were suited but suits add little to a deadlift unlike the squat and bench press.)

Another example is the bench press programme of Vladimir Volkov, the European bench press champion and masters world champion in the 220lb class. In the 10-week cycle leading up to the Russian bench press championship of 2005 he trained the bench press an average of 3 1/3 times per week (that is, relatively frequently), never took loads above 88 per cent of his competition maximum and only attempted loads between 81 and 88 per cent in 15 per cent of his workouts and usually only for a single or, infrequently, a double. All other workouts used loads between 59 and 79 per cent. He would take that championship with a bench press of 270kg.

It is this relatively frequent practice with light to moderate loads which Tsatsouline terms “greasing the groove.” He attributes the success of the approach to the improvements in intramuscular coordination which he contends it delivers. Russian powerlifter, Sergey Pavlov adds, “when you are just thinking WHETHER you will lift the bar, you are not thinking about HOW to lift it.” As we said earlier, lifting heavy weights and getting stronger are not the same thing.

Tsatsouline believes that the optimal load for gaining strength is in the 70-80 per cent (of 1 rep max) range which is, he suggests “heavy enough to notice, yet light enough to pay attention to the technique and not need to psyche up.”

It is interesting that the Russian guru proposes this range as it is also recommended by an American natural strongman, Steve Justa. Justa is precisely the type of athlete the weightlifting world would generally, I believe, pay little attention to, yet his works are intelligent and thought provoking.

In his book, Rock, Iron, Steel he details a program which he suggests is “very efficient and will build tremendous strength.” Justa even goes as far as to contend it to be excellent for developing “one lift you would like to practice and excel in and maybe set a world record in.”

In brief the routine involves practicing the chosen lift every day, utilising only singles and always using loads between 70 and 80 per cent of maximum. It is this percentage range which he calls “the target zone” and proposes that “this is the zone you must stay in when training to get stronger the fastest.”

On the first Monday you would perform three singles with 70 per cent, Tuesday would be five singles, Wednesday seven and so on up to fifteen on the Sunday. The following week the load increases to around 73.3 per cent, the next to 76.6 per cent and in the fourth the loads are at 80 per cent. One rep max is then tested and the process repeated.

When I ran this by friends and acquaintances in the weightlifting world their response was practically unanimous: “I don’t think there’s enough intensity”, or words to that effect. The quote from American coach, John Coffee was “I’d be scared to experiment with it out of fear that it wouldn’t work.”

Throughout my two-month experiment on the programme my knees and quads felt fantastic, no aches or pains, I actually looked forward to my squat sessions rather than dreading them, my olympic lifting sessions were better and, much to my delight, my incredibly stubborn squat max improved for the first time in a long time. A scientific experiment? Not at all. Did I care? Definitely not; it worked for me.

In his book Steve Justa relays a hypothetical to explain his thought process. This rings very true with me and also will with many of you:

“Let’s say your max is 500lbs in the deadlift, and you’ve worked up to the point where you’re pulling 450 for reps, say three reps, and you want to do four sets of three reps for your workout. Well this is fine for one workout. Even if you’re tough mentally, as you start lifting and gut your way through the workout, because you’re lifting so close to your max, every rep is hard and every set is hard. If you make it through this workout, when you finally make it, you say to yourself ‘I’m on the verge of lifting too heavy, but I made it and I feel happy, but it will feel lighter next workout – it has to because I don’t know how many more workouts like that last one I can endure.’

It’s at this point your mind’s already giving out on you because you’re questioning yourself if you could work that hard again if you had to. Then, until your next workout, this feeling of dread sticks with you, and if you’re going to use the same weight this time as last, you know you’re in for trouble. You know you’re out of your target zone but you want to push ahead rather than have to take weight off and start all over again.

For some reason, to the ambitious strength athlete, the thought of having to take weight off a lift you’ve already done is a fate worse than death itself. And this is a mentality you must not carry. Never be ashamed or embarrassed or feel let down because you have to take a little weight off a lift to keep training. If it feels too heavy, it probably IS too heavy for you to be training with.

But getting back to the story, you approach your next workout with dread because you know it’s going to be a killer mentally and physically, but you’re expecting it to be a little lighter than last time since you’ve already had one workout with this weight. So you hit the workout and for some reason it feels even heavier to you this time than it did last time. Well, now you’ve really got trouble mentally when this happens, and you really feel frustrated. But no, you think, I’m tough, I can handle it. So you gut your way through another backbreaking workout, carrying a sense of dread and destruction with you the whole time.”

Of course weightlifting and powerlifting are different sports and the style of lifting is also very different. My gut feeling is that the way we get stronger in the explosive lifts may be very physiologically and neurologically different that in the slow, strength lifts.

That said I also believe there is much that the sport of weightlifting can learn from these coaches and athletes who are succeeding in related sports. At the very least we may wish to experiment with such methodologies in our squats, presses and so forth.

More than this, though, any experienced coach can surely see how this discussion relates to that lifter with a preoccupation with intensity, i.e. he/she who continually misses far, far more lifts in training than they catch due to regular use of loads which are too heavy and the associated breakdown in form.

Why would anyone want to practice failure? Why would anyone want to think constantly about whether they will lift the bar and not how to lift it? Both will lead to deterioration and confusion of skill specific intramuscular coordination, mislearning, which in competition – under pressure and with heavy loads – will result in technical breakdown at the very moment it needs to be perfect.

More from gubernatrix

Five secrets of more effective training
Testing your one rep max
Define your training
On not making progress

What is a good morning?

The good morning is a compound movement working the back and hamstrings. It is used as an assistance exercise for strengthening the posterior chain.

With the bar on your back, bend forward at the hips until your torso is parallel to the floor, then return to a standing position. In other words, take a bow with a weight on your back!

Why is it such a great exercise?

The good morning is an effective way to strengthen the back. It also requires confidence and control to perform well, which are useful skills to master.

Although it might look a bit dangerous at first glance, it is perfectly safe if performed with proper technique and an appropriate weight.

Good mornings have been a standard assistance exercise in olympic weightlifting for many decades. Heavy good mornings and concentric good mornings have been popularised for powerlifters by Westside Barbell.

How to perform the good morning

Practise this movement with just a barbell until you are confident with the technique and body position.

Step 1: start position

Take up a position as if for a back squat: legs slightly wider than hip width apart, barbell across your back resting on the traps (top of shoulders) not the neck.

You can experiment with different stances; a wider stance will work the hamstrings more while a narrow stance will work the lower back more.

Grip

Your hands should be as close to your shoulders as is comfortable (this will vary with your flexibility).

Position of barbell on back

Breathing

As in the deadlift, take a deep breath and hold it throughout the lift or at least until you are on the way back up. This breathing technique creates intra-abdominal pressure which helps to stabilise the spine.

Step 2: bend forward from the hips

Start the movement by bending forward from the hips, keeping the knees soft. Think about pushing your butt out behind you.

Legs

Keep your legs almost straight, with a slight bend in the knee so that they are not locked out completely.

Back

Be careful not to round your lower back; maintain the curve in your lumbar spine. (Note: there is such a thing as a rounded back good morning but this is not in the scope of this article as it has specialist applicability.)

As you bend forward, the bar is held in place on your shoulders by pushing your shoulder blades back and your elbows up.

Push shoulders and elbows up

Head

Keep your head in a neutral position. This means that as you bend over, your gaze will be directed towards the floor, not ahead of you.

Don’t be tempted to look up in an attempt to keep the bar on your back; the bar will stay in place if you keep your shoulders back, elbows up and a slight curve in your lower back.

Step 3: descend to parallel

Bend forward as close to parallel with the floor as you can go without rounding your lower back. For many people, this will not be quite parallel as they will be limited by hamstring flexibility but try to go for maximum range of motion rather than maximum weight on the bar!

Remember to keep the head neutral all the way down, keeping the bar in place with shoulders and elbow position.

You should feel a stretch in both the hamstrings and lower back in the bottom position of the good morning.

Step 4: return to standing position

Reverse the movement back to a standing position, maintaining the position of the head and back. Make sure you bring the hips back in fully before starting the next rep – in other words, stand up straight.

Concentric good morning

A concentric good morning is a variation of the standard good morning exercise, where you perform the second half of the movement first. You start in the bottom position, almost parallel to the floor, and lift the bar to a standing position.

The idea is to mimic the position of the back in the deadlift, but to focus more on the spinal erectors than a normal deadlift would do by taking a lot of the leg power out of the equation.

Concentric good mornings are usually used by powerlifters as a back assistance exercise or as a training alternative to the deadlift (as some advanced powerlifters do not deadlift very often).

How to perform a concentric good morning

Set the bar to the correct position in the rack. You will need to be able to lift the bar with a flat back, so don’t set the rack too low if you don’t have the flexibility to get into that bottom position.

Concentric good morning - start position

Take up position under the bar as you would with a normal good morning. Lift the bar, driving up against it leading with the shoulders until hips are fully extended and you are standing up straight.

Concentric good morning - top position

Then return the bar to the rack in the bottom position, being careful that you rack the bar properly before letting go.

How to use the good morning in your training

The good morning functions as an assistance exercise for the posterior chain, especially the lower back. It is a good option on days when you don’t deadlift but need a back exercise.

If being used as a back assistance exercise, good mornings can be done with light-to-medium weights for 6-10 reps.

If being used by a powerlifter as an alternative to the deadlift on a ‘heavy’ day, heavy weights for 1-5 reps can be used.

Good mornings can be used in warm ups (with light weights of course, maybe just a barbell) to warm up the back muscles. They can also be used as part of a barbell complex, for example: front squat – push press – good morning.

Powerlifters and olympic lifters in particular will benefit from heavy good mornings such as 3×3, but anyone who wants to build lower back strength will find these useful. Just remember not to compromise range of motion for more weight.

Watch a video demo of the good morning and the concentric good morning

More from gubernatrix

How to deadlift
How to front squat
Assistance exercises
Why you should full squat

What do we mean by one rep max?

Your one rep max is the heaviest weight you can lift for a single rep in the chosen exercise. So for example you might want to find your one rep max in the squat or maybe the clean and jerk.

There are several reasons why you might want to do a one rep max session:

Curiosity – just what is the maximum amount of weight you can lift?

Programming – if you are following or constructing a programme based on percentage of one rep max, you need to know what your one rep max is. Online calculators that work this out from your 5 or 10 rep max are not particularly accurate – it’s better to do a proper test yourself

Training effect – going really heavy, up to your max, has a useful training effect. Max singles require the maximum amount of neurological and muscular coordination, effort and force you can possibly muster. Your max lift should be the lift where you recruit the most muscle you possibly can; getting to this point will make you stronger.

But your max is a different animal (and a different number) depending on factors such as whether you have worked up to it over a period of weeks or months and what type of environment you are in.

Powerlifters or olympic weightlifters for example talk about their ‘training max’ and their ‘competition max’. The training max is the maximum amount they have lifted in the gym – which usually means a safe, familiar environment with no pressure and no judges. The competition max is the maximum amount they have achieved at a meet – in an adrenalin-fuelled competitive environment.

Some lifters do their best lifts in competition; some do better in the gym.

Non-competitive trainees who have tested their max usually mean the most weight they managed to lift on a particular day. They may or may not have prepared for that max day.

Dan John offers some amusing but insightful definitions of max here.

For the purposes of this article, I’m talking about testing your max on a given day in the gym. This is not something you need to prepare for specifically.

I do a session like this when I need to know my training max for a new programme. I’ve just done one recently because I’ve had a few months off and I therefore don’t really know where my strength is at the moment.

It should be noted that I did not walk back into the gym after three months and immediately perform a max test. I spent about a month easing back in first!

When are you ready for a max test?

Going to your one rep max is not something that most people should be doing every week. If you are an advanced trainee, this could break you quickly, and if you are a complete beginner, there are better ways to use the time.

I’d say you need to have a good few months training (at least) under your belt before it is worth doing max singles. I didn’t bother doing them for several years.

There are two simple reasons for this:

1. If you have not been lifting for very long, your single won’t represent your best effort. It takes time and practise to develop the necessary neuromuscular coordination to make your best lift your first and only lift. I explain more about why this is the case in the article What is Strength? Beginners tend to do their best lift a few reps into the set. For beginners, a 5 rep max is a more helpful indication of strength.
2. You need to be solid in your technique in order to do a good single in the first place. If your technique is not good, you won’t be getting an accurate reading of your strength. Many people need to spend months working on mobility and flexibility in order to achieve a decent squat.

However if you have been training for a while and you are confident with your technique, it could be fun to try your one rep max.

How to test your one rep max

If you’ve never done it before, it’s not as scary as you think! It is also not a standard process, it very much depends on how you best operate. The objective after all is to get your max, not to do a particular number of reps at a particular weight or ‘work your heart and lungs’ or whatever.

The process is simple. Here’s a summary.

• Do a thorough warm up: first a general warm up for the body, then some warm up sets in the lift you are testing.
• When you are warmed up, start doing single reps.
• Take as much rest as you need fully to recover between efforts.
• Increment the weight in whatever amounts you feel appropriate for you.
• Keep going until you cannot complete a rep with good form.
• You’ve got your training max. Go forth and conquer!

Warm up

It is helpful to get your muscles warm and your heart rate up a bit. You’ll want to do some mobility work to loosen up and work out any kinks. Keep it all very light.

Once you’ve got everything going, it’s time to do your warm up sets in the target lift. This is the area people are most unsure about. You need to prepare sufficiently for a very heavy effort. But you don’t want to expend too much energy on the warm up as you want to put it all into your max effort.

The way I work it out is using number of reps. Other people might use percentage of target max or some other method. It doesn’t really matter, so long as you get an effective warm up.

My method works as follows. I start with a weight I can lift with good form very comfortably for 10 reps. This is an opportunity for me to get the heart rate up, blood flowing and practise the key bits of technique I will need to focus on in the singles. An example of this would be keeping my chest up in the squat. I use the set of ten to really focus on keeping the chest up and driving hard. You want to give your body a chance to practise what it will need to be doing under great stress later.

I then have a rest, maybe 2 or 3 minutes and then do a set of 5, again at a weight where I can get 5 reps reasonably comfortably. Once more I focus on elements of technique that I really want to get right.

From there, I move onto doubles, that is, 2-rep sets. At this point what I’m doing is getting my body ready to feel a really heavy weight. If I went from a set of 5 to a single, the difference in weight would be a bit of a shock. Mentally I might feel that the weight was too heavy. So you get your body used to heavy weights but without wasting energy by doing lots of reps.

I’ll do maybe 2 sets of doubles, again with 2-3 minutes rest in between. Then I’ll start my singles. I start my singles with a weight that is very challenging but that I expect to be able to complete. Psychologically it’s not very encouraging to fail your first single!

I generally take at least 4 minutes rest between single efforts.

If you are testing an olympic lift, the process should be slightly different. Olympic weightlifters generally would not bother doing sets of 5 and 10 to warm up, but will warm up with partial lifts and lower rep ranges. This is because form deteriorates in the olympic lifts much quicker than in the power lifts and it can be counter productive to do high rep sets.

There are specific olympic lifting warm up sequences such as the Burgener warm up which you can utilise to get your technique practise in before moving onto doubles and singles.

Incrementing the weight

Your max effort will be affected by how you increase the weight from single to single. If you make too big a jump up in weight, and fail the lift, you’ve wasted energy on that attempt. However if you increment in amounts that are too small you are wasting energy doing too many lifts before reaching your max.

Don’t get hung up about it – just be sensible. On a lift like squat or deadlift you should be able to increment by at least 5kg until perhaps right at the very end when you might increment by 2.5kg. My own rule of thumb is to increment by 5kg until I get to the point where I really don’t know whether I will make the next lift or not, based on how the last one felt. When that is the case, I switch to 2.5kg increments.

On the bench press, your increments may be smaller, especially if you are female. I tend to increment by 2.5kg for bench press singles. You can get hold of even smaller plates if necessary (that is, smaller than 1.25kg).

Failing a lift

If you fail at a particular weight, usually that is your max. Sometimes though you might feel that the lift was nearly there, in which case you can often rest for a few minutes, come back and try again.

This is your own judgement call. Sometimes you fail and you know that’s it for the day. Sometimes you want to have another go. It’s entirely up to you.

One rule that I have for myself when testing a training max is that I stop when my form starts to deteriorate. If my back starts rounding on deadlift for example, then that is my max lift for the day – even if I still feel ‘strong’.

There’s no point getting yourself injured just for a training max. Where’s the glory in having to take six weeks off for injury?

Of course you should also stop if you are no longer getting your desired range of motion in the lift. If you are testing your max bench press, for example, and you don’t manage to touch your chest with the bar, you should not count this as a max.

General principles

Recover as much as you need to between each lift – you are not trying to get a ‘cardio’ effect from shorter rest periods, you are trying to lift as much as you possibly can. 4 minutes works for me. In my opinion your rest should not be shorter than 3 minutes and can be 5 or over for very advanced lifters.

Don’t expend all your energy on the warm up. It is just the warm up, not the purpose of the session. Everything in the session needs to be geared towards getting that max single.

Have your head on straight. Try not to psyche yourself out but you do need to take it seriously, concentrate, focus and be present in the lift.

Get some help – spotters, or even just friends to encourage you and make you feel better. Doing a max session on your own can be tough and lonely.

Your favourite workout music often helps. If you work out better to music, put some on. Again, the purpose of the session is to get a max, not to make life harder unnecessarily.

Prepare for the day

Exercise some common sense and prepare for the session in advance, in order to maximise your chances of hitting a good number. Have a couple of rest days or light training days before the one rep max session. Get a good night’s sleep the night before and make sure you are well fed and watered on the day.

More suggestions

• How to prepare for a one rep max strength test
• How to warm up for a one rep max

Got any tips for a one rep max session?

Olympic lifts, kettlebells, gymnastic rings….these are a few of our favourite things….

Ever wished that there was a single instruction manual containing all of this cool stuff? Well, now there is!

Andrew Stemler, creator of the popular i-Course – a full day of learning all the key Crossfit skills – has produced a manual to go along with it. You can support Gubernatrix.co.uk by getting your copy here.

This means, oh joy, that all you people who would love to go to the i-Course but can’t get to one can now do your own version at home. And you people who are lucky enough to have attended the i-Course now have a handy reference guide for all those skills that you only just managed to take in on the day.

What’s in the manual?

The 85-page Elite Fitness Manual is packed full of goodies including:

• Olympic lifts and all their progressions
• Kettlebell exercises
• Gymnastic ring training
• Bodyweight exercises
• Abdominal training
• Muscle-up

It covers practically every key exercise and lift in the functional fitness arsenal. All except the bench press. But you know how to bench, right?

Who is the manual for?

The manual is designed to be suitable both for beginners and intermediate trainees. There is plenty of progression in all the key exercises so if you are a beginner you start with the first progression and if you are an intermediate, jump in where you feel comfortable.

You don’t need any experience in the exercises themselves but a general familiarity with free weights and bodyweight exercises is helpful. If you’ve only ever worked out on machines, you’ll be in for a shock!

Many of the skills described in the manual are so complex and tricky to master that you will be kept busy for weeks, months, years. Stemler comments that “you never master the squat: its always work in progress: there is always something you can improve”, and I can personally attest to this as my squat has been a work in progress for about five years!

That’s why a manual like this is so useful and such good value for money. It will last many years, possibly a lifetime. As it is an ebook it is a good deal cheaper than the traditionally published equivalent would be.

Presentation

One aspect that has always impressed me about Stemler’s publications is the look and feel. Compared to many self-published ebooks in this genre, the presentation is slick, entertaining and easy to read. The photo sequences are very helpful. I always find it frustrating when a book presents only one photograph of a particular move; what you really want to know is what it looks like to get from A to B.

The Elite Fitness Manual breaks key moves down photographically, which is really helpful. Nevertheless Stemler acknowledges that this lends a certain falsity to what are fluid and dynamic movements.

The overall thrust of the manual is not: here’s an ideal way to do this difficult move that only super-flexible 12-year-olds can pull off, but more: here are some safe progressions that you can practise on your own.  Eventually you will be able to put them all together.

So the Elite Fitness Manual is your passport to a broad range of athletic, functional skills and can be yours for only £12.99. Worth every penny, I’d say.

Go shop!

More from gubernatrix

• Review: the Crossfit London i-Course
• The A-Z of training books
• Review: the complete guide to training with free weights
• Kettlebell training guide
• Muscle-up and ring training guide

On Sunday I attended the Crossfit London i-course in east London, a full day event aiming to teach participants all the essential Crossfit skills, from olympic lifts to rings to kettlebells to bodyweight exercises. I was invited to attend and review the course by Andrew Stemler of Crossfit London, whom I have trained with before.

About the i-Course

The i-Course concept is, as far as I am aware, the only course of its kind in the UK and certainly the most comprehensive workshop programme I have seen that is open to all. This unique proposition has proved popular: the next session has already sold out and Crossfit London is booking well into next year.

Why are tickets selling like the proverbial hotcakes? Well, the agenda for the day runs something like this:

• How to squat
• How to perform the olympic lifts, including the nine fundamental moves: squat, front squat, overhead squat, press, push press, push jerk, clean, snatch, sumo deadlift high pull and deadlift
• How to swing and snatch a kettlebell
• How to practise handstands and the handstand push-up with all the assistance exercises currently recommended
• Core including L-sit
• Crossfit kipping pullup
• Parallel bar and rings looking at ring dips and muscle-up progression

For anyone interested in functional fitness or Crossfit, it ticks all the right boxes, but it is a lot of learning to pack into one day! The agenda makes it look like great value for money, but can you really learn all of these skills effectively in a single session?

Learning

What you get out of the day depends to some extent on your level of knowledge and experience coming into the session. Those who are totally new to the exercises and concepts may not remember much of the technical detail but will come away with an understanding of the most important principles and the range of skills that can be acquired: plenty to build upon and be inspired by.

People who are already familiar with some of the material (perhaps they have done squatting and deadlifting but have never attempted a clean and jerk) will learn a good deal and will come away with better form in the exercises that they thought they knew.

However it is essentially an introductory course so if you have been practising these skills for a few months or more, you may have gone beyond what the i-Course can offer – unless you want some reassurance that you are doing the right thing.

On the day, participants told me that they did learn a lot, even if they won’t remember absolutely everything. I was impressed by everyone’s concentration throughout an intensive day. It was a motivating atmosphere to be in and even though I was getting pretty tired towards the end of the session, I tried to hide it as everyone else appeared to be in fine fettle and as keen as at the start!

Teaching

This concentration and application is testament to the motivation of the group but also to Stemler’s organisation of the session. He starts right on time, which sets the tone for the day, and keeps things moving along nicely.

The team consists of Andrew, a Crossfit Level 2 certified instructor, aided by three Crossfit Level 1 instructors (Miles, Chet and Simon) and police PTI, Colin. The quality of the teaching is very good, especially from Andrew who is a natural communicator and has boundless energy.

The emphasis is on drills and cues that help you get into the correct position for the exercise, rather than a litany of instructions about the relative position of each body part. This will save people from hours of struggle or the misguided belief that they are unable to do particular exercises. ‘Teaching the teachers’ is also built into the course, for those people who are there to learn how to instruct others.

Supporting the instructor team are a number of ‘helpers’ who are themselves experienced Crossfitters. Having this many people helping to run the course ensures that everyone gets attention and things run smoothly. My thanks in particular go to one of the helpers, Steve, for taking these photos when he wasn’t actually helping people with their exercises!

What sort of people attend the i-Course?

I had assumed that most of the participants would be Crossfitters looking to improve their skills, but there was in fact a variety of people attending: personal trainers looking to expand their repertoire for their clients; people just starting out in Crossfit or just wanting to get fit; those interested in a particular element (such as the olympic lifts or the gymnastics) who thought this course was the nearest thing available; and military personnel looking to increase functional fitness.

The exercises and drills are pretty challenging, although different levels of strength are catered for (for example, you don’t have to be able to do a pullup). It probably could have been made clearer at the start that you are not expected to be able to do everything perfectly within this session: the idea is to equip you with the knowledge to practise on your own or coach others over a period of time.

However I know that some people were inspired and motivated by the difficulty and the fact that some exercises did not come easily! There were some pretty strong lads who were very confident on familiar exercises like pullups, but were humbled by a simple L-sit progression. I spoke to one chap who is an experienced runner and was used to thinking of himself as reasonably fit and yet had real trouble with one or two of the more unusual exercises. But he seemed delighted by this discovery and keen to improve.

It would be a rare person who could turn up to a session like this and be able to do everything easily. This goes to the heart of what Crossfit is about: improving every aspect of fitness rather than specialising in one area. Stemler takes it as far as to say that sports people are not “fit” because they specialise too much. As soon as you start to focus on one particular sport, you lose fitness in all the other areas. I find this a controversial idea as the same argument could be applied to Crossfit: that is, doing Crossfit really only makes you fit for Crossfit! However the point is that a wide variety of skills are being taught.

Do you have to be drinking the Crossfit kool-aid?

The short answer is ‘no’ and you can get an enormous amount from this session without being or becoming a Crossfitter. Stemler refrains from trumpeting the benefits of “Crossfit” (except in a jokey manner), allowing the workshop to speak for itself. And rightly so: Crossfit didn’t invent these exercises, it just puts them together in a particular way and has a particular approach to performing them.

The verdict

A very worthwhile course for the motivated functional fitness fanatic! If you like learning new skills, want to work hard and don’t mind a bit of constructive criticism, this is a good use of your hard-earned money. Whether you ‘do’ Crossfit or not, you will come away with a fine array of skills that you can put to whatever use you like.

To book an i-Course, click here.

Have you done the i-Course? Post your comments below.

Further information

Get the i-Course manual here – your 85-page guide to elite fitness from Andrew Stemler

Crossfit London sunday workouts

What is the overhead squat?

The overhead squat is a deep squat performed while holding a barbell over your head with straight arms. It actually feels more like a snatch (one of the Olympic lifts) than a back squat. The fact that the bar is overhead rather than across your back changes the nature of the move significantly. For this reason, I prefer the term ‘snatch squat’ as I feel it is more descriptive, but ‘overhead squat’ is the more commonly-used name.

Why is it such a great exercise?

The overhead squat is a great assistance exercise for the Olympic lifts. In particular it teaches the correct position of the lower back for Olympic weightlifting. The move also works legs, hips and core very intensely so is effective both as an assistance exercise for the powerlifting squat and as a whole body exercise in its own right. It is quite a challenging exercise for someone who is used to more conventional, bodybuilding-style training, and so acts as a good introduction to the rigours of Olympic weightlifting.

How to perform the overhead squat

Whatever your strength level, it is advisable to practise this exercise without weight first, or with a very light weight – trust me! If you don’t know what to expect it is possible to overbalance when doing this exercise for the first time. However, if you take it slow and practice with a wooden stick or light bar, you will be fine.

Step 1: Starting position – bar overhead with arms locked out in snatch grip

The overhead squat is performed using a snatch grip. This is a wide grip on the bar. Finding the ideal width grip is a process of trial and error. Those with long arms will have their hands right up against the ends of the bar. I am a not-particularly-tall female and I grip the bar just outside the smooth rings.

There is more than one way to get into the start position. The easiest way is to get the bar across your shoulders (i.e. in the position you would use for a back squat) using a rack and then perform a push press to get the bar up into position. Don’t forget to adopt the snatch grip before you press up! You can also snatch the bar into position – although of course you need to be competent at snatching in order to do this.

You should be standing with feet shoulder width – or even slightly wider – apart, toes turned out slightly. In other words, in your normal position for squatting. With the bar locked out overhead, you are ready to begin the squat.

Step 2: Squat down as far as you can, holding the bar steady overhead

Push back from the hips, keeping your back slightly arched. Look straight ahead with chest up and out – this helps to keep the arch in the lower back. Keep your weight on your heels and descend as far as your flexibility will allow. If your back starts to round, this is as low as you can go. Keep your knees directly over your feet, not collapsing inward or bending outward.

As you descend, keep your arms locked out overhead. The bar should be held so that the weight is above your hips, either just behind your ears or even just behind your head. You should be able to feel when the bar is in the right position as it will feel balanced. It is important never to let the bar come forwards as it will pull you forwards and you will have to drop it! Also, if you have very flexible shoulders, you might need to watch that you don’t over-extend backwards and have the bar too far behind you.

To keep the bar in place, think about pulling your hands outwards. Imagine you are trying to stretch the bar or pull it in half.

Step 3: Reach squat depth

The aim is to go as low as possible but your squat depth will be limited by your back flexibility. This will improve as you practise the overhead squat.

As with any kind of squat, your knees should remain over your feet and not collapse in.

If you are not used to squatting to this depth, think about letting your body hang between your legs, not behind them. Often the squat is taught with a narrow stance and only to a parallel position, but it is difficult to hit a deep position with a narrow stance so if you have been taught this way, experiment with a wider position. Also if you need to turn your toes out a bit more in order to sink your hips lower, this is not a problem.

Step 4: Push out of the bottom and return to a standing position, maintaining the bar overhead

Press your heels into the floor and use your hips and glutes to push up out of the deep squat position and back to a standing position. Keep your core strong, holding your upper body in position. Continue trying to pull the bar apart to maintain its position securely above your head.

How to use the overhead squat in your training

There are a number of ways you can use the overhead squat in your training:

• As a warm up for Olympic lifts
• As an assistance exercise for the Olympic lifts and the squat
• As a core strengthening exercise
• As a tough workout in its own right (e.g. 15 bodyweight overhead squats) or combining it with other exercises in a circuit

The overhead squat has been growing in popularity, due in particular to its adoption by Crossfit as a key exercise. It is a very versatile move to master.

Most commercial gyms have a combination of free weights and resistance machines. This guide deals with free weights, which include dumbbells, barbells and weight plates, medicine balls, kettlebells – basically anything heavy that isn’t stabilised by some kind of contraption when you lift it.

Types of weight training

There are various types of weight lifting and there’s no reason why you couldn’t try all of them. They are all great for getting leaner, fitter and stronger.

Powerlifting
Powerlifting is a sport involving three lifts: squat, bench press and deadlift. These are performed with a barbell and weight plates. All three lifts require effort from the whole body, particularly the biggest muscle groups, the legs and back, so these lifts are very effective for developing overall strength and muscle. Powerlifters will utilise other exercises such as pull-ups or dips to aid them in training, but these exercises are not used in competition.

Olympic weightlifting
Olympic weightlifting (sometimes just called ‘weightlifting’) is a sport involving two lifts: the snatch and the clean & jerk. These are also performed with a barbell and weight plates. However, these lifts are different from power lifts as they involve lifting a bar from the floor to overhead, whereas the power lifts move the bar a much shorter distance. Olympic lifts are technically more demanding than the power lifts and are very effective for developing athletic power and strength. Like powerlifters, Olympic weightlifters use other exercises to help with training, such as overhead squats and core work, but only use two lifts in competition.

Bodyweight/calisthenics
Bodyweight exercises, or callisthenics, are strength exercises that use the weight of the body as the resistance. Popular bodyweight exercises include push-ups, pull-ups and dips, but actually there are as many exercises as you can invent. Bodyweight exercises are excellent training for sports/arts such as parkour, breakdancing and acrobatics as well as developing all-round fitness.

Strongman
Strongman involves a range of events using awkwardly-shaped or –weighted objects and tests various types of strength: grip strength, explosive strength, brute force, endurance. Popular events include the atlas stones, keg tossing and tyre flipping. If lifting a barbell up and down in a gym doesn’t appeal, get outside and start throwing barrels around!

Kettlebells, clubbells, sandbags
Many objects have been developed to aid strength training. Kettlebells are perhaps the most popular at the moment. These are smallish round weights with a handle and can be used in a similar way to dumbbells. It is possible to do powerlifting or Olympic lifting style exercises using kettlebells, sandbags or other objects. Exercises tend to be done with higher repetitions using these objects, so there is a much greater emphasis on strength endurance than there would be in a powerlifting competition. These objects also introduce greater instability into the lift in order to make the core work harder.

Next article: Starting out

External links

• Michaela Breeze’s Olympic weightlifting guide (video)
• The Basics of Powerlifting