Okay,
So considering the fact that I’ve
been recently incorporating much more Olympic lifting in my program and have
always loved OL weightlifting, I just had to sign up for this seminar. World
champion and Olympic silver medalist, Dmitry Klokov, put on a weightlifting
clinic at a local Crossfit box right down the street from me, and I saw it as a
great opportunity to meet one of the sport’s greatest, learn from him, and also
network with like-minded individuals. I received more than I expected from this
experience, and I’d like to share some of these nuggets with my readers.
Here is how my Saturday went.
PART ONE:
I woke up at 6 AM, as if I am still
seven years old and it is Christmas, and rush to prepare some coffee for the
day and pack my equipment bag with essentials. Side note – I got some
phenomenal coffee beans from Cartel coffee roasting company, a local roaster in
Tempe. Seriously, this coffee is bomb. Anyways – I brewed my coffee, packed my
bag, and went over to Whole Foods to get a quick breakfast before checking for
registration at 8 AM. I knew I wanted to get there as early as possible to meet
some of the people there and get a chance to check out the gym. I meet August
Schmidt when I arrive to the Crossfit box, who is the owner of East Valley
Crossfit. Very cool dude, and from my short time interacting with him I had a
great feeling about his presence. He appears to be a solid coach and athlete.
I get checked in and begin to roam
around the gym, watching as people slowly trickle in. I find out there will be
only about 20 individuals attending the seminar today, and given that the
entire clinic is set to last from 9 AM until 9 PM, I am excited to think about
the focused time and attention that might be available with Klokov and his
gymnastics/ mobility partner Igor Zaripov (who is a Cirque du Solei gymnast).
After meeting several individuals there, conversing, and meandering about for
15 or 20 minutes, we see Klokov stroll in the front door.
The dude is MASSIVE. He really
doesn’t appear to be very tall simply because he is so broad. As soon as I see
him strut in I rush over and notice he is filming his entrance with a small
camera. If you follow his YouTube videos, he does this at many of the gyms he
attends – filming all the different locations and various points of each of his
seminars. Anyways, I can’t help myself and immediately approach him and “Dude!
Klokov!”, giving him a fist pound. He is smiling too, returns the fist bump,
and strolls on, continuing to film his entrance. Now I know what it feels like
to actually be an excited fan and I actually don’t give a shit. This is someone
who I genuinely look up to, respect, and admire, based not only on his physical
accomplishments, but what he has done for the sport of weightlifting. And of
course his mental attitude. His fist feels like a piece of calloused granite
infused onto a small tree trunk.
After his entrance, Igor and Klokov
walk over to where the Olympic training platforms are located and begin setting
up to start lifting. The first part of the seminar is just a short training
session, watching Klokov, Igor, and August lift. I am pumped to see what they
lift, but also am interested in their warm-up. Although this post is
primarily about Klokov, it is important to outline the training of the other
athletes as well, so I will quickly list what they did.
August is a very strong and powerful
Master’s level Olympic weightlifter in the 105 kg class (231 lb). He warmed up
in the power snatch, going up to 90 kg for 2x3r, 100 kg 2x2r, then 110 kg (242
lb) for a final double. He then stripped to 80 kg for halting snatches (snatch
from floor with a pause at the knee), doing doubles at 80, 90, 100, 110,
and 115. After this he moved on to power clean + push press up to 120 kg (264
lb) for 3 or 4 sets of 2+2.
Igor Zaripov is a Cirque du Solei
performer, and an extremely strong gymnast. His back and core is ridiculously
strong. He has been following Klokov’s coaching since he started weightlifting
8 months ago, and because of his strong back and weak(er) legs he is doing
specific complex exercises to develop the right movement patterns for
efficiency and technical mastery in OL. For these reasons, today Igor was doing
a snatch complex exercise from deficit. He would do a very high hipped, stiff
back snatch deadlift to straight legs, followed by a more classical snatch
deadlift with a slow pull, another high hip snatch DL, one more slow pull
snatch DL, followed immediately by one classic snatch with a slow pull. ALL
while standing on maybe a 4” deficit! This looked like an extremely tough and
grueling exercise. I asked Klokov why this was prescribed and he explained with
broken English that it is to turn on and switch off the appropriate muscles for
the snatch. He reasons that snatches from deficit are one of the best exercises
to learn how to use the legs in the snatch, and I agree. You are forced to
shove the knees out HARD when pulling from a deficit and it is very difficult
to revert to pulling from the back, which will minimize swinging. You MUST
learn how to extend through the legs. Klokov explained that the high hip start
fires the hamstrings and posterior chain, while the classic slow pull turns on
the quads and rectus femoris. By doing them in this order followed by a snatch
are you pre-fatiguing all the muscle groups required for a make, but they are
TURNED ON in the right sequence which is the most important part. Igor worked
up to 110 kg (242 lb) in this 5 rep complex! After this, he continued to add
weight but performed only the RDL+slow pull combo 1+1 up to very heavy weight,
I think 170 kg (374 lb). I cannot remember exactly, as I was distracted by
Klokov’s lifting.
Klokov warmed up with some random
bar stretching and basic arm circles. He did not lift lower body today so I am
assuming his warm-up was quite different than if he were to full clean, snatch,
squat, or pull. He did some presses, push presses, push jerks, and split jerks
with the bar, then had 50 kg on it. He pulled a rack onto his platform, and
began performing a push press + push jerk + split jerk complex from rack. He
started at 50 kg 1+1+1 and continued in this fashion in jumps from 50 to 70,
100, 120, 140, 160, 180, and 190 kg (419 lb)!! Watching him work with this
weight only 15 feet away was freaky. The bar oscillation is unreal, and the
fact that he is re-racking the weight to the front with a full grip with a nearly
a quarter ton blows my mind. After he completed this exercise, he dropped the
bar and said in broken English “now I am warmed up”. He stripped the bar to 70
kg on the ground and did power clean + strict press 1+1 with 70, 100, 110, 120,
130, 140 kg (308 lb)! Who do you know that can casually power clean and
strict press over 300 lbs?!? He said he best result in this exercise is 180 kg
(396 lb)!!! Anyways – he entire workout lasted no more than 60 minutes,
including warm-up.
After the lifting exhibition, we
began warming up for the first part of the seminar, the snatch. This portion
was scheduled for 2.5 hours and would be filled with hands-on coaching,
interaction and feedback from both Igor and Klokov. Things began to get fun as
we started warming up with the same bar Klokov has used. After a short warm-up,
he paused us and asked us to gather around so he could explain some specific
Russian training philosophies and their school of thought on the snatch.
Several major takeaways here:
·
Toes OUT in the starting position
·
Use MORE LEGS!!! Do not let the hips
shoot up so the back bows way over the bar. Knees out and push ground away with
the full foot.
·
Bar contacts the shin coming up
·
Contact at the crease of the hip
·
Arms are loose and relaxed, use
elbows to guide bar up.
·
ELBOWS MORE FORWARD!!! More forward,
more forward, more forward.
He said the biggest problem with
80-90% of people is that we are not using our legs correctly in the pull. This
stems from feet too parallel at start, toes not pointed out, no contact with
shin, and a couple other reasons.
To correct this, we began performing
a bar drill to improve technical proficiency for these mistakes.
Snatch Drill #1:
We began with the bar at the shins
in a snatch start position, toes out, hips down and back tight – standard start
position I am familiar with except the toes pointed out to the point that it
was uncomfortable. Doing this really helped me feel the drive through the full
foot on the floor, and fully engage the legs. We dragged the bar up the shins
to the top of the knee, paused for a moment to feel the full foot on floor,
knees out, and quads engaged. Shoulders and chest are vertically over the bar
here, chin forward. Here, we move the bar to the contact point at the hip
crease.
Klokov instructed that from the
floor to knee, the bar makes contact with the shin, dragging up the leg to the
kneecap, but from the knee to hip there is maybe a millimeter of space between
the bar and the leg. You MUST feel the legs drive the ground down as the bar is
carried under you, driving the knees out and keeping the hips down.
After the floor to knee, we go to
the hip and feel the arms making the contact with the hip. Klokov explains that
the ARMS must drive the contact, NOT the hips. NEVER drive the hips forward.
The hips move forward by consequence of the legs extending, but the motion is
vertical due to the leg extension. So feel the arms making the contact with the
hip and make the barbell “make music”, or rattle with contact from the arms
driving the bar. We do this for 3 reps, then slowly lower back to just above
the knee. From above the knee position we bring the bar up to the hips NOT by
levering the back open, but again by extending the legs.
From above the knee, this time we
extend legs and once the bar makes contact with the hip crease we extend
vertically and pull the elbows HIGH and FORWARD. The bar should be carried
under the chest, shoulders vertically over the top of the bar, knuckles pointed
down, and elbows HIGH AND FORWARD!!! We are on our tippy toes at this point and
holding this ‘scarecrow’ position. We should be balanced and the bar should be
just under the chest, about sternum/ high belly area. Klokov instructs that we
are to hold this position for a 3 count, and always ELBOWS MORE FORWARD!!
We do this drill for maybe 45
minutes while Klokov and Igor go around and provides hands on coaching to us
for these various positions.
After this drill, we move on to
drill #2….
Snatch Drill #2:
Klokov explains that the problem
with “jumping” during the catch portion is that the bar is more likely to crash
down on us and we receive it in a less optimal position. A remedy to this is
this drill that we performed, which is essentially a drop snatch from toes,
with clips next to your feet. You have the bar on back with snatch grip, rise
up on the toes and balance for a 3 count, then slide the feet out quickly to
reposition, punching up with the arms and dropping the hips to receive in a
full overhead squat. You must reposition the feet very close to the ground,
which is more a quick slide out, so that the clips are pushed aside. If you do
it correctly, they are sent pretty far and you receive the bar with a
satisfying lockout. We do this drill for another 45 minutes, focusing on a
quick and correct repositioning of the feet .
After drill #2, we begin warming up
for full snatch, with clips next to our feet in the pulling stance. The goal
with the clips is the same for drill #2 – we are to perform a full snatch from
the floor with a quick reposition of the feet to knock the clips aside. It was
very much similar to a snatch without moving the feet, at least that is what it
felt like! We warmed up this way to a max effort single, so I took 40 kilos for
maybe 5 triples to get comfortable with the clips next to my feet and my
narrow, toes out pulling stance, then 50 kilos for some more triples, then 60
for some doubles. After 60 I switched to singles and no more clips, going 70,
80, 90, 95, 100 (4 misses – first one was very close). I was happy with the 95
that I made as this is the most I’ve snatched in over a year and is only my 5th snatch
session since coming back!
After snatching, we were released
for lunch. I went back to Whole Foods for some sushi, had some coffee, and
returned to the gym….
PART TWO:
Returning from lunch, we gather
around and watch as Klokov begins to discuss various clean inefficiencies and
common issues he is seeing. One is that he is seeing people pull their cleans
too high, and it is crashing on them. This stems from all the power cleaning
that we do, the strong backs and pulling style, and also the jumping of the
feet (causing the bar to crash). He also reemphasizes again that we are not
using our legs enough in the pull and this is resulting in bars too far
forward, and not enough extension vertical. To help correct, he talks about the
full foot, toes angled out pulling stance, and also a LOWER contact point on
the thighs. We begin drill #1.
Clean Drill #1:
Similar to the snatch drill #1, this
is a slow pull with 40 kg to just above the knee, contact with the thigh just
above the knee 3 times using the arms, lowering the bar back to ground, and a
slow pull up this time with contact on the same spot on the thigh and a
vertical extension of the body. We shrug up and extend on the toes, lightly
bend the elbows (ELBOWS FORWARD!!!), and keep the legs tense and extended. The
bar should be held just below belly button, and balance should be kept on the
toes with the shoulders elevated. We do this drill with 40 kg for about 45
minutes as Klokov and Igor again walk around and provide hands on feedback and
coaching to our positions and movements. The difficult part for me is to find
violent contact with the legs above the knee appropriately, as I am used to a
slight arm bend and cleaning near the hip crease for my contact. This is
against what the Russians teach, and they emphasize a thigh contact with
straight(er) arms.
Clean (Jerk) Drill #2:
After the clean drill, with move on
to a jerk drill. Basically, this is a jerk balance with the bar position right
on top of the head. Klokov says that in the jerk, the tendency is to dip too
short and too quickly. This takes most of the leg out of the drive portion and
instead most of the power in a short dip/ drive comes from the VMO. He
advocates sitting deeper into the dip portion and taking advantage of the full
hip musculature. He also instructs to have the toes angled out once more and
driving the knees outwards. Klokov says toes out in the jerk is important to
keep a straight vertical torso when dipping and driving. When the feet are
angled forward, he sees the weight shift far too often unfavorably, causing a
jerk that is too forward. In terms of footwork, he says the front foot should
angle in slightly and the back leg should have the heel elevated so that the
knee can drop and be a shock absorber. Most of the weight is set on the front
foot with the shin vertical, and the hip crease bearing the load. To develop
appropriate foot work, we rise up on the toes, bar on the head, and split the
legs with a quick slide of the feet. There is a clip positioned about a foot in
front of the splitting foot, and the goal is to slide that foot forward and
shoot the clip with the toes, while splitting fully and extending the bar in
lockout. The wrists punch up quickly while the hips drop down vertically.
Vertical vertical vertical. Balance balance balance. Maintain tippy toe
position for several seconds, then shoot the feet into the split in a quick
shuffle. This balance is very important to having a vertical dip/ drive.
Now that we’ve done two drills for
the clean & jerk, we begin warming up for a max effort lift in this
exercise. I am pretty toast after all the drilling and the long day it has
been, especially considering I worked up to a 90 kg snatch and 130 clean the
day before, but am pumped to see what I am able to jerk. I have not done a
split jerk in maybe two years, and have only power jerked maybe twice in that
time. The warm up here is the same as with the snatch – we are to position
clips next to the feet in the pulling stance, and shuffle the feet out in the
receiving portion of the clean. After that, we jerk as normal. I warm up as
said until about 80 kg, doing 1 clean and several jerks at each weight. The
jerks felt good. I hit 100, 110, and 115 all confidently and easily. The clean
feels different but I can feel my quads popping much more and am getting under
the weight easily. All jerks were very solid. I take 120 and miss the jerk
because of a shoddy split. I am a bit disappointed, as Klokov is watching me
directly. I take 120 again and nail the jerk easily, thinking I’d be good for
125. After an easy clean with 125, the jerk fails me once again and I call it a
day. Hitting 95+120 in my first “meet” like setting after almost two years off
of focused Olympic lifting in front of Klokov is a good day.
After the clean and jerks, we move
on to a mobility and gymnastics portion led by Igor. We did some literally
brutal shoulder mobility stretches that felt like my arms were going to tear
out of my sockets, then performed some handstand work. This wrapped up with 2
four minute Tabata rounds for core work, the first Tabata was 20 seconds of
bicycles, 10 seconds rest, 20 seconds of knees to elbows from plank position,
10 seconds rest, repeat for four rounds. The second Tabata was 20 seconds of
lying straight leg raises, 10 seconds rest, 20 seconds of ab bridge, 10 seconds
rest, repeat for four rounds. After this, I am pretty smoked.
In terms of gymnastics takeaways –
Igor instructs of the importance of relaxed shoulders during kipping and
hanging movements, and the importance of core strength during any kipping
exercises.
After this final gymnastics/
mobility portion, we move back over to the platforms as Klokov talks about and
demonstrates important accessory exercises and their applications.
#1) Weighted Squat Jumps – important
to use light weight and for 5x5 for 3x10 reps. This exercise is performed after
squatting normally, and will “turn on” the speed muscles responsible for
weightlifting. Perhaps use 20 kg, maybe 40 kg. Extend the legs fully and when
performed correctly, the toes ‘vibrate’ as you lift into the air.
#2) Snatch from deficit – used to
teach a lifter to correctly use the legs. Should be performed with knees OUT.
#3) Snatch pulls from deficit – same
as above. KNEES OUT, hips low. USE THE LEGS.
#4) Snatch RDL from deficit –
teaches how to build hamstring strength which is a synergistic muscle for the
extension portion of the O-lifts. Perform with very high hips and knees
slightly unlocked.
#5) Snatch Jumps – pulled like a
normal snatch, however when receiving the bar you are jumping up to higher
blocks (he had 2 stacked 25 kg discs to the side of each foot that he jumped
onto). Again, to teach proper use of the legs and extension. DOES NOT teach
jumping with the feet.
#6) Hyperextension/ GHD with BAR ON
BACK – performed always with bar on back, great posterior chain builder, helps
to open the chest and tight back. Recommended 2x10r before training to unlock
and turn on important muscles, recommend 3-5 sets of 10 reps after training for
strength and muscle building.
These were the exercises that Klokov
feels are most important to the general population interested in weightlifting.
After this there was a small Q&A with him and the best questions I could
think of on the spot were answered by him. He said he is not a fan of good
mornings because there are better exercises, he does not like snatches off
blocks because they are easy, and cannot provide a recommendation behind reps/
sets for pressing. Unfortunately, I was not prepared for a Q&A session so I
did not have a series of good questions for him.
After the Q&A, Klokov handed out
signed posters to all of us. “Demand the Impossible” they say, with pictures of
Klokov and the Again Faster equipment brand on them. I got a few pictures with
him and thanked him and Igor for coming out and their instruction.
The day ended at 8:45 PM, after more
than 12 hours of interaction with one of the world’s best weightlifters. I had
set two comeback PRs and picked up a ton of valuable information as well as the
confirmation of some of my current knowledge. The entire experience was well
worth it and my only regret is that I didn’t ask Klokov more questions.
The biggest lesson of the day was
learned while listening to Klokov speak. He talked about the importance of
mental fortitude and strength of the mind in his broken English. He talked
about the belief of achievement and being able to conquer weights that you
might be afraid of. This carries over to all aspects of life, which is why the
journey in the gym is more than just lifting heavy weights – it is about
self-respect, introspection, determination, and discovering what drives you. It
is about believing you can, you must, and will, as opposed to being afraid or
unable. It was the way that this World Champion conveyed these beliefs that was
the greatest lesson for me. Listening to someone who has achieved such
greatness – in anything, any avenue – they will have similar insight. But the
fact that these lessons came from one swole dude who can sling
530 pounds over his head and become the champion of the world make the message
that much more powerful.
The end.
Some additional stuff from my instagram:
http://instagram.com/p/tfjAMhxQJ5/
http://instagram.com/p/teddz1RQNy/?modal=true
