Kairos Weightlifting

GOING OFF PROGRAM – IS IT A PROBLEM?

Some coaches absolutely hate it when an athlete does anything physical that is not explicitly in their training program. Other coaches love it when an athlete does a random max out, because it’s a sign of enthusiasm and if you’re having a good day – why not use it?

Personal preferences aside, we can only discuss this topic by having a clear idea of what the training program is trying to achieve and what “going off program” means in practice.

Does the athlete primarily train because they enjoy training, or do they use training as a means to an end? Is there an event coming that needs to be taken into account?

Then there are, of course, other factors like adherence. If some liberty in the training program allows the athlete to stay more motivated and work harder, isn’t that a good thing? On the other hand, shouldn’t liberty to adjust stuff just be built into the program then?

Swipe for some ideas to deal with the subject.

🏋‍♀️: The boys,  and
📸: .media at the 2023 Open Nationals

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YOUR COACH HAS THE ANSWERS

Or does he?

"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything."

It's a brilliant quote from Richard Feynman, a brilliant physicist from the 20th century.

Sometimes when athletes ask me something about why I want them to do or X or Y in their program, I might respond with something similar (albeit less eloquent). I will preface the actual answer with a "I have no idea what I'm doing".

It's only half-joking.

The process of coaching is not:
1 - Athlete has an issue.
2 - Coach provides the answer.
3 - Move on to the next issue.

If only.

The process of coaching is a dynamic process of trial, evaluation, adjustment and repetition until we either reach a previously settled endpoint, or until we accept a situation as "good enough" and find something more important to focus on.

The systems we use as coaches are nothing more than tools to facilitate that process. Any athlete that expects the aforementioned three steps consistently is likely to be disappointed sooner or later. Likewise, coaches that expect a coaching process to go like that will end up frustrated, wondering why their system/knowledge/tool has failed them while it has worked 10 times before.

You're a coach, a process manager, your task is to be directive in said process, not to be a sage.

🏋‍♀️:
📸: .media at the June'24 West Friesland Cup

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THE HUMAN SIDE OF PROGRAMMING

When writing a training program, crunching numbers is the easy part. It gets a lot more complicated when elements from the human psyche come into play.

ADHERENCE
As a coach you can say "you only work with extremely motivated athletes" to make your job a lot easier. That's not exactly top tier coaching.

And if you don't know much about motivation and psychology, you can throw the cliche "it's about willpower and discipline - not motivation!" at an athlete when they don't feel like training, or even shame/guilt trip them into training. But I believe that, to a reasonable extent, a coach should know how to adjust training so that adherence to the program improves. The best program in the world probably doesn't work as intended if people skip stuff or half-ass it. A program that is theoretically 2% less optimal can still give superior outcomes if it raises adherence to 100% and improves the focus and effort of said athlete.

BUY-IN
Related, focus and effort waver easily -and sometimes subtly- if the athlete does not believe in the program. Some athletes need to know more about why they're doing something, other athletes want to have some more say in exercise selection, and others need a healthy 'click' with their coach before they're TRULY committed to a program.

A good coach knows that a program is not about the program.

It's up to you to decide what type of coach you want to be, but if you rigidly crunch numbers and tell athletes to finish their pull and little else, AI can probably take over your job soon.

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A few considerations regarding going lighter in training, based on other factors than just following the Excel sheet.

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BRING CATTO HOME!

Most of you guys know by now that me and rescued a starving, young, stray cat from Okinawa, Japan during our training camp. (Name is still TBC.)

To cover as many of the costs of flying the cat over, vet visits and more, we organized an extra webinar and seminar, as well as setting up a donation option.

In summary:

The 12th of May, we will host a webinar on lifting performance. We will discuss peri-workout nutrition, sleep quality, overall lifestyle habits and how they impact training. Rather than boring you with science, we will go through practical advice so you get to pick what you want to apply with the smallest effort, for the biggest wins! will give you the biggest wins with the smallest effort.

The 26th of May at 14:00 in Utrecht (2e Daalsedijk, UnScared Fitness) we will host a technical weightlifting seminar. We will shortly discuss common technical errors, and work on them with sn**ch, clean, jerk and pull variations for 2 hours.

Link in bio for tickets, as well as more info on the contents! There is also a donation option for those that want to donate on top of buying a ticket, or who want to show their support even if they can't make it to the seminar/webinar.

Sharing this post is also much appreciated!

Swipe for a message from Catto.

📸: .media
Person not understanding why I'm so attached to a stray cat:

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JULY 2024 SEMINAR: WEIGHTLIFTING & VIDEO ANALYSIS

On the 7th of July, I'm hosting a seminar that consists of a sn**ch and clean & jerk session followed by elaborate video analysis. We will film some of your heaviest lifts of that day, and spend the rest of the seminar analyzing the videos together on a screen. The goal is simple - to help you gain more insight in your own lifting abilities and give you pointers to improve. I will take you through the same process I use to look at an athlete's lift when coaching them.

Afterwards, you'll receive a sheet with concrete recommendations for exercise selection, programming and cues to help fix your lifting issues!

We welcome both athletes that want to gain more insight into their own lifts and coaches that want to improve their coach's eye.

DM if you have any questions!

WHERE: UnScared Fitness, Utrecht (Address: 2e Daalsedijk 4bis)

WHO: Any athlete/coach (weightlifting or otherwise) that is able to execute the sn**ch, clean and jerk or power variations thereof, so that we can film and analyze it. All levels are welcome to apply - just send a DM if you're unsure whether the seminar is appropriate for you.

WHEN: The 7th of July, 2024. 14:30 until ~18:30.

COST: 115 euros. (Note: If you want an invoice for your company, please DM me before buying a ticket.)

SIGN UP: Link in bio.

📸: 
🏋‍♀️:  after listening to me analyzing videos for an hour vs. Faye during training

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This is why we do it.

📸: by .media

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HOW TO DELOAD

A month back I wrote a bit on what deloading is and why it can be important.

Today we’ll go through examples of how to deload in practice.

REST – The obvious one. A period of time where you do little to nothing. Although you won’t build anything -you may even get slower/weaker if this lasts too long- it’s a surefire way to alleviate fatigue quickly. I usually just combine this with people’s vacations, ideally after peaking and far away from other competitions.

DELOAD – When I talk about a true deload, I usually refer to a week doing the minimum to maintain physical qualities like explosiveness. Volume, intensity and often frequency go down, but enough is done to make sure the athlete doesn’t feel “out of it” when a new training block starts the week after. In practice, this could mean doing only about a third of the training volume of a normal training week (often with frequency being lower because of it), with mostly limited ROM movements (e.g. block power cleans instead of full cleans) and mostly working around 60-70% on most movements.

SPEED WEEK / BACK OFF WEEK / LIGHT WEEK – This is just a 5-20% drop in volume and/or intensity to alleviate some fatigue. Although pre-planning something like this may feel like “undertraining for a week” if the athlete doesn’t seem very fatigued, and that could be true for hypertrophy for example, it’s still an opportunity to emphasize explosiveness and give the athlete a mental break. Emphasizing speed or technique still makes a week like this productive. (Also, I often let some accessory movements build up as normal, since I don’t care much for explosiveness in dumbbell rows for example.)

Note that athletes are NOT predictable. You should be able to do some type of impromptu deload if necessary, rather than driving an athlete into the ground while they’re already fatigued “because the program says so”. Same goes the other way around – don’t kill training momentum with deloads all the time if things are running smoothly.

Next time we'll talk about autoregulating deloads! (Ctd. in comments)

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NEW TYPES OF WEIGHTLIFTING SEMINARS

Aside from our weightlifting video analysis seminars, we will also start doing specially themed seminars.

In these seminars, we will spend 2 hours with a bit of theory about a specific concept or two, followed by lots of practice to improve those aspects of your lifts.

On the 23rd of March we will talk about what it means to 'be tight' during sn**ches and cleans and why it matters at what point in the movement. We will also discuss foot balance and how small adjustments in foot balance can make a huge difference in your lifts.

On the 18th of May, we will focus on what 'rhythm' means in the context of weightlifting. We'll also talk about speed, and that too much speed can throw off your rhythm or timing. We're going to focus on the jerk as well as various lifts from the hang to explore these concepts.

Although it's very much athlete centered, coaches are obviously also welcome to see if they can pick up new drills, viewpoints or otherwise.

DM if you have any questions!

WHERE: UnScared Fitness, Utrecht (Address: Vrieslantlaan 6 - It will NOT be held at the 2e Daalsedijk location.)

WHO: Any athlete/coach (weightlifting or otherwise) that is able to execute the sn**ch, clean and jerk or power variations thereof. All levels are welcome to apply - just send a DM if you're unsure whether the seminar is appropriate for you.

WHEN: The 23rd of March and/or the 18th of May, 2024. We have options at 13:00-15:00 and 15:30-17:30.

COST: 55 euros.

SIGN UP: Link in bio.

📸: .media

Just chose this picture because it makes my arms look good. 😎

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The first of two posts on considerations when deloading. What is it? Why deload at all? And if you do, should you plan it ahead or not? And how do you deload? Frequency? Average intensity? Volume?

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The lift.

That moment.

The relief.

The shared emotions.

The medals.

The support from volunteers and team mates. (And who helped keep us functioning by supplying us with caffeine. 🤭)

📸: by .media

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10 of the steps before your attempt.

The wait.

The slaps.

The ammonia.

The chalk.

The entrance.

The respect.

The focus.

The approach.

The final staredown.

The setup.

📸: by weightliftingmedia

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INTRA-WORKOUT NUTRITION FOR WEIGHTLIFTERS

The importance of carbohydrates is often emphasized in sports because of its role as an energy source for your muscles. A lot of the claims are based on either endurance training (where you can hit some pretty hard walls after about 90 minutes at a reasonable pace), or at the very least long, high volume workouts.

In weightlifting however, we don't do that much. There is a lot of "do something intense for a few seconds, followed by several minutes of nothing". In terms of energy, the hourly calorie expenditure of weightlifting can -despite the high intensity!- easily be half of that of a lot of moderate cardio.

Does that mean intra-workout carbs are not important for weightlifters who generally eat carbs 'normally', since they don't burn that many carbs in training anyway?

It's a bit more nuanced. The brain/CNS start accumulating more and more fatigue after about 45-60 minutes of exertion. This can lead to lower power outputs, especially if compounded with the mental fatigue of heavy workouts. Carbohydrates can help to maintain performance to some extent. Even more interesting is that some studies suggested that it's not necessarily the carb supply to your muscle that causes this, but the neurological effect of the carbs. In particular, the taste of something sweet seems to have this 'booster effect'.

How big is this effect? Hard to say, but it might be a good idea to make it a habit to eat something sweet and easily digestable after your first exercise (30-45minutes into your workout?). It's an easy (and tasty) habit to build with few (if any) downsides, while having potential benefits. 

Keep it small and pleasurable. No reason to overcomplicate it, nor to cause gastrointestinal distress by eating a bag of candy mid-workout.

🏔: 's traps

📸:

    **ch             

MARCH'24 SEMINAR: WEIGHTLIFTING & VIDEO ANALYSIS

On the 2nd of March, I'm hosting a seminar that consists of a sn**ch and clean & jerk session followed by elaborate video analysis. We will film some of your heaviest lifts of that day, and spend the rest of the seminar analyzing the videos together on a screen. The goal is simple - to help you gain more insight in your own lifting abilities and give you pointers to improve. I will take you through the same process I use to look at an athlete's lift when coaching them.

Afterwards, you'll receive a sheet with concrete recommendations for exercise selection, programming and cues to help fix your lifting issues!

We welcome both athletes that want to gain more insight into their own lifts and coaches that want to improve their coach's eye.

DM if you have any questions!

WHERE: UnScared Fitness, Utrecht (Address: 2e Daalsedijk 4bis)

WHO: Any athlete/coach (weightlifting or otherwise) that is able to execute the sn**ch, clean and jerk or power variations thereof, so that we can film and analyze it. All levels are welcome to apply - just send a DM if you're unsure whether the seminar is appropriate for you.

WHEN: The 2nd of March, 2024. 14:00 until ~18:30.

COST: 115 euros.

SIGN UP: Link in bio.

📸:
🏋‍♀️: at 2023 SBD Cup

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Some coaches provide lots of accessory work 'to cover all bases' or 'build a broader base', other coaches prefer putting that time/energy into more main lifts or their variations.

Whatever 'style' you lean towards, swipe for a few considerations, and read on for a few examples.

1 - Desired adaptation: You want to get something out of that accessory exercise because it somehow helps main lifts. Sure - but is that exercise the best choice? If you want more hypertrophy in the quads but your back fatigues way earlier than your legs in back squats, are back squats a proper choice? Maybe leg presses are more appropriate here?

2 - Residual fatigue: You don't want accessory to get in the way of the core of your sport. Doing lots of presses near failure on Tuesday might hurt your heavy jerks on Wednesday. Maybe consider doing the more demanding accessory work on the day before your rest day.

3 - Logistics: Maybe you want someone to do heavy, one armed dumbbell rows but they don't have a lot of dumbbells available for proper loading throughout the weeks . Think outside the box - maybe do a landmine row. Is it less optimal for your goal? Possibly, but if it still helps with the desired adaptation and it makes proper loading possible - consider the less optimal exercise instead.

4 - Drawbacks: Aside from the obvious 'adding fatigue', are there other drawbacks? A barbell bench press may help with building upper body strength, but if loading that short range of motion frequently and heavily may have a negative impact on shoulder mobility, would other presses like ring push ups or dips then not be better?

5 - Do too little, not enough adaptation. Do too much, screw up other aspects of training. Log and monitor to make sure you get a feel of what your athlete can handle.

6 - Athlete buy-in: Does the athlete know (or care) why they're doing the accessory work? Plenty of athletes half-ass or even skip it. Sometimes explanation or simply other exercise selection can help athletes with adherence and effort.

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SBD RECAP/PHOTO DUMP

1 – Ah, the look she gives the coach when he provides her with yet another FITAID. 😌

2 – Lynn’s competition summarized in one picture. BIG competition PRs throwing her from a 30th-something to a 16th place in the women’s national overall ranking.

3 – Faye going AAAAAAAAAAAAA because she just set big PRs that get her close to qualifying for junior Europeans!

4 – being a jedi. PRs and allround progress in training, but she wasn’t able to show it today. Her time will come.

5 – and my response to setting nice PRs on her clean and jerk after switching jobs, switching homes and a lot more stuff that was less than ideal.

6 – also had her share of suboptimal circumstances with a back injury, moving house and so on, yet soldiered on and showed some excellent fighting spirit. (And muscle.)

7 – wasn’t prepared for a peak but still managed to sneak in a small PR on her clean and jerk, putting down a solid overall performance.

8 – helped out with coaching today, while I was showing off my butt and calves.

9 – .alpr is the true star of the show, organizing this whole day. Without him, no weightlifting competition that weekend. (And let's not forget the judges and other volunteers that made this possible!)

10 – - not only did she support Danique and Iris today as a coach, she is also one of the driving forces behind me every single day as my co-coach, partner and emotional support golden retriever.

📸:

U23 Europeans recap, 2/2 

Nikki has shown solid progress since Europeans, with a 98kg training PR around April and a 103 recently. Her clean & jerk improved from 118 (at Europeans) to a 120kg PR only recently, and 125 even more recently. 

However, the last few weeks things seemed a bit off. Fatigue set in, the body felt a bit achy and sn**ches were sloppy. We trusted the taper to do its work.

Sn**ch opener at 98: Spicy but doable, or so we thought. Nerves, inconsistency, sloppy - miss.

Repeat 98 - which would guarantee silver on sn**ch, anything more comes after. Wobbly, bar went back. She compensated, stepped back. Elbow discomfort that luckily disappeared in a minute. Made it!

102. If we wanted a solid lead on the competition, we needed this. She made it look easy.

Clean and jerk - with the clean traditionally being Nikki's weak point. We opened at 120: 2kg above her competition best from April. Solid.

125 - repeating her training PR. Solid.

We knew her primary opponent was strong in the clean. The opponent's 129 was overturned for a pressout. Nikki's chance: 129 for a big PR and a solid lead. She had to work hard for it but she got it! The opponent would have to do 130 for gold in the clean and jerk now, or jump up to 134 to win the overall gold. Her clean was strong but she missed the jerk.

Nikki won gold in the sn**ch, clean & jerk and overall.

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U23 Europeans recap, 1/2 

Zoë battled a nasty elbow injury in her meet prep. Despite having set one PR after another in recent months, she was severely limited in her front rack position AND suffered from severe discomfort even outside of training.

We worked around it, the goal remained the same: competition PRs and a Dutch sn**ch record in the -71 (U23). 

On sn**ch, that meant 77-80-83. Despite some inconsist lifts in the warm up, all sn**ch attempts went just fine... Until she tried to stand up the 83. Halfway she felt a sharp pain in her elbow, causing her to drop or.

On clean and jerk, the goal was 90-94-97. After a very suboptimal clean -leaning back during the pulling phase and crashing backwards- but still making it, she came back for an easy 94. We knew she had 97 in her, but her rhythm was off and she was not able to power through the 97. 

Still a small competition PR and her first Europeans experience was a positive one.

Now on to letting the elbow heal, and come back stronger for next year!

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Weightlifting is a sport that requires focus in training to make sure you execute a movement as well as you can, or make beneficial changes to your technique. Outside of training, you also need "Cognitive Bandwith" (CB) to make rational choices that benefit your sport. Improving cognitive bandwith can help with sticking to your diet and performing better in training. As part of the same process, you can recover better and even 'memorize' movement patterns better as you sleep.

Our generation is constantly faced with challenges to our CB. Constant stimuli from our phones, constant pressure from our careers, and so much exposure to 'the world' through the internet that things like FOMO tempts us to get in over our heads all the time.

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OCT. SEMINAR: WEIGHTLIFTING & VIDEO ANALYSIS 

On the 1st of October, I'm hosting a seminar that consists of a sn**ch and clean & jerk session followed by elaborate video analysis. We will film some of your heaviest lifts of that day, and spend the rest of the seminar analyzing the videos together on a screen. The goal is simple - to help you gain more insight in your own lifting abilities and give you pointers to improve. I will take you through the same process I use to look at an athlete's lift when coaching them.

Afterwards, you'll receive a sheet with concrete recommendations for exercise selection, programming and cues to help fix your lifting issues! 

We welcome both athletes that want to gain more insight into their own lifts and coaches that want to improve their coach's eye.

DM if you have any questions!

WHERE: UnScared Fitness, Utrecht

WHO: Any athlete/coach (weightlifting, CrossFit or otherwise) that is able to execute the sn**ch, clean and jerk or power variations thereof, so that we can film and analyze it. All levels are welcome to apply - just send a DM if you're unsure whether the seminar is appropriate for you.

WHEN: The 1st of October, 2023. 14:30 until ~18:30-19:00. 

COST: 115 euros.

SIGN UP: Link in bio. 

📸: 
🏋‍♀️:  at 2023 Nationals

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THE IDEAL FOOT STANCE

In the starting position of a sn**ch or clean, the feet should be roughly under the hips for maximal force production... In theory.

However, there are several factors that impact the "best" foot position for a particular athlete.

Some athletes have hips that are turned more inward or outward. This should not be confused with the ability of the hip to internally or externally rotate. This refers specifically to the bone structure. If your hips are naturally turned outwards, pointing the toes forward with a narrow stance may limit the athlete in their hip flexion. (Or in normal English: If your hips naturally point outwards, you probably need your feet turned out a bit, and possibly widen your stance.)

Related to that, there is the 'trainable' mobility aspect. Consider the amount of internal and external rotation the hip has. When generating force, the hip needs to be able to internally rotate a bit. If the hip is already rotated internally, it's very hard to generate force. If there are VERY low amounts of internal rotation possible, it may be physically impossible to even get into a decent starting position unless the feet are wide and the toes are pointed out.

Personal preference. Although there are times when an athlete has to learn to adjust to something they'd normally not prefer - why not let the athlete choose if the end result is not significantly different?

(Relative) limb length plays a large role. Consider having a narrow stance with feet point relatively forward, with an athlete with longer legs. That means there is simply more leg that can get in the way of the bar in the lift off. This could be fixed by starting the hips a bit higher, but simply widening the stance or pointing the toes out more can also help keeping the bar closer to the midline of the body while avoiding a 'hips up' starting position. 

Just a few considerations when assessing someone's foot position. 

📸:

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It's no secret that Kairos athletes (and coaches) love their caffeinated drinks. Imagine how happy we were when FITAID said they'd fuel our team training sessions and competitions with lots of cans of hype inducing goodness.

Pictured: "Hey guys, I need a picture of us enjoying FITAID. Who's up?" *people immediately start flexing*

⚡️⚡️⚡️:

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EUROPEANS RECAP

With a 175 goal to qualify for the coming World championships and PRs of 79/93, had to open high. With many athletes around her level, she had A LOT of time in between lifts. Some sn**ch pulls and power cleans in between her attempts made sure she stayed warm and focussed.

Warm ups looked strong. 74 opener solid. 77 – good. Unfortunately, her 80kg attempt was red-lighted for a small pressout. This meant she had to C&J 98 instead of the planned 95. She made her opener as well as the 94kg PR that followed. After a big clean PR at 98, she unfortunately missed the jerk. Result: 7th place overall out of 18 athletes in the 55 class, as well as Dutch records for the clean and jerk and total.

Next: Qualifying for worlds.
-
Nikki’s goal was different. Having already qualified for Worlds, her goal was to get as high as possible in the European ranking. We opened at 96kg, 1kg under her competition PR. Warm up reps looked strong and solid, but she got sloppy – she missed 96. The same weight again – but sloppy again. Regaining her focus, she managed to sn**ch 96 on the third attempt and it was obvious that she could do way more.

Frustration, but we were only halfway. She opened the C&J at 115, 1kg under her competition PR and 2kg under her training PR. Solid. 118 on the next attempt to close in on her competition – solid. Then we had to make a choice. 121 to rise 1 rank, or 122 to rise 3 ranks. We went all in, but the mental burden of the weight made her not get under the weight.

7th out of 19 while so close to 4th place feels bad, but Nikki still brought home two national records and we’ve seen how much more is in the tank. Next up – U23 Europeans.

Honorable mention to Myrthe, whom I had the pleasure of supporting. She also brought home two Dutch records, and was exemplary in her communication and cooperation with the coaches.

Big shoutout to Liza – the Armenian volunteer who went above and beyond to make our stay more pleasant, and the logstical side a lot more manageable!

Pictured: Happy people, late night ice cream and competition essentials.

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