Female training-PTC style

Markos, if you could take a five minute film of the women training, just their ordinary training no need for PBs, and whack it up on your YouTube channel, that would be a great service to all of us who want to inspire women to lift heavy.

Because it's one thing to see one woman doing it, it's another to see a whole group of them.

My client Agatha deadlifted 70kg 1x3 yesterday at a bodyweight of about 64kg, and this makes her one of the strongest women in the gym. She is doing a triathlon in late February but plans to focus on strength after that. Only another client of mine Monica lifts like that in this gym. There is one other woman who works on strength, a shotputter, not my client, very focused, does her own thing. So far as I know, that's about it. Obviously I would like to encourage more, as well as pushing along my two.

Wow Markos that awsome! Does that mean the girls get cash prizes for prow raw to? Also can you confirm how the weight classes are going to work for the girls? last thing i read was under 60 and over 60. With that amount of chicks lifting there would be more weight classes right?

Annie also said something about pro raw no using the glossbrenner calculator... is that right?

P.s I get paid on the 15th ill transfer you the money then

Unfortunately the women didnt join ProRaw early enough and I didnt secure ANY prize money for them.

To date, I only have 2 paid up female members, not sure many sponsors want to sponsor that.

I told everyone the reason for joining up early was to secure sponsorship.

So with only 2 paid up female members, no cash for the ladies this time.

The classes are over 67.5kg and under 67.5kg.

I have one competitor in each class, Annie and Sussy.

Something to encourage the women, I think. At 47, recently divorced and very overweight, Lisa decided to pursue a dream of competing in Olympic weightlifting. If she makes the US team, then at 52 she'll be the oldest woman on a weightlifting team in the Olympics ever. She travels 4 hours a day 5 days a week to training, and does 4 hours of training. So basically this is a second full-time job for her...

Here she is 3 years ago, just started,

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t61fM9SOqIs]YouTube - Lisa Fisco Going For The Gold-Female weightlifter[/ame]


And here she is more recently.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ3uoDaQz6M]YouTube - It's Never Too Late: 50-Year-Old Trains To Be Oldest Olympic Female Weightlifter[/ame]

I've no idea if she'll make the US team as she hopes. However, she's come a long way and is a lot closer to the team than she was when she started!

I pushed the girls in the squat and bench today.

Kate, Louise, Sussy and Nicole are all mums, all have 2 young kids,all 4 are aged between 32 and 41.

Kate's PB's are 60/45/125
Sussy 80/57.5/100
Louise 60/47.5/80
Nicole na/47.5/105

Kate squat 60 and deadlift 125? What's happening there?

Strong back

Must be a strong back alright!

Now if she just gets strong legs she could deadlift... well I haven't seen her so can't judge, but if she can do 125 with a 60 squat, surely if she got her squat to 75-85, a 150 deadlift is in reach at least?

I start all my clients on lower back work from day one.

Once I get that where I want, I focus on other areas, so deadlift always goes up first.

Britt - 145kg dead, 85kg squat

Kate is already squatting bodyweight in a few months of lifting, thats pretty good

Tonight Sussy benched 60kg, the second lightest female to bench 60kg at PTC, Sussy weighs 63kg.

The list of girls who have benched 60kg+ at PTC is, in order

Nina
Amanda
Annie
Dimi
Kat
Brittany
Sussy

A little story to show that the methods are spreading.

Another trainer Gina has asked me to train her. I am more familiar with strength training than she is, her own goals are to get stronger, she works in group settings with older adults and that's where her current expertise lies.

She is 40yo, about 1.53m tall and 50kg (guesses, we've not measured her). She had never done barbell squats etc before, and in her first session squatted 30kg and struggled to rack pull 40kg (she tried jerking it off the rack rather than a steady pull, women seem to try this but not men), I have not tried her on overhead press, the 20kg barbell would be a maximal effort for her, so I am waiting until she builds up shoulder strength a bit. She's had about five sessions over a couple of weeks. Today her session was,


Squats or split squats, inverted rows and pushups. Squat, rack pulls and thrusters. Do a deep knee bend, pick something heavy up off the ground and put something heavy overhead. Instead of half an hour on the treadmill reading a magazine, something horrible as cardio. Probably sounds quite familiar.

Notice the times. I have to keep them moving, PT sessions are usually only half an hour. For optimal strength gains we'd need more rest between sets, and thus longer sessions. However as I see it, for someone squatting less than their bodyweight on their back - they're a true beginner, it doesn't matter too much, and anyway they need some conditioning to help them handle the really hard workouts later on.

I would not claim to know as much as Markos. This is why I steal from him and others. Just trying to spread productive training a bit.

How can she call herself a trainer if she needs someone else to train her?

I know all the pro's have coaches, but the trainees still understand training.

leachy said:

How can she call herself a trainer if she needs someone else to train her?

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I already explained that her area of knowledge is with older adults, rather than training healthy people to get strong.

That aside, a competent trainer offers three things: accountability, motivation and knowledge.

Accountability is always good. You have an appointment, you show up. Training on your own, maybe you'll do it, maybe not. When my training partner can't come, I often will miss the session entirely.

Motivation is good, too. And it's absolutely needed to push yourself past your normal limits of effort. No way I'm doing 20 rep squats on my own.

Lastly there's knowledge. Part of knowledge is watching every rep to see it's a good one. You, leachy, have a 140kg squat mentioned in your sig. So let's say you're doing 100kg x10 or something. Will every rep be a good one? You're under 100kg and sweating to get the bastard up there, you sure as shit won't be paying attention to form like someone standing watching will be.

And of course, self-knowledge is a difficult thing. There are times when you are going to want to push yourself harder when really you need to pull back a bit, and vice versa. A competent trainer, watching your performance, they're going to use the brakes and accelerator as appropriate. It's hard to do that with yourself, your pride and fear and mood of the day and all the rest get mixed up in it.

Further to knowledge, whatever we know, someone else knows something different. Markos doesn't spend hours online every day just to promote PTC and mock lazy newbies online, he's reading a zillion articles and learning stuff. There are always new things to hear about, little tweaks or ways to do things that have even very well experienced coaches say, "ah... now that makes sense."

I suggest you have a chat to Nick (NPR) who is a PT/S&C coach, and see what he has to say about working with Markos. Or perhaps have a chat with Max - Max trains other people for money, yet still had Markos coach him to world championship level.

I would be interested to see you tell Nick and Max that they're not real trainers because they have someone else train them. Markos, please upload the vid of it to your youtube channel.

Like I said, all the pro's still have coaches. This is not what I am disagreeing with. I just find it odd that someone who trains people for a living requires someone to train her.

Anyone can be a training partner. Giving that motivation, extra assistance with lifts, yelling "chest out, drive with the hips." Where I see the different between "training partner" and "coach" is someone who can get that extra 5kg out of your lifts through perfecting form, trying out a different training technique or perfecting there training program.

As for making sure every rep is good, I use a mirror. I also video tape my lifts. Personally I prefer training alone, It is just me and the weight, me against the weight, myself vs myself, no distractions except the brain piercing metal.

leachy said:

I prefer training alone

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Someone who does not get coached is not really going to have a clear idea of how useful it is to be coached. So your opinion of who should and should not get coached is not really useful to us.

Kyle Aaron said:

Someone who does not get coached is not really going to have a clear idea of how useful it is to be coached. So your opinion of who should and should not get coached is not really useful to us.

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Never said I hadn't been coached.

My point was, someone who wants to increase there strength, and whose profession is working in a gym should know the basic principles of doing so. If they don't, it reflects poorly on whatever certification/education they received.

Last night Sussy squatted 85kg

Her lifts are now 85/60/100 @ 63 kg, a few months of training

This morning Nina became the first girl to powerclean over bodyweight at PTC, she managed 61kg @ 60kg. That was her weight fully dressed in the gym.

Her morning weight minus breakfast and clothes is around 58kg.

She has shifted away from PL training for a while, like Max, and progressing well on other lifts. Her previous PB was 57.5kg

I love this thread...these are the girls i use to motivate me even though @ 45kg I weigh a bit less than those i've noted you talk about Markos.

I let my girls eat