PowerBuilder
New member
Recently a good friend of mine loaned me a box full of very old school weightlifting material, dated between 1975 & 1983. There's quite a few Russian year books in there, which covers all sorts of things such as analysis of technique, research findings, reviews of competitions & so forth.
Two item in the book that has caught my attention is 'The Training of the Weightlifter' & 'The Snatch, Clean & Jerk' by a gentleman called Robert Roman, an extremely intelligent & celebrated coach & scientist.
The title of the book, while sounding pretty 'average' is straight forward. It is by far the best book on constructing exercise programs I have ever read. It covers in extremely in depth on how to determine volume/intensity for an athlete based on what they want to achieve (over the next year), what they have currently achieved as well as personal traits.
As a bit of a teaser, Robert talks about how weightlifters, from Novices to 'Qualifying' sportsmen should work from a basis of 10,000 lifts in a year, generally in the first 1-3 years. After then the amount of lifts can be assessed. He discussed the importance of having a minimum of 5 contests a year (a single contest once a month). 6 months in total of prep' & a month of rest.
Reps are organized as 750 reps per contest month, 1000 reps per prep month & 250 per rest month. 750 x 5 + 6 x 1000 + 250 x 1 = 10,000.
Of course if the athlete was to enter into more or less, the scheme would look different.
The book 'The Snatch, Clean & Jerk' is a complete must read. IMO it is better by a country mile than modern day books written on the subject. It's possibly on parr to Tommy Kono's book on lifting. It goes into quiet a bit of detail analyzing high level weightlifters from the 1970's performing the snatch as well as clean & jerk. Discussing things such as the bar path & biomechanics.
It goes into such detail it breaks down the snatch for example into a lot more pieces than just the 3 pulls. For example just as the bar is at knee height, three positions have already been found and moved through. I hadn't thought of holding the bar in a static position before the bar leaves the platform a position worth looking into.
It also brought to my attention even more the importance of when lifting the weight from the platform of taking the knees out of the way, while still keeping a straight back. This is a two way benifit. Robert talks about how an estimated 15% loss of power is created when the back loses shape. Additionally taking the knees out of the way, ensures the bar stays very close to the centre of gravity (your body).
I highly recommend both books, if you're able to get your hands on them. both are quite rare, but worth sourcing.
Two item in the book that has caught my attention is 'The Training of the Weightlifter' & 'The Snatch, Clean & Jerk' by a gentleman called Robert Roman, an extremely intelligent & celebrated coach & scientist.
The title of the book, while sounding pretty 'average' is straight forward. It is by far the best book on constructing exercise programs I have ever read. It covers in extremely in depth on how to determine volume/intensity for an athlete based on what they want to achieve (over the next year), what they have currently achieved as well as personal traits.
As a bit of a teaser, Robert talks about how weightlifters, from Novices to 'Qualifying' sportsmen should work from a basis of 10,000 lifts in a year, generally in the first 1-3 years. After then the amount of lifts can be assessed. He discussed the importance of having a minimum of 5 contests a year (a single contest once a month). 6 months in total of prep' & a month of rest.
Reps are organized as 750 reps per contest month, 1000 reps per prep month & 250 per rest month. 750 x 5 + 6 x 1000 + 250 x 1 = 10,000.
Of course if the athlete was to enter into more or less, the scheme would look different.
The book 'The Snatch, Clean & Jerk' is a complete must read. IMO it is better by a country mile than modern day books written on the subject. It's possibly on parr to Tommy Kono's book on lifting. It goes into quiet a bit of detail analyzing high level weightlifters from the 1970's performing the snatch as well as clean & jerk. Discussing things such as the bar path & biomechanics.
It goes into such detail it breaks down the snatch for example into a lot more pieces than just the 3 pulls. For example just as the bar is at knee height, three positions have already been found and moved through. I hadn't thought of holding the bar in a static position before the bar leaves the platform a position worth looking into.
It also brought to my attention even more the importance of when lifting the weight from the platform of taking the knees out of the way, while still keeping a straight back. This is a two way benifit. Robert talks about how an estimated 15% loss of power is created when the back loses shape. Additionally taking the knees out of the way, ensures the bar stays very close to the centre of gravity (your body).
I highly recommend both books, if you're able to get your hands on them. both are quite rare, but worth sourcing.