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FAILURE IS FOR THE WEAK

THE PULL FROM THE FLOOR

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3/37TABLE OF CONTENTS THE PERFORMANCE MENU

Volume 8 . Issue 88 . May 2012

ThE PuLL FrOM ThE FLOOr:

A BAD TIME TO SuCk

Matt Foeman

ThE OPTIMIzATION OF VITA-MIN & MINErAL SuPPOrT FOr

TISSuE hEALINg AFTEr ATh-

LETIC TrAININg PArT 1

Mattew hoff and Ei Westelnd, MD

TALkINg POINTS WITh

ALExANDEr kryChEV

ran kle

WhErE CrEATIVITy AND SPOrT

INTErSECT: A CONVErSA-

TION WITh JONAh LEhrEryael gae

FAILurE IS FOr ThE WEAk

Sean geele

TrAININg PrOgrAM FOr MATT

FOrEMAN, JANuAry-MArCh 1993

Matt Foeman

ASk grEg

ge Eveett

Pulling from the oor vs pulling from the

blocks, Olympic weightlifting and athletic per-

formance, international training programs

COOkINg WITh SCOTTy

Scott hanas

Lotus root stir fry, Mexican pineapple stir fry,

Tostones, French style strawberries, Nut butter

delight

7

12

16

22

28

30

rEguLArSFEATurES

PERFORMANCE MENUJOURNAL OF HEALTH & ATHLETIC EXCELLENCE

4

35


4/374ISSuE 88 / MAy 2012THE PERFORMANCE MENU

ASk grEg & AIMEEWant your question answered by Greg or Aimee Everett? Send your email to [email protected].

Blake Asks: I have been doing Olympic lifts and have

been involved in strength and conditioning for about

a year now. I love the website and I always make a

point to check it out at least once a day. I noticed, in

the training videos, that when you guys do pulls from

blocks you break the elbow and do a high pull; but

when you pull from the oor, you keep the elbows

straight and shrug (which is how I do my pulls). Whats

the signicance of doing the high pull from blocks?

ge Sas: That may appear to be a pattern in the

videos, but thats not exactly representative of what

we do. A clean or snatch pull is the same whether

its from the oor, hang or blocks; likewise, a high-

pull is the same from any starting position. That being

said, there are times when I tell a lifter to do different

things with the arms in a pull. In a high-pull, the goal

is always getting the elbows as high as possible and

out to the side (note that this is a different goal than

getting the bar as high as possible). In a pull, the goal

is to train the extension of the legs and hips.

However, there are times when the arms need to be

involved somewhat. A lifter who is very stiff-elbowed

in his or her pulls will swing the bar away from

themselves at the top of the extension. You can shrug

to give the bar somewhere to go other than forward,

but sometimes thats not enough. So in that case, you

break the elbows and guide them to the sides. This is

guiding more than pulling and its a chance to ingrain

that timing and the mechanics of the arms to ensure

that the stiff arms and delay in pulling down doesn

transfer from pulls to snatches or cleans. For a lifte

who has a habit of letting the elbows turn toward the

back rather than keeping them oriented to the sides

this can also be appropriate to train that position and

those mechanics. So more often than not, I will have

lifters do pulls with that slight break in the elbows. Fo

a lifter who has a habit of pulling early with the arms

forcing them to do pulls with perfectly straight arms

is more appropriate (just make sure that he or she is

actively pushing the bar back into their bodies and

not swinging it out).

PD Asks: Love the articles, videos and resources

available on CA. My question relates to the Olympic

lifts as part of a training program to get more explosive

for sports (specically ice hockey in my case). Ill do

the power versions of the lifts once a week, but always

from the ground Im wondering if Im doing mysel

a disservice or leaving anything on the table by no

incorporating them from hanging positions and blocks

etc. Thanks for everything you do!
http://www.catalystathletics.com/newsletter/



ge Sas: If youre doing them properly, then I

wouldnt be worried about short-changing yourself.

However, you might consider incorporating hang or

block lifts at least for the sake of variety if nothing

else, or to add a second day of lifts into your training

at a lower intensity and higher speed.

For example, on day one you may do power cleans

at relatively heavy weights, and on day two do hangpower cleans or hang power snatches at a lower

intensity, focusing on speed primarily. This will give

you double the exposure to the lifts that you currently

have, which will mean better speed and power

development, but also technical improvements that

will help you push the weights up in your primary lift

day, i.e. your heavy power cleans.

Another approach would be to use hang or block

work at the start of a training cycle and gradually

move down to the oor as the cycle progresses andweights increase. For example, in the rst 2-3 weeks,

you might do power cleans from the blocks just above

the knee; the next 2-3 weeks, power cleans from the

blocks below the knee; and the last 2-3 weeks, power

cleans from the oor. This will work naturally with the

increasing weights over the course of the cycle, and

will also help improve your speed early on, which will

then be put to good use when youre lifting from the

oor again.

Rocky Asks: Hi Greg, What can we learn or possibly

take from the training regiments and approaches

to lifting from some of the more Powerhouse

weightlifting nations such as China and Russia?

Do their programs differ from ours (in the English-

speaking world where lifting is not such a common

sport outside of the Olympics)? What kind of training

cycles/techniques/exercises would their athletes

use?

Would be interesting to see the differences and

similarities.

ge Sas: I will answer this question as well as I

can with the disclaimer that I dont know everything

about other countries programs, and in fact, no one

really knows exactly what they do except those lifters

and coaches. Ill try to keep my assumptions to a

minimum.

I would say that in terms of the actual training programs

the biggest difference is in volume and frequency. To

the best of my knowledge, its most common to train

twice daily at least 3 days per week and once daily

another 3 days. This is actually the schedule used

most of the time at our own Olympic training center

but we have only a handful of resident weightlifters

and few outside of that situation are able to train withsuch a schedule due to obligations outside of lifting

I suspect that other programs train even more than

this, including Warm-up sessions as a team in the

mornings, etc.

Training volume can be much greater for an individua

who is a full-time weightlifterstress other than that

from training is minimal, and access to recovery

modalities, nutrition, etc. are maximal. If you can

snatch 150-200% more times in a given period than

your competition, you certainly have a leg up onthem.

That being said, speaking of the programs overall,

think the key factor for dominant countries success

is systematic recruiting and long term development

The more talent you can get into the gym and retain

the better weightlifters you can create. The bes

training system in the world would never be able to

make certain people world champions, and likewise

people built for weightlifting will excel in nearly any

environment and with any program. This is not to say

that the system and training doesnt matter; its jus

to underscore the fact that there are inherent abilities

that dictate any athletes potential in a given sport, and

identifying the people who have physical advantages

for that sport is a critical factor.

The long term development is just as important

When you start a lifter at a very young age, you can do

everything right. You can build the proper foundation

both physically and psychologically. When instead, as

we most often do in the US, start lifters at later ages

after theyve often been athletes in other sports, were

working with a host of complications and often the

result is that we rush or skip parts of the developmen

process.

I would say that another common factor in success

is work ethic and dedication. These athletes are

weightlifters. Thats it. Theres no question about wha



it is theyre in the gym to do, and I would venture to

say that the sport denes their lives for the duration

of their careers (or at least the most successful parts

of them). There have been great weightlifters with odd

circumstances out there who are able to be successful

without being locked in the gym for 10 years, but

theyre the exceptions. Their training and competition

are incredibly meaningful, and there is genuine reward

for success, whether its monetary or not.

Many of these countries (such as Russia and

China) have established educational programs at

high levels in which professional coaches can be

trained. Consider MS and PhDs in the USthere is

no degree in weightlifting available. The closest you

can get is kinesiology, biomechanics, or exercise

physiology, and I think we all have a pretty good

idea of how much experience with and exposure to

weightlifting these individuals have. There just arent

the same educational opportunities here. This resultsin coaches having to be largely self-taught, which

means a lot of experimentation, which means a lot

of failure or underwhelming results. Reading Russian

training literature for example, it becomes very clear

that we in the US are far behind in terms of systematic

weightlifter development. And much of this literature

is from the 1970s.

And of course, the drug issue cant be ignored.

dont believe this is by any means the only thing tha

prevents us from being successful internationally

but it certainly cant be ignored. I dont believe drug

testing is very successful, and the number of positives

that do turn up is not representative of the actual useby lifters. However, if we had everything else in place

I believe we would be able to close the current gap

considerably even with our stringent testingworld

records and world championships probably not.

Ultimately what we can learn from these countries is

pretty straightforward: We need better education fo

coaches; better recruitment of athletes; better long

term, systematic development; and better nancia

support and incentives for success. Making all tha

happen is the tricky part.

Greg Everett is the owner of Catalyst Athletics, publisher of

The Performance Menu and author of Olympic Weightlifting: A

Complete Guide for Athletes & Coaches.
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ThE PuLL FrOM ThE

FLOOr: A BAD TIMETO SuCk

MATT FOrEMAN

Weve got pressing business this month, brothers and

sisters. There are urgent matters at stake regarding

your lifting technique, and this article is going to give

you some important little thoughts that will keep your

snatches and cleans from descending into a world of

suckness. In the coming months, well get back to

some juicy writing about motivation, coaching, and all

the other tips-for-how-to-x-your-whole-life stuff that

we love so much. Theres plenty of that on the hori-

zon, but this month is focused on technique because

we need to get some things straight NOW.

Some of you read the blog posts I put on the Cata-lyst Athletics website. A few weeks ago, I wrote some

things about foot positioning in the bottom position

of the snatch and clean because I had just attended

a meet in California and I saw plenty of athletes who

needed some help in this department. Well, this ar-

ticle is coming from that same direction. Its been a

good month, because Ive been fortunate enough to

see a lot of weightlifting. I went to another local meet

last night, and the webcast of the National Collegiate

Championships has been playing all weekend. This is

fun to watch because its good to see the technique

of lifters who arent the best in the world. I know that

sounds funny, but its true. We all like to watch World

Championship footage because we want to analyze

perfect technique, but I think there are huge benets

to watching people who are still in the intermediate

stages because you learn how to spot mistakes. Be-

ginners and developing lifters do some things wrong,

technically. This isnt insulting or disrespectful be-

cause we all know its just part of the learning pro

cess. Every lifter has gone through a still making mis

takes phase, including me. And these things have to

get cleared up one way or another. Hopefully, the nex

few pages are going to serve that purpose for some

of you.

The rst pull from the oor, when the bar is lifted from

the platform to the knees, is our focus area for this

analysis. This short range of movement, when the ba

travels up the length of the shins and arrives at the

patella, is specically what were going to take a look

at. This is when the lift begins, and its tremendouslyimportant because there is very little chance of ex-

ecuting a lift correctly if the athlete makes a mistake

in this rst phase. There are some different schools o

thought about how the lifter is supposed to combine

speed and balance when the bar is being taken from

the oor to the knees. Different coaches have varying

beliefs about the proper way to do this. As I always

say, Im just going to share some ideas and thoughts

about how I think it should be done. Is there going

to be somebody out there in weightlifting land who

does things differently than I say, and yet still man

ages to set records and hit huge lifts? Probably. Is

there a right way and a wrong way to pull the bar from

the oor, regardless of any minor technique differenc-

es you might see from various lifters? Certainly. The

two areas were going to concentrate on are A) ba

speed and B) bodyweight distribution on the foot.

really want to drive home the point that this is crucia

stuff. You cant x a lift that starts out broken, jus



like you cant make a good pot of spaghetti if the rst

thing you do is screw up the sauce. Making errors in

the rst phase of a snatch or clean puts the athlete in

a position where complete technical precision is basi-

cally impossible. And regardless of what youve been

told by some guy at your gym who says that its okay

to do the Olympic lifts with crappy form, you have to

make complete precision your goal if youre serious

about getting good at this. Read on, and take fromthese words what you will.

grEASy FAST SPEED

First of all, most of you probably understand the

basic idea of speed in the Olympic lifts. The overall

concept is that the rst pull from the oor will be a

slower movement, and then the athlete will acceler-

ate after the bar passes the knees. This is something

you can gure out just by watching weightlifting for a

little while, at almost any level. Get on YouTube andtype in Olympic Weightlifting, and youll see it. The

bar moves relatively slowly from the oor, and then

it picks up speed as it starts to reach the level of the

thighs. We all know this. But theres a tricky little ne

line we need to take a look at when were examining

this part of the lifters technique.

What Im talking about is when lifters make the mis-

take of deliberately pulling the bar too slowly in this

rst phase. When I see lifters in local meets, and also

some developing lifters at the national level, it sometimes looks like theyre intentionally moving the ba

really, really slowly from the oor to the knees, much

slower than they should be. I think whats happen

ing here is these lifters have been taught that the rs

pull is supposed to be slow and controlled, or maybe

theyve just learned this fact on their own if they don

have coaches. The mistake is that theyre taking this

notion too far. Theyre overdoing it, and the whole lif

becomes inefcient as a result.

Heres the rule I learned as a lifter, and its what I stilbelieve now; the athlete should pull the bar from the

oor as fast as possible while still maintaining prope
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position and balance. The only time a lifter should

consciously think about slowing down the rst part

of the lift is if he/she is using speed to a degree that it

causes a breakdown in form. In simpler terms, we can

look at it like this. If the athlete is ripping the bar from

the oor so fast that the back loses its tightness and

starts to round over in a turtleback position, then

there might be a reason to slow down the rst phase.

This happens with beginners sometimes. The athleteswant to move quickly, but they cant maintain a good

at back posture because of a lack of strength. If this

is a problem, then I think its appropriate to have the

lifters slow down at the beginning of the pull and focus

completely on arching the back

and staying tight. Regardless of

anything, proper positioning of

the back cant be compromised.

The whole lift is a dead duck if this

happens.

Another common problem that

can occur when beginners pull

too fast from the oor is falling

forward. Because the lifters arent

strong enough to pull quickly, they

start to shift forward onto the toes

prematurely when they attempt to

really rip the hell out of it. Basical-

ly, their butt is coming straight up

while the shoulders are still low,

which causes everything to tip over. The weight of thebar is winning the battle.

When a coach sees either of these problems, the ath-

lete should be taught to correct them. Im not a big

fan of ever using the phrase slow down with a lifter.

I would rather tell the lifter to focus more on staying

tight, and let them continue to pull with good speed.

In rare situations where the lifter is just trying so hard

to haul ass that he/she cant maintain any kind of

control, then saying slow down off the oor might

be appropriate. Turtle-backing or falling forward arejustications for a slower rst pull because the lifter is

losing the fundamental positions that are required for

a procient lift.

Okay, weve got that concept nailed down. But we

have to remember that what were still trying to do

is get the bar moving as fast as possible, as early

as possible. As the athletes develop consistent mo-

tor patterns and gain strength, theyll be able to keep

their posture tight. This is when speed needs to in-

crease. If you want to study the point Im making, the

best place to look is the Bulgarian lifters of the 1980s

For those of you who dont know a lot of lifting his-

tory, the Bulgarians of the eighties lifted some of the

biggest weights ever seen. Alexander Varbanov clean

and jerked 215.5 in the 75 kilo class (thats 474 at 165

for you pound people). Asen Zlatev clean and jerked

225 at 82.5 (496 at 181). To this day, nobody has beaten those lifts. These guys were weightlifting machines

like our galaxy has never seen.

But their technique is what Im talking about. The

Bulgarian lifters were famous fo

ripping the bar from the oor with

speed that deed any accepted

principles of gravity. It was freaky

to watch them lift. Most of these

guys would approach the bar

reach down and grab it with theihands, and then sit down on thei

haunches in a full squat for ten

or fteen seconds, getting ready

to start the lift. Then, they would

simply explode with pulling force

as they tore the bar from the oor

Some of them would begin thei

pull so explosively that you could

see the hair on their heads jump

and almost all of them screamed

like banshees as those plates left the platform. Theywerent starting with a slow pull and building up

speed. They were mashing the gas pedal to the oo

from a dead stop. However, because of the immense

strength they possessed, their positions werent com

promised. Their backs stayed at as boards and thei

balance never wavered.

This is what were trying to do in weightlifting, my

friends. Its the ultimate goal. Rookie lifters and coach

es often make a very human, understandable mis

take by teaching a rst pull thats much slower thanit needs to be. If the lifters are getting totally spasti-

cated because the speed of their rst pull is too much

and theyre not ready to go that fast, then explain to

them that they need to modify what theyre doing to

keep their positions correct. But dont go crazy with

this concept, because you could easily wind up with

lifters who are just too freaking slow, plain and simple

Im seeing a lot of this these days.

Steve clean pull



hEELS? TOES? WhAT ThE ****?

Im going to be very direct and blunt in this section.

First, lets just ask the question. Should the lifters

have their bodyweight on their heels or their toes as

the bar is pulled from the oor?

My personal answer is neither. I think the lifter

should try to feel their weight in the middle of theirfoot as the bar is pulled from the oor. Once again,

youll hear some conicting views on this if you inter-

view different coaches. Ive read articles that say the

lifter should immediately shift the weight to their heels

as soon as the bar is pulled from the oor, and oth-

ers who have argued for the toes. The heel argument

is probably more common. One of the main reasons

why theres disagreement on this point is that some

world class lifters use different styles.

Going back to Bulgaria, theyve had some world

champions who used a pulling style that looks like

a rocking chair if you watch their feet. As they pull

the bar from the oor, the foot is at on the platform.

Then, as the bar is passing the knees, their toes rise

slightly (obviously indicating that theyve shifted their

weight to the heels). Continuing, as the bar meets the

hips and they extend into the top of their pull, their

heels rise off the platform and they extend up on the

toes in a jumping motion. So theres kind of a at

foot-heels-toes progression from the beginning to

the end of the pull. They rock backwards, and then

they rock forwards (albeit slightly). You dont see this

from many lifters, but Ivan Chakarov did it this way.

On the other hand, some rare lifters appear to have

their weight on the toes right from the beginning. I

was in the warm-up room at a national championship

several years ago when Oscar Chaplin was lifting.

Oscar was a Junior World Champion and American

record holder who snatched 166 kilos in the 85 kilo

class, so he denitely qualies as a world-class lifter.

I was sitting in a chair directly behind the platform he

was warming up on, probably three or four feet away

from him, and I saw his heels separate slightly from

the platform right at the beginning of his pull. This guy

could snatch 365 pounds at 187 bodyweight, and his

weight was obviously more towards the front of his

foot when he started his pull from the oor. Different

style than Chakarov, and he was still snatching amaz-

ing weights.

These are somewhat rare examples of different tech

nique styles. You dont see tons of lifters who use

either one. What you see most often are lifters who

keep their feet at on the oor until the bar reaches

the level of the hips, and then they extend up on the

toes. We covered this in an article I did a few months

ago about the difference between at-foot and toe-

extension pulling. So, when the lifters have their fee

at on the oor, is their bodyweight shifted to theheels or the toes at the beginning of the pull? You

basically need to ask the individual lifter, because

you might get some different replies. As a guy who

has snatched 341 pounds, I can tell you that I neve

thought about putting my weight on my heels. I tried

to feel my weight on the middle of my foot when

pulled from the oor, and then I extended onto the

toes and jumped at the nish. Thats just one opinion

from one lifter. I personally have no idea how anybody

could do a snatch or clean effectively by shifting thei

weight to their heels and keeping it there throughouthe pull. I cant jump forcefully without driving up onto

my toes. Maybe you can, I dont know. If you can pul

from your heels and snatch more than me, good fo

you. Ill buy you a can of Pringles.

AT ThE END OF ThE DAy

Hopefully, youve learned enough to know that theres

more than one way to lift big weights. Different lift-

ers have individual nuances in their technique. This is

pretty clear. But still, there are certain principles thathold true for everybody, and speed is one of the main

ones. I dont know who said it, but I read somewhere

at the beginning of my career that a fast lifter with

bad technique is better than a slow lifter with good

technique. I believe this is true. Now, obviously a fas

lifter with good technique is what were all trying to

grow into. Thats easy enough to grasp. However, the

quote I just gave you is an illustration of the fact tha

this is a speed sport, plain and simple. I hope all o

you have the privilege of going to a national or world

championship someday and watching the lifters in thewarm-up room or training hall. Im telling you guys

you just wont believe how freaking fast most of the

top lifters are. You can see it on video, but its a whole

other world when you get to witness it in person.

Youll know what I mean when you see the best. Its

not that their pull from the oor is slow and then thei

nish is fast. Its more like their pull from the oor is

fast and then their nish is super turbo fast. Whethe



they have their bodyweight on their heels or whatever

when they pull from the oor will be dependent on

their anatomical structure, leg length, and personal

feel for the movement. Will you be ready to use this

kind of speed when youre a rookie? No, you wont.

Speed is just like strength; it takes a long time to really

develop. However, we always have to remember that

we cant be good weightlifters by moving slowly. So

lets just keep that thought in our minds as a caution-ary note when were working with newbies. We dont

want them slow and properly positioned. We want

them fast and properly positioned. At least, thats

what I think.

Matt Foeman is the football and track & eld coach at Mountain

View High School in Phoenix, AZ. A competitive weightliter for

twenty years, Foreman is a four-time National Championship

bronze medalist, two-time American Open silver medalist,

three-time American Open bronze medalist, two-time National

Collegiate Champion, 2004 US Olympic Trials competitor, 2000

World University Championship Team USA competitor, and

Arizona and Washington state record-holder. He was also First

Team All-Region high school football player, lettered in high

school wrestling and track, a high school national powerlifting

champion, and a Scottish Highland Games competitor.

Foreman has coached multiple regional, state, and national

champions in track & eld, powerlifting, and weightlifting, and

was an assistant coach on 5A Arizona state runner-up football

and track teams.



ThE OPTIMIzATION OF

VITAMIN & MINErALSuPPOrT FOr TISSuEhEALINg AFTEr AThLETICTrAININg PArT 1:

An Oveview of Vitamins and Mineals Most Impotant to Atletic recove (WitTei relative Effects & Optimal Doses)

Mattew hoff and Ei Westelnd, MD

Trauma is a serious shock to living tissue caused by

an external force or agent. Some types of trauma are

random and completely unexpected, while other types

may be anticipated. No one expects to get hit by a

car crossing the street, for example, but the traumaof elective surgery is an example of tissue trauma that

might be anticipated. Some tissue trauma is minor--

the muscle shock to living muscle tissue from the act

of achieving a 3-rep max back squat, for instance--

while some tissue trauma is major, such as sustaining

a full thickness quadriceps strain (tear), or a complete

disruption of a knee ACL in a football injury.

With these above considerations in mind, it is evident

that healing from intense athletic training or overt

athletic injury is distinct in that it in part affords theunique opportunity to nutritionally prepare for tissue

injury beforehand, in order to preemptively optimize

the bodys ability to heal and recover. This is a

circumstance that the serious athlete should leverage

to their best competitive advantage, but how? The rst

step is understanding some basic concepts of tissue

repair and recovery. The next step is understanding

how to strategically use macronutrients, vitamins

and micronutrient co-factors, the most fundamenta

and natural agents an athlete can engage to facilitate

fastest and most complete tissue repair.

So, step 1 is recognizing that athletic trauma to livingtissue can be minor, from that routine interval workout

or major, from that full-thickness rotator cuff tear. Le

us rst consider overt or severe tissue injury as a mos

extreme example in understanding some basics abou

tissue repair and recovery.

Muscle and musculoskeletal tissue repair are complex

processes. They involve the interactions of differen

organs, tissue types, cell types, growth and inammatory

factors, and extracellular matrix components. These

processes also occur in combination with factorsthat include an athletes baseline biologic health and

other competing metabolic demands and stresses

The phases of normal tissue healing are distinc

across tissue types, as well as within tissue types

These processes are nonetheless continuous and

overlapping, progressing in a complex cascade o

healing events that lead to a nal patient outcome

For the athlete, this desired outcome is a return to



peak training capacity and performance. Because the

overall success and quality of tissue healing requires

adequate nutrients to be delivered to the area of injury,

the overall health and nutritional status of the entire

athlete inuences the ultimate potential for healing

of damaged or injured tissue. As an example, many

clinical experts in complex wound healing recommend

a combined holistic and focused approach, to treat, so

to speak, not only the whole patient, but the hole inthe patient in an integrated, combined fashion. This

same approach can and should be applied to treating

not just the athletic injury, but also the whole athlete.

Training and competition impose markedly increased

nutritional and metabolic demands. These include

dietary demand in protein, energy sources and

hydration, as well as micronutrient vitamins and

minerals. Vitamin, mineral, and other micronutrient

cofactors are of particular interest given their

remarkable potential to foster and accelerate healing,

and to help meet the unique physiologic demands ofthe training, or the injured athlete.

As mentioned, there is a broad range of tissue

trauma, and there are many types of wounds with a

wide range of physiologic character. Surgical wounds

are distinguished as a purposeful and organized form

of tissue injury, with the greater patient good as the

desired outcome. Although the higher goal of training,

like surgery, is the repair or restoration of some other

compromise, the high intensity training itself is indeed

a form of imposed tissue trauma, and necessarily

results in organized tissue damage as a result. In this

way, high-intensity athletic training often imposes all

the increased nutritional and metabolic demands on

a patient that are well known to occur in the setting

of generalized trauma. Also remember, an additional

principal element distinguishing surgical wounds

and exercise-induced structural damage from a

more typical trauma is that surgery and training are

carefully organized and planned. This is particular

in that elective surgery and planned training affords

the stated unique clinical opportunity for patients to

nutritionally prepare for tissue injury beforehand in

order to preemptively optimize the bodys ability to

heal and recover to its best possible potential.

Wound healing must occur in a physiologic environment

that is conducive to tissue repair processes and

regeneration. A multitude of factors are known to

impede healing, including hypoxia, mechanical

factors, infection, neoplastic and or metastatic disease

in cancer, underlying medical conditions (such as

diabetes), and/or medications (such as prednisone o

other chronic steroids). This list continues to include

dietary deciencies in protein, energy sources

hydration, and micronutrient vitamins and minerals

Vitamin, mineral, and other micronutrient cofactors are

of particular interest, given their remarkable and often

untapped potential to foster and accelerate healingand to meet the needs of the recovering athlete.

The principle objectives in athletic training are to

achieve complete recovery as well as gain muscula

tissue, skeletal tissue, and CNS development and

growth as rapidly as possible. Human studies have

repeatedly demonstrated the clear advantages o

optimizing nutrition and vitamin/mineral levels before

and after surgery as a means of helping clinicians

and patients meet these objectives. Researchers

who have explored the complex dynamics of tissuerepair have described a wide range of micronutrien

factors that are required in novel levels by the surgica

patient for optimal effect, and that have unique

potential for interactive effect toward the demands

of different types of tissue healing (i.e., skin, skeleta

muscle, tendon, bone, peripheral and central nervous

tissue, cardiac tissue, etc). This list includes specic

forms and doses of vitamins A, B subtypes, C, D3

K1, and K2, as well as minerals such as copper, zinc

and a roster of others. This body of research has also

identied properties of vitamins that would make fo

unfavorable effects or would be frankly contraindicated

in the peri-operative environment at their typically

recommended daily intake levels. This same research

can be applied to the recovery of the same types of

tissues and structures in the athlete.

At its base, it is the novel integration and application

of this knowledge to the understood and unique

demands of an athlete serves as the evidence-based

scientic foundation for a targeted vitamin and minera

regimen for the athlete. This targeted micronutrien

effort is further encouraged by the particularly robust

benecial micronutrient effects that are possible in

the athlete, when the optimal doses and forms of the

given micronutrients are used.

PhASES OF hEALINg

Before we delve into specic micronutrients, thei



effects on the body, and our recommendations for

athletes, it is important to understand exactly how

tissues and structures in the body heal. The human

body responds to damaged tissue the same way,

regardless of the stress that imposed the damage.

This means that to a degree, the processes that the

body goes through to repair the tissue share many

similarities, regardless if the damage was caused

by back squats, a car accident or surgery. This isadmittedly an oversimplication, and the magnitude

of tissue stress is a critical consideration in crafting

an advanced training or recovery program, but for our

purposes, we will discuss some of the more typical

and common elements of soft tissue healing after

extreme physical stress or injury.

Each tissue type, be it skin, bone, skeletal muscle,

mucosa, etc., has a tissue-specic cascade of healing

that is typically dened in phases. Skin and deep

tissue healing is a ubiquitous requirement for nearlyall training, and as such, wound healing is discussed

here as a commonality among all tissue healing

procedures. Wound healing also provides a concrete

format to demonstrate the applied vitamin and

mineral strategy that can be exacted across a range

of tissue types in the training athlete (to include bone,

tendon, ligament, muscle and other musculoskeletal

tissue). This provides us with a well-studied and well-

practiced medical basis to base our recommendations

for athletes upon.

Let us consider overt trauma as an extreme example

to look at the phases of healing after soft tissue injury.

The four phases of wound or tissue trauma healing

are as follows: the injury event & hemostasis, the

inammatory phase, the proliferative phase, and the

remodeling and/or regenerative processes.

PhASE 1: ThE INJury EVENT &

hEMOSTASIS

The tissue injury event, such as with a surgical incision

or microtrauma induced by a training stimulus,

initiates a response that prompts that body to clear

the wound of devitalized tissue and foreign material,

setting the stage for next steps. The initial vascular

response involves a brief period of vasoconstriction

and hemostasis. This typical six to 12-minute time

of intense vasoconstriction is thereafter followed

by active vasodilation and increased capillary bed

permeability. There are multiple sources of growth

factors, cytokines, and other micronutrient and non

micronutrient modulated factors are introduced, and

set the stage for the orderly cascade of events that

will lead to nal tissue repair. The speed and quality

of the nal repair is inuenced (and amplied) from

the outset by the athletes pre-existing levels o

micronutrients, as well as other exogenous factors

such as sleep.

PhASE 2: ThE INFLAMMATOry PhASE

The second phase of wound healing is the

inammatory phase. It is characterized by erythema

swelling, increased tissue temperature, and pain o

discomfort. There is increased vascular permeability

and cellular response in the area of injured tissue

Several factors can drive the prolongation o

this phase, including hypoxia, infection, medica

comorbidities (i.e., diabetes mellitus), and malnutritionof micronutrient, which is one of several deciencies

disrupting the late inammatory phase. In this phase

monocytes are converted to macrophages to destroy

remaining neutrophils, scavenge devitalized tissue

and eliminate bacterial or other pathogens. These

same macrophages initiate the transition from the

inammatory phase to the restorative healing phase.

PhASE 3: ThE PrOLIFErATIVE PhASE

The proliferative phase of wound healing that follows

is characterized by tissue re-epithelialization and

granulation. The length of this phase is variable, as

it is largely and directly related to the extent and

relative volume of injured tissue. Growth factors and

chemotactic factors are released from macrophages

and platelets. This, in turn, prompts the activation o

wound broblasts, which then produce and promp

substances further essential to wound repair, such as

various collagen types (tissue dependent), hyaluronic

acid, chondroitin sulfate, dermatan and heparin

sulfate. Together, these form the described connective

tissue matrix that is required for cell migration

Vascular and capillary in-growth is also critical to this

phase, in order to provide a means to meet increasing

local metabolic demands as healing progresses. The

relative vascularity and collagen formation are highly

dependent on micronutrient support, with often

dramatic potential to modulate the tensile strength

and overall quality of healing tissue, as well as more



generalized biomechanical quality and compliance

and other factors.

PhASE 4: rEMODELINg AND/Or

rEgENErATIVE PrOCESSES

The nal phase of healing is remodeling. This includes

the addition and reorganization of collagen bers

and other tissue to optimize wound tensile strengthand tissue quality. There is capacity for this phase

to continue up to two years for a serious wound or

surgery, though 40% to 70% of tensile strength

(versus undamaged tissue) is usually recognized in

the rst four weeks. These rst four weeks, therefore,

represent the critical healing window, upon which all

further healing is entirely dependent.

Macronutrition, with appropriate levels of lipids,

protein, and carbohydrates, is important in all

phases of post-operative wound healing, and is well

understood in this setting.

From the standpoint of optimized vitamin, mineral

and co-factor micronutrition in the setting of athletics,

the above can be considered by matching the four

phases of wound healing to the nutrients that most

impact each of the phases. The injury and hemostasis

phase differs for training in that it is continuous,

whereas wounds and surgery are punctuated events

in a persons life. Therefore, in keeping with both the

medical literature and common sense, an athlete can

never afford to be micronutrient decient.

Ensuring proper nutrition notably includes forms of

vitamin E, as well as non-vitamin herbal supplements

and medicines. There is a clear positive role for

optimized vitamin K in the inammatory phase. The

inammatory phase can be positively modulated

by increased doses and forms of vitamin A, which

supports early inammatory phase events, vitamin

C, which fosters lymphocyte transformation and

neutrophil migration, vitamin D, and others. The

proliferative phase enhanced by vitamin A (cell

differentiation), multiple B vitamins, vitamin C (collagen

synthesis and crosslinking, vascular healing), zinc (cell

division and DNA synthesis), copper and others. The

remodeling phase is positively inuenced by elevated

doses of vitamin C (collagen remodeling), vitamin K

(cell growth), and others.

The rst step is understanding some basic concepts

of tissue repair and recovery. Heavy stuff, for sure, and

we have examined only the tip of it. Now you have

some background, though, to consider step 2. The

next step is understanding how to use macronutrients

vitamins and micronutrient co-factors to naturally

engage fastest and most complete tissue repair

This will outline how to employ vitamin and minera

micronutrition to get the most out of every workout, o

how most quickly return to training and competitionafter injury.

In our next installment, we will begin with the rst o

a series of articles discussing how to best harness

the recovery benets of dietary vitamin and minera

micronutrients. This is the critical material that any

athlete that is serious about making efcient and

optimal gains in strength, speed, power and endurance

should know, as next we will address strategically

using favored doses, combinations, and forms of safe

and natural vitamins and minerals to optimize healingand recovery time, capturing the essence of there

is no such thing as overtrainingthere is only unde

recovery.

D. Ei Westelnd MD is a physician and orthopaedic spine

surgeon with a lifetime personal and professional interest

in nutrition, health, human performance and biomechanics.

After completing medical training at Georgetown University in

Washington D.C. in 1995, he pursued orthopaedic surgery training

at the University of Virginia, where he also completed advanced

fellowship study in human biomechanics and osteobiologics. Dr.

Westerlund completed a fellowship in spine surgery in Philadelphiawith both the orthopaedic and neurosurgery departments at

Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Westerlund has focused interest in

leveraging the untapped benets of vitamins, co-factors, and other

micronutrients to optimizing human performance, athletic recovery,

and injury recovery for the elite, high-performance athlete. He is an

avid multi-sport athlete, and enjoys the challenges of trying to keep

up with his re-breather athletic friends and colleagues (like his co-

author Matthew Hoff) here in Army Ranger country.

Captain Mattew hoff is a coach at CrossFit Inception and

CrossFit Sacrice in Columbus, Ga., and is a Platoon Tactical

Trainer assigned to the 4th Ranger Training Battalion. He is an active

athlete competing in everything from local CrossFit competitions,

to marathons, to weightlifting meets. Hoff served as a scout platoonleader and in staff positions while assigned to 5-73 Cavalry, 3rd

Brigade, 82nd Airborne in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Hoff is Ranger, Airborne, Air Assault, and Reconnaissance and

Surveillance Leaders Course qualied, as well as a recent graduate

of the Maneuver Captains Career Course. Hoff has published

several articles in the CrossFit Journal and also authors a blog,

www.paleonow.com, and conducts workshops about the Paleo

lifestyle and kettlebell training.



TALkINg POINTS WIThALExANDEr kryChEV

ran kle

Alexander Krychev is a former weightlifter for Bulgaria.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he competed in the

110kg weight class under fabled weightlifting coachIvan Abadjiev. Alexs own story is quite amazing, as he

was Mr. Abadjievs Project Zero, being his rst student

in weightlifting, and was there to witness rsthand the

creation of the legendary Bulgarian Training System.

For the rst time, the story of the Bulgarian system

will be told from its earliest incarnation to the latest

version of the system, which continues to produce

world championship performances.

Alexander Krychev was born in Bulgaria in 1951, in

an industrial town with many factories. At that time,Bulgaria was a communist country and was seen as

the little brother of the Soviet Union. There were

many exchanges of ideas between the two countries

in a unilateral direction, as the Soviet Union was

showing Bulgaria how to be a communist country,

which included sport.

In 1964, when Alex was 13, Ivan Abadjiev relocated to

the city in which Alex lived, and joined the local sports

club, which at the time did not have weightlifting. In

towns that had sports clubs, all of the equipmentwould belong to each club. Alex says he was an

athletic boy at the time, playing soccer, track and

eld and volleyball. He says that it was by accident

that someone took him to the gym where there was

a platform and a bar. Ivan Abadjiev was there and he

was looking to nd some kids to train, and so Alex

became Abadjievs rst student.

When asked what he was instructed to do the rst day

of training, Alex tells a story which would be anathema

in most gyms. He asked me to lift 50 kilos any way can, so I lifted it. He said, Okay, can you lift this, 60

kilos?, so I lifted it all the way up. He explains that

he lifted it in a pseudo-clean and press manner. Afte

this rst workout, Mr. Abadjiev asked him if he would

like to become a weightlifter and also if his parents

would approve. Alex promised to come back for the

next workout. PRs came on a regular basis, which

kept him interested in the sport, so he kept coming

back. And thus began a coach/pupil relationship tha

would last for nearly 50 years.

Alex explains that during these early years, Abadjievs

training methodology was unknown. During his time

when he lifted, 54, 5, 6, 7, he had his own version o

training, whereas the national team at the time did no

follow that version. So he was training at his place

at the time, where he lived in the province, and was

doing his own version. So when he came to our town

we were following his version. He explained that

as a kid, when the coach tells you to do something

you think that is all that exists, so you just follow the

regimen.

Alex told a story which helps illustrate how differen

Abadjievs system was at the time. He says that afte

he had been training for about six months, he went to

Soa, the capital of Bulgaria, to visit his aunt. He found

a gym close to his aunts house and went to there to

train. While he was there, he started doing exercises

that Abadjiev had shown him to do. He assumed



every lifter did these exercises. One exercise was a

jerk-drive type movement with very heavy weight.

Alex would do these lifts with around 160kg-170kg

when his best clean and jerk was 100kg. The coaches

at the gym told him to stop doing these exercises

immediately; that he may be allowed to do them with

Abadjiev, but he was not permitted to do them at their

gym. This story stuck with him because it was the

rst time he realized that the students under Abadjievreally were training under a different system.

Alex says at the time it was hard to convince young boys

to enter weightlifting because Bulgaria had no Olympic

champions and the sport was virtually unknown. In

1968, Bulgaria turned in a terrible performance at the

Mexico City Olympics, with a best placing of seventh.

In an attempt to remedy the situation, the government

opened a school called Olympic Hopes, which

housed athletes in the sports of weightlifting, track

and eld, wrestling, boxing, swimming, gymnasticsand bicycling. All of the weightlifters chosen to be a

part of the inaugural class were between 14 and 16

years of age, and Ivan Abadjiev was selected to be

the coach of the school.

The school, which was housed in the capital and

would later become the national training center, was

set up as a boarding school where the athletes would

live, train, and attend school all inside the complex. A

typical day in the sports school was as follows: At 7 or

7:15 a.m., they would wake up and eat breakfast. At 8

a.m., they would have school for three hours until 11

a.m., studying the basic courses of Math, Chemistry,

Russian, Literature, History, and Western Language.

By 11:10 a.m, at the latest, they would be in the gym

training until 1:30 p.m., and then theyd head straight

to the cafeteria for lunch until 2 p.m. At 2:15 p.m., the

lifters would once again become students and would

work on homework with tutors until 4 p.m. From 4 to

5 p.m., they would rest before training resumed at 5

p.m. until 8:30 p.m. Dinner followed, and then a third

workout commenced until 11 p.m., after which the

lifters would return to their rooms for a quick shower

and then lights out. This schedule was done six days

a week! Sunday was the rest day and, as Alex put it,

we sleep all day!

It was a Spartan life at Olympic Hopes, in which the

lifters would only see their parents on birthdays and for

the New Year holiday. Some people may nd it difcult

to comprehend that a group of teenage boys were

able to handle such a demanding training regimen

However, their motivation was even stronger than

their muscles. The motivation was that, the life unde

communism was different in the sense that a young

person had almost nothing to look forward. Everybody

wants to go abroad, and to go abroad, you either

had to be an athlete or a member of the Communist

Party. The only way to go to Western countries wasthrough sport. For the world championship in 1970

we killed each other trying to make the team, because

you know for three years in advance that the World

Championship is in the United States, in68 you know

so you say, I want to make sure I am on that plane.

You would not believe what kind of incentive that was

You cant even image; you cant even imagine.

The schools rst class contained 10 students

and was a whos who of future World and Olympic

Champions: Yordan Bikov, 1972 Olympic ChampionAndon Nikolov, 1972 Olympic Champion; Atanas

Shopov, Olympic silver and bronze medalist, world

record holder; Nadelcho Kolev, 2-time World champion

and World record holder, and, of course, Alexande

Krychev, 1972 Olympic silver medalist and World

record holder. According to Alex, the remaining lifters

were still quite accomplished. Although they were

considered the B-team, they made it to the European

Championships and achieved big results.

After three months in the school, Abadjiev had the

lifters begin his system. For Alex, this was normal, as

Abadjiev had brought him up in the sport. However

some of the other lifters did not respond as planned

The earlier program contained a lot of volume; sets o

ve in the press and clean and jerk, sets of 10 on the

pulls and squats, sets of ve also in the snatch and

front squat; very different from what the system would

eventually evolve into. During these months, the othe

lifters began to resist the training, because they al

had their own coaches and their own ways of training

and they rejected Abadjievs difcult training methods

They would call home and tell their coaches what was

going on. The coaches would communicate with the

federation, and the federation warned Abadjiev tha

something was going wrong because the kids were

complaining.

A week later, an inspection came from the Minster o

Sport via a Russian coach who stayed for a week and



wrote a very negative report regarding the training

of the Olympic Hopes athletes. After the report, a

vote was to take place to remove Ivan Abadjiev from

coaching any sport, not just weightlifting. Luckily for

Mr. Abadjiev and all of Bulgarian weightlifting, one

person at the meeting stood up and asked the group

how many medals had the team won in the previous

three Olympics. The response was zero. It was decided

then to give Abadjiev six months to prove himselfbefore the topic would be reopened for examination.

That was December 1968. In late March 1969, a

junior competition took place between Bulgaria and

Italy. Most of the Bulgarian team at this competition

was comprised of members of the Olympic Hopes

School. In the competition, Alex broke all of the junior

world records and all of the senior Bulgarian records,

breaking the total record by 50kg! One week after this

competition, Ivan Abadjiev was appointed the national

weightlifting coach of Bulgaria.

Perhaps a turning point in the evolution of Ivan

Abadjievs training system came in 1972, a few months

before the Olympics. Four or ve months before the

Olympics, Alex injured his wrist in training. Abadjiev at

that time thought that something may be wrong with

Alex, but that he probably just wanted a few days to

rest, or in other words, that he was faking. Abadjiev

had reason to be suspicious, as at that time, the lifters

would fake injury in order to get a few days rest from

the workouts. However, Alex never faked an injury

and this time was no different; his wrist was injured

The president of the federation even ridiculed Alex fo

faking an injury, which naturally upset him. So Alex

packed his bags and left the training camp.

One night, Alex was driving to the beach when he was

pulled over by the police, who proceeded to arrest

him. The police put him on a plane and sent him

back to the training camp the next morning. When

he landed in Soa, a car was waiting to take him to

the Minister of Sport, where he then was taken up the

mountain and into the camp. It turns out the presiden

of the weightlifting federation had sent an order to the

police to arrest Alex and send him back to the camp

Can you imagine this type of high priority given to aweightlifter? However, it was imperative that the lifters

win medals to prove the superiority of the Communis

system, and since Alex was a potential medalist, he

had to return to the camp.
http://ow.ly/6Xwi7



When Alex

returned to camp,

he sat down with

Ivan Abadjiev and

Abadjiev told him

point blank that

he had missed

the boat. In order

for Alex to nowmake the team, he

would have to do

something drastic.

Abadjiev put it like

this; if the new

method worked

Alex could make

the team. However,

if they did not try

the new method,

there was no wayhe would be able to make the team. Essentially,

Alex was about to become a guinea pig for the next

evolution of the Bulgarian system. The hallmark of this

evolution was extended time in the gym. For example,

while the rest of the team was done training at 1:30

p.m. and headed to lunch, Alex would stay an extra 45

minutes and continue training. The volume of training

increased, and the number of attempts with maximum

weights increased as well. Ivan Abadjiev did not leave

Alexs side during these extended trainings.

To put into perspective how difcult this new training

was, Alex recalled the following story. At the training

camp, the lifters had to walk up a series of steps to

reach the cafeteria for lunch. There were six steps

to a landing, and then another six or eight steps to

the top. After beginning this new training, Alex was

so tired he was only able to make it up the rst six

steps before having to sit and rest for ten minutes.

Of course, Abadjiev was right next to him. The rst

two weeks, Alex would vomit every practice and the

team doctor would routinely check on him, to which

Abadjiev would tell the doctor, Do not treat him like

a baby! After two weeks, Alex began to feel better

and after one month, he was back in top form and

began to lift PR weights again. Alex had adapted to

this extreme training and, of course, made the 1972

Olympic team.

Recalling the competition at the Olympics, Alex feels

he could have won

the gold medal if

not for a gift from

a judge. Jan Talts

(USSR) was the

favorite to win

the Olympics in

the 110kg class

and he openedthe press with

200kg, which he

missed. On the

next attempt

it appeared as

though he had

missed. However

he received a

two-to-one good

lift decision. Alex

recalls that thejudges included one Soviet, one Bulgarian, and a

Yugoslavian. He assumed the Yugoslavian had given

him the white light, but later found out the Bulgarian

judge had passed the lift and the Yugoslavian had

turned it down. Talts went on to press 210kg fo

an Olympic record. After the competition, he told

Alex that had he not been given the 200kg second

attempt, he was not sure if he would have been able

to make 200kg and stay in the contest because of the

pressure. In spite of this, Alex was satised with the

silver medal, because he had beaten several rivals to

earn it.

Following the 1972 Olympics, Abadjiev implemented

the training used on Alex for the entire Bulgarian

national team. Time, volume and maximum attempts

all increased. The lifters went from training ve hours

each day to training seven or eight hours a day. In 1978

the system again evolved, as the Bulgarian team did

not perform up to their standards at the Gettysburg

USA World Championships. This time the guinea pig

would be Yanko Rusev, who would go on to become

a ve time World Champion, Olympic Champion and

World record holder. After Yanko, Alexander Varbanov

became the next guinea pig to test the evolution of the

system. As the Bulgarian system evolved, Abadjiev

began to move away from volume and increase the

intensity and the effort that produced explosive speed

and strength.

Inaugural Class of the Olympic Hopes School Soa, Bulgaria 1968 Front Row: L-R: Alexander

Krychev, Atanas Shopov, Unknown, Yordan Bikov Back Row: Second from Left: Nedelcho Kolev, Ivan

Abadjiev (center)



Alex spoke very highly of Alexander Varbanov and his

teammate Stefan Botev, stating these two are the

strongest people in weightlifting ever. For those of

you unfamiliar with these two great lifters, Alexander

Varbanov won three world championships at 75kg in

1983, 1985 and 1986. In 1984, he dropped down to

the 67.5kg class and clean and jerked a world record

of 200kg. In 1987, he snatched 167.5kg and clean and

jerked 215.5kg for a world record jerk and total thathas never been approached. Alex said that in training,

Varbanov clean and jerked 222.5kg and cleaned

230kg, weighing around 77 or 77.5kg. He also front

squatted a massive 265kg!

Stefan Botev became World Champion in 1989

and 1990. He had personal records of 200kg in the

snatch and 250kg in the clean and jerk as a 110kg

lifter. Stefans PR snatch in training was 212.5kg and

his PR clean and jerk was a very easy 260kg. In fact,

Alex recalled a story in which during training Stefanhad just clean and jerked 260kg (the world record

was 250kg at the time) and Stefan went to load the

bar to 270kg! Abadjiev was pulling him back, saying,

NO 270kg! Alex said, Botev wouldnt have had a

problem winning the gold. If it were not for some

unfortunate positive tests for the Bulgarian lifters,

fans of the sport would have been able to witness this

epic showdown.

Leading up to the 1988 Olympics, the Bulgarian lifters

expected to win every class they entered. Obviously

Botev was in phenomenal shape, but so were the

other Bulgarian lifters. Everyone knows what Sevdalin

Marinov (52kg), Mitko Grablev (56kg), Stefan Topurov

(60kg), Angel Guenchev (67.5kg), and Borislav Gidikov

(75kg) lifted, as they were able to compete in the

contest. But what about the other Bulgarian entries

who did not get to compete due to the positive tests in

the lighter classes? Antonio Krastev snatched 225kg

and jerked 265kg. Chakarov, 90 kilos (bodyweight), in

Japan, in the camp, 197kg snatch, 240kg clean and

jerk. There were two 90kg lifters at the camp. Rumen

Teodosiev (90kg) snatched 190kg and clean and

jerked 240kg. In 82.5kg was Zlatev, 230kg clean and

jerk over there in Japan.

So what makes a world champion lifter? Is it Abadjievs

system? Is it his system mixed with super talented

athletes? The answer may surprise you. Alex says

that it does not necessarily take a super talented

athlete. According to Alex, Abadjiev said that Naim

Suleymanoglu was not that talented. He was very

tight in the shoulders; he had problems with the jerk

at the shoulders, and they worked very diligently with

him on the jerk, he recalled. A 10 on the talent scale

as far as exibility and talent, was Mincho Pashov. He

had impeccable technique, [was] extremely exible

very economical; however, talent is a combination o

many things. Its not only how exible you are, its noonly the body proportions/mechanics, but also how

smart you are, and are you able to take the loads, the

brutality of the training day in and day out. Its like the

NBA here, they say, hes a very good player but can he

take the brutality day in and day out to score 30 to 40

points? Thats also [true] with weightlifting. You have

other things. How does he perform in competition? Is

he afraid in competition? We had a lifter (in Bulgaria

who in the practice at 82kg was doing 215kg (in clean

and jerk) and trying 220kg. At competition, he was

so scared that he barely did 205kg. And lastly, will hemake the very last attempt to win the gold medal?

Part of what makes the Bulgarian system so specia

is its ability to produce strength that is so specic to

weightlifting, that it created some of the sports most

mythical performances. Alex said, Thats what the

Bulgarian system does. The Bulgarian system gives

the strength. Here [in the U.S.] everybody says, oh

the strength is the easiest thing to do. That is the

most difcult thing to do, acquire the strength, the

most difcult thing. Were not talking strength like

bodybuilder. If its so easy, why the super heavyweigh

here, rst place is 208kg? Because there is no

strength.

I asked Alex about this notion of strength, having said

myself for years that if you polled the American lifters

and their foreign counterparts to get PR numbers on

so-called strength lifts (squats, deadlifts, and partia

lifts,) that most American lifters would perform as wel

as the lifters who place higher in competitions year in

and year old. When I asked Alex why this so-called

strength does not translate into the classic lifts, he said

the following: Wrong training. When you do the clean

and jerk, there are so many muscles participating in

a specic position, and the jerk, those are muscles

that are taking place and you need those muscles

to be developed to extreme. Now back squat, its

different muscles, different positions. If you do jerk

from the neck, we give jerk from the neck only to the



beginners so they can have the position and feeling

for how they cannot dip forward. But this is only for

the beginners. When I came here [the U.S.,] they had

this back jerk for advanced lifters and overhead squat

with a big weight. I said, We never did that--never. If

you cannot get up with the weight here in the snatch,

he said, demonstrating an overhead squat, then you

nd another sport.

I claried these points with Alex, and what it comes

down to for American lifters is not a lack of brute

strength, but a lack of the specic strength needed to

perform maximum snatches and clean and jerks. Do

you know how you develop the specic strength?

asked Alex. By a lot of maximum weights, maximum

attempts, very frequently. Do you know how many

clean and jerks Hysen does in a week? Hysen Pulaku

is an Alabanian 77kg currently training with Alex and

Abadjiev. 12 to 14 clean and jerks [sessions], but

they are all maximum, he says. We dont do 80% or70% all maximum for the day.

Alex explained that you must push yourself to your

maximum every day, because lifting with maximum

effort is the only way to develop specic proteins that

will react when maximum effort is given. Maximum

effort is the key, not so much the numerical value of

the weight. Different efforts emit a different frequency

on the neuron, and it goes to a different gene and

that gene produces a protein. For instance, 200kg

for Hysen, it is transmitted here and the shape of

the protein is here. He draws on the table with his

nger. Now tomorrow or after tomorrow, he cannot

do 200kg. He does 185kg or 190kg, and it is so

heavy that he has to have the maximum effort. That

maximum effort is the same frequency and produces

the same protein as he did when he lifted 200kg. Now,

on a competition, you need that protein. Thats why I

always say go to the maximum for the day. If you put

a gun to your head, you cannot do 1kg more. Thats

your maximum for the day.

Alex says that once the body has adapted to lifting

maximum weights on a routine basis, warm-ups

become insignicant. When you are adapted to this

much heavy, heavy maximum weights and so many

frequent maximum weights, the body is adapted

and can go very fast to maximum. In the wild, the

jackrabbit is very fast. When the predator comes,

does the jackrabbit say, Wait, let me warm-up, let me

stretch so I can run faster.? [No.] Thats because tha

jackrabbit sprints all day long. Thats all he does, and

hes adapted, so he can go immediately to the 100%

sprint, maximum effort. Hysen, he starts with 70kg few

times, 120kg, 170, 190kg, 200kg. Once he reaches

his maximum, Hysen will make several attempts at

that max. If he makes it, he puts more onbecause

as Alex said, more is always better.

Reecting on American lifters, Alex said he sees many

young talented lifters in the sport already. However

there is one problem. In the United States, under the

current system, if a lifter has not reached his potential

his peak, until nineteen years of age, almost when he

gets out of high school, the chances that weightlifte

will becomes a world class lifter are greatly diminished

He goes to college, and college work is not easy, so

he cannot train as a professional. Or he doesnt go

to college, he gets married and he has to provide for

a family. I say under the current system, because itsan amateur sport. However, in high school, that kid

can take so much load that he can become a world

champion in the teenage years. During high school

he doesnt think how he is going to pay rent, how is

he going to pay insurance, how he is going to provide

for the family. All this is provided for him; all he has to

do is train, train, train.

I think that this is the part that eludes many American

coaches. The conventional wisdom tends to be

that we do not want to overtrain these young lifters

However, it has been my experience that it is nearly

impossible for a healthy young lifter to become

overtrained. We tend to err on the side of not enough

time in training rather than too much time, because

we are afraid they will become burnt out and leave

the sport. It is interesting how major sports such as

football, basketball and wrestling do not share this

same attitude. They push their participants to the

maximum day-in and day-out during their season

and in many places, in the off-season as well. Every

practice is to maximum. Lets face it. If a lifter quits

because the work is too demanding, then that person

was not meant to become a champion.

ran kle is the coach of Sandusky Weightlifting and the

strength coach for St. Marys Central Catholic High School in

Sandusky, Ohio. He is a USA Weightlifting club coach and his

lifters have medaled at the Youth Pan-American Championships

and have been Junior World Team members.



WhErE CrEATIVITy AND

SPOrT INTErSECT: ACONVErSATION WIThJONAh LEhrEr

yAEL grAuEr

Its a warm spring day in St. Paul,

Minn., and Im sprinting across

the Macalester College campus --

not to improve my intermuscular

coordination, but to dart to an

empty seat in a packed auditorium

for the local stop of Jonah Lehrers

book tour. A contributing editor

at Wired and the bestselling

author of How We Decide,

Lehrer is a prolic science writer

with a knack for delving into the

intricacies of brain science in a

way that is both compelling and

accessible. His latest offering,

Imagine: How Creativity Works,

masterfully weaves historical

and contemporary examples of

individual and collective ingenuity

with the latest research from theeld.

Lehrers work is unapologetically interdisciplinary,

his insightful real-world examples ranging from Bob

Dylans songwriting to the invention of the Swiffer,

from Pixars making of Toy Story 2 to 3Ms forays

into the world of tape. Unlike most books on the

creative process, Imagine is not a neat, tidy package

of cookie-cutter solutions. Rather, it offers a nuanced

treatise that teases out distinct

mental processes often glommed

together under the heading o

creativity. In one chapter, Lehre

delves into analysis on creative

collaboration, looking at research

on social relationships of cast

members in musicals. In another

he dissects the benets of urban

friction. Lehrer gives equal time

to discussing the effects o

sadness (and Benzedrine) on the

creative process as he does to

extolling the virtues of long walks

and warm showers in bringing on

much-needed epiphanies.

Though polite and soft-

spoken, Lehrer is not afraid

to defy convention. He boldlypoints out that research on

group brainstorming indicates that it simply doesnt

work, and that activities which seem to be a drain

on corporate resources or a waste of time (such

as allowing employees time each day to work on

personal projects, or seeking assistance from outside

rather than industry experts) often have astounding, i

counterintuitive, benets. His open-minded approach

and ability to draw insight from countless disciplines
http://www.jonahlehrer.com/http://www.jonahlehrer.com/books/how-we-decide/http://www.jonahlehrer.com/books/imagine/http://www.jonahlehrer.com/books/imagine/http://www.jonahlehrer.com/books/how-we-decide/http://www.jonahlehrer.com/



made me wonder how his concepts could be applied

to athletic performance.

Creativity is evident in the gym. Its in the carefully

selected cues, drills and exercises a seasoned

coach uses to get a lifter to what they need to do.

Its in the way a grappler channels his strengths and

weaknesses, navigating the limitations created by

his opponent and problem solving on the y. Its inscrappy new gym owners using innovation and insight

to obtain phenomenal results for their athletes despite

extremely limited equipment or poor conditions.

Its in the products created to address problems or

decits in unique ways that seem so simple -- if not

obvious -- in hindsight. Its in painstakingly improved

proprioceptive integration and in gleefully startling

moments of kinesthetic insight, both. Its in the

delightful moments of letting go and approaching a

sport through the eyes of a child, and in the painful

moments spent slogging through grueling and oftenboring drills again and again and again.

I was thrilled to speak with Lehrer by phone in April,

and asked him some of the many questions that arose

while reading his book.

Do you think, is solving a real world problem kind

of qualitatively different than, say, a teacher giving

a student a test problem with an answer, or even a

researcher giving test problems to people in the lab?

Thats a really interesting and important question, and

theres denitely a debate in the eld on it, on exactly

to what extent these measures of creativity in the lab

line up with real world creativity. And you can talk to

ve researchers and get ve different answers. The

datas all over the place.

Some tests have been validated by looking at real

world creativity, so in this sense, like, Bob Dylan would

actually score better on these tests of creativity. And

theres some evidence that that is true, that divergent

thinking does both. You can measure it in the lab and

those results do correlate with real world performance.

But this is an ongoing debate, and I think its a healthy

debate. I think its led researchers to continue to try to

come up with better tests in the lab. And its also led

researchers, and I think this is incredibly important, to

try to do a better job of really nding ways to measure

creative success in the real world

So in the book, I obviously cite lots of lab studies

but I also talk about studies that look at creative

performance in the real world. Like the study on ADHD

for instance, this actually was not done with creative

tests in the lab, it was actually done by looking at

people in the real world.1 So I think its important to

take both into account, and to realize that there may

be a contradication.

There was one sentence in the book where you wrote

about nding the perfect choreography for a dance

and solving an architectural problem.

There is some degree of expressiveness in some

sports or physical activities, but in some cases it is

just a game of numbers. Some sports are more based

on weights and numbers I think, as opposed to, you

had a great chapter in your book about surfer Clay

Marzo, and I think surng is a little different as far as

creativity goes.

Yeah, Im not sure if you weightlift if you want to ge

too creative, because you might do some damage

to your body. Im not sure all sports place the same

emphasis on creativity. Like track and eld; Im not

sure when youre running the 100 yard dash, how

much room there is for creativity. That said, you

know, you can look at the Fosbury op and the way

it transformed the high jump. Thats actually one o

my favorite stories of creativity. Heres this guy who

struggles for years to be an athlete, and he really can

nd his niche; he wasnt that coordinated. And then

he invents the Fosbury op, which is this radical way

of doing high jump where you fall backwards, you

jump backwards. What a crazy idea. Why would you

ever jump backwards? Were built to jump forwards

And yet the Fosbury op becomes the dominan

technique in the high jump. It allows him to win the 68

Olympics and to break the American record. So tha

leaves room for creativity in athletic performance, bu

its also important to note that not every sport is going

to require the same kind of creativity. Some sports are

denitely more about execution.

I guess in Olympic weightlifting, what Ive really

picked up from working with the Performance Menu

where the creativity is is that the way that people

1 Holly White and Priti Shah, Creative Style and Achievements in Adultswith Attention-Decit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Personality and Individual

Differences 50 (2011): 673-77.
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/celebrities/Clay-Marzo--Liquid-Cure.html?page=allhttp://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/celebrities/Clay-Marzo--Liquid-Cure.html?page=allhttp://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/celebrities/Clay-Marzo--Liquid-Cure.html?page=allhttp://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/celebrities/Clay-Marzo--Liquid-Cure.html?page=all



structure their training is very creative, all the different

approaches to the same problemand also people

sharing strategies for solving problems that come

up. One of the things that I found really fascinating

in your book was when you talked about the benets

of sharing information instead of selshly guarding it.

Can you talk a little about that?

Sure. I think we often see creativity as singular. Youknow, we talk about one individual changing the

world all by themselves Oprah, Richard Branson,

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, But creativitys actually a

lot more social than this, so when to look at which

factors predict, for instance, entrepreneurial success,

what you nd is that those with more diverse social

networks are far more innovative.

So the equivalent in sports would be a football player

who doesnt just hang out with football players but

also track stars and ballerinas and scientists, and well, those with really diverse social networks, those

entrepreneurs were three times more innovative. And

you can measure innovation number of patents and

trademarks, for example.2 So this strongly suggests

that we do get our best ideas from other people. As

Steve Jobs said, Creativity is just connecting things,

but most of those connections are going to come from

our acquaintance. So thats why I think its important if

youre an athlete to not just hang out with people who

are also in your sport. Youre going to get your best

ideas talking to someone whos in another sport.

Thats really interesting. Ive trained in grappling in some

gyms where coaches do not even want people to visit

other gyms in that same sport, and thats a connection

I made to the examples you gave of companies who

guard their intellectual property and trade secrets,

as opposed to examples you gave (Silicon Valley,

Shakespeare, etc.) where people thrived collectively

from sharing that information.

Speaking of competitive sports, theres kind of a

saying that you learn more from a loss tha

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