Fight! Olympic Lifting for Football and Sports
FLzine was privy to getting an anonymous tip about a Training Anarchy fight that took place in Jan, 2009. Not having a membership to Training Anarchy I had to use a member of that site to copy and paste the information for me. For the record, TA, you guys are worse than f**cking NASA for getting into your site.
Thankfully the effort more than paid off and in a way we weren’t expecting. In fact, through the duration of this hunt we found more fights, hypocrisy, and interwebz drama than we could realize. It seems that one of the main arguing players, Chris Mason, is the topic of a lot of discussion on the webz. I will say that I was surprised when I saw the normal t-nation supplemental haters giving the big love fest to Mason regardless of unsupported research data and claims. They even went as far as to delete posts and protect their sponsor venture. Shocked!
Tsk tsk, looks like you lost that noble footing you claimed you had over the evil T-nations of the world. It seems like when it is all said and done you can’t ignore the hardest thing there is to ignore. Friendships and loyalty. They will always make that line blurry, always.
Anyway this is not about that, though tempted, it isn’t about that. We actually think some stuff at “At Large” is pretty good and Chris has his moments to shine, but we think he and others need to put this kitten to bed.
A ongoing debate continues to come out of the discussion of athletic training and Olympic Lifting. This is a particular focus in football. The #1 question is…
Does olympic lifting have its place in training football players?
If the players can pick it up, and the coach can teach it correctly then yes, it very much has its place in training football players. Don’t just take my word for it…
The thread started by a poster stating…
MilkMan:
Football and Olympic lifts
Don’t they go hand-in-hand?I met our Middle Linebacker, and he’s a big dude. I’d put him at 6′1″, 230-240 lbs. Built like … well … a linebacker. He was tossing around 275 on the bench today like I move 175.
At any rate, I spotted for him, and he spotted for me, and we chatted a bit about training. He told me that the team doesn’t do any olympic lifting, because “that stuff isn’t good for you”.
The thread is filled with the basic opinions of of common logic really. The thought of “yeah, it isn’t everything but, it can have its place and can be awesome for working on power and explosiveness.”
Apparently that kind of simple and fair stated comment was too much for Chris Mason who comes in with the following statement.
Chris Mason:
The gentleman who started this thread goes to a school with a smart strength coach. I have argued it before, and will again, I just don’t think Olympic lifts are of much use for football players.
The response from poster is obviously, “Why?” What is the reasoning for an almost absolute seeming statement on this topic?
Two main points that were raised were by Milkman and Jonathan Fass.
Milkman:
Don’t get me wrong I love Oly-Lifts, I’m quite sure that it’s possible to develop (1) rate of force production, (2) PC strength/hip extension strength, (3) coordination, and (4) maximum power output (which, IMO are the primary reasons you’d train O-lifts outside of competitive lifting) through other means as well. I just wanna hear CM’s take on how else that mgiht be best accomplished, and why those other methods are superior/on par with O-lifting.Jonathan Fass:
This would disagree with an overwhelming amount of research as well as anecdotal evidence. Why do you feel this way?
Mason responds and we see the start of unnecessary word porn.
Chris Mason:
It is a bit of a long story. They are poor for hypertrophy which is a goal for most positions in football. In addition, the neural components, the “skill” learned doesn’t translate to any significant degree to any movement performed on the field of play. Resistance training from a strength and power perspective for football players should be geared toward the optimal increase of force production capability of the musculature which can then be transferred to athletic ability via the practice of sport specific movements.
If you didn’t understand that he was saying “Me says you need big for football, this does not do that. Football players should train for football, playing football.”
It isn’t so much that the statement is completely wrong. It is true the best way to get good at your sport is to do that sport. But to snub the other values and applications to what the training CAN do and make hole filled statements is where Chris goes wrong.
A poster quickly responds with…
vuduchyld:
Chris, I’m just curious…perhaps my understanding is wrong, but when you say “force production capability” I hear power…not pure strength.My take is that you would do exercises like bench, squat, and deadlift to increase pure STRENGTH. Then you would do things like plyos and/or power versions of o-lifts to increase the RATE at which you can DEPLOY that strength. That increases your power production.
I mean, obviously, you don’t want to do STRICTLY plyos and power cleans and not do ANY big compound strength exercises. But I’d think that increasing power production strictly on the field of play isn’t the most efficient way to do it.
I know that the Bigger Faster Stronger Husker Power program uses power cleans and I’d imagine the VAST majority of serious football programs would, as well.
In a simple statement Vuduchyld basically covers the issue. Sure, it shouldn’t be everything, but it has its place and could produce fantastic results under the right hands. The argument should have stopped there. What proceeds is basically a back and forth relay of Jonathan and Chris. This folks is where it gets fun. I am now going to let you read the responses, making comments where I see fit.
Chris Mason :
A couple of points:1) When I mentioned force production capability I essentially was referring to a hypertrophy and subsequent increase in the force production potential of the contractile myofibrils.
2) The #1, BY FAR, factor in power is strength. Think of it this way, if you can bench 300 lbs you can move the 45 lbs bar by itself REAL FAST without any speed work, right?
To be clear, I am not saying Olypic lifts are worthless, rather, I am saying I think they are relatively ineffective for a football player and should only be incorporated as an adjunct movement and or for variety.
Jonathan Fass:
Not as quickly as an individual that trained to move it explosively, no. There is no doubt that power is increased with strength (or more specifically, force): it’s part of the equation. But technically speaking, reducing the time that it takes to produce the work is far more influential on improving power than equivalent increases in strength. Depending on the experience of the athlete, it may also be more productive to focus on improving their speed vs. improving their strength if we were to choose one vs. another exclusively (which really doesn’t happen anyway). No, a 150# running back that runs a 4.25 won’t be too valuable no matter how fast he is, but neither is a 235# back that runs a 6.5, either. There’s a balance.Do you not like Olympic lifts, or do you just not believe that we should train football players to be Olympic Weightlifters. If that’s the case, what programs are you referring to that does not train their football players to play the game of football, and only trains them to excel at Olympic lifts?
Chris Mason:
To answer the question, I would tell them to squat and skip the cleans. You can always include cleans for variety etc., but getting really good at cleans will not make you a good offensive lineman and you can build more of the musculature of the hips, legs, and lower back with a heavy squat than a heavy clean by virtue of the fact the clean inherently limits the load relative to a squat. The lineman wants to use weights to optimally stimulate size and strength in the targeted muscles and then get his ass into some blocking drills etc. to begin to translate his new enhanced power to performance on the field.Trust me on this and watch in the future to see strength coaching come around to this line of thinking.
Jonathan Fass:
The load isn’t limited, the physical weight is. The loading, however, by physics, is increased due to the speed of movement. Physiologically, the same fiber expression is seen, and neurally, improved speed of rate coding is seen as well, something not seen with just heavy lifting. If explosive lifting isn’t worthwhile, why perform a dynamic bench or squat day in powerlifting?
If getting good at cleans doesn’t improve your ability to be a good lineman, how does a heavy squat accomplish this? For the record, i would argue that getting good at any exercise doesn’t make you a better lineman without appropriate sport-specific drills: you’re making a straw-man’s argument. Without transmutation of the achieved strength, it’s virtually worthless.Also, if cleans don’t build the hips, legs and lower back, how do you explain these guys?
For the record, this is a pointless argument. The scientific and anecdotal evidence both indicate that Olympic lifts such as cleans are valuable pieces of an athlete’s training, in just about any sport that you can think of (and certainly football). You disagree, but have no real evidence other than “trust me.” Do you need Olympic lifts? No, probably not…but you’d be better off using them to at least some degree, and this is, again, overwhelmingly supported by all of the evidence, literature, and real-world results.
Chris Mason:
I KNOW you love to try to argue points by throwing around sports science specific verbiage in an attempt to validate your point or confuse the reader. There is no other reason to do it as most of those reading it will not know the terms you so often use.
Editors note: We think given that earlier response from Chris that this is kind of funny.Unfortunately, that doesn’t work with me. I know as much as just about anyone (yes, there are some that know a lot more), but I don’t feel compelled to use overly technical terms with regularity to try to prove it. I prefer to explain things in a manner anyone can understand.
Now, if you wish to attribute the build on the athletes you are referencing solely to Olympic movements you are sadly mistaken. I assume you know enough to know that they use back squats and other assistance movements as well in their training and those movements are more responsible for the hypertrophy in the hips and legs than any form of a clean or snatch.
Now, as to the loads, yes, momentary forces involved such as during the rebound from the very bottom of the squat on a squat clean or snatch may be higher than those involved in a powerlifting style squat, but the TUT is not the same and that was my point. Powerlifting style squats will certainly build the legs and hips to a greater degree than performing squat cleans or snatches if both were practiced exclusively (i.e. if all you did were back squats vs. all you did were squat cleans).
You can believe and teach what you want, it doesn’t make it correct. The same can be said for my ideas.
Jonathan Fass:
I prefer to use terms that are accurate. If someone doesn’t know them, they can look it up: they’re intelligent adults. I also tend to explain the terms that I might choose to use immediately following their use in any case, because I am also a teacher, and that is how you teach. I don’t “dumb down” my statements because I assume that the people reading aren’t knowledgeable enough to understand, certainly not on this forum, and certainly not the relatively basic information that I referred to. I’m not writing a dissertation, I’m writing a response on a forum. You apparently think very little of the people on this forum, but I prefer to believe (as I have seen evidence for) that they are MORE than capable of understanding a little scientific jargon (and actually prefer it that way). Also, because I was specifically responding to your post and I respect your experience and knowledge, I also assumed that you would understand my post as well. If 2 professionals are discussing a topic, I don’t see a problem.BTW, this is nothing but a strawman’s argument, and I KNOW you love to try to argue points by throwing around strawmen in an attempt to validate your point or confuse the reader. There is no other reason to do it as most of those reading it will not recognize the tactics you so often use.
If you’re going to post a response, don’t waste my time with personal assaults and strawmen that cover up the fact that you didn’t really respond to the question that was asked.
Now that we’ve moved past that, where is your evidence? You can produce your evidence in simple-speak if you’d like to, as long as it’s accurate: show me your evidence. I realize that you would prefer to sit back on your experience and say “I’m right because I say so,” but why bother posting on this forum if you dont want to actually share information? The fact is, while you claimed that I tried to fling around “fancy-speak” to impress you and that you’re somehow superior because you’re able to dumb-down your answers, did you realize that, rather than posting a dissertation on power development I simply posted a few pictures to solidify my point??? How would you like me to get any simpler than that?
The sad thing is that I really do respect you, Chris. You have a great deal of experience, and the fact is that you lift more than I probably ever will! I look forward to reading your posts because I hope to be able to learn something from them. That’s why I get frustrated when, instead of posting an evidence-based and reasoned response to topics, you very often just post something according to your opinion, back it with nothing, and leave yourself open to criticism which you then get frustrated by. Again, why bother posting in a forum if you only want to hear people agree with you?
The argument here is that I feel that Olympic lifts should be part of an overall training program for an athlete/football player because it produces excellent results. You stated that they shouldn’t be included! Is this really so difficult to comprehend here?
I didn’t argue that O-Lifts should be the ONLY things taught…that’s borderline idiotic. However, if we’re looking at sport-specific requirements of strength AND power, and we’ve got to choose ONLY one (which, again, is NOT the argument here, but I’ll indulge you since you don’t seem to be able to stick to the subject anyway because you LOVE strawmen), then I would prefer using a technique that will produce BOTH strength AND power vs. strength-only. It’s impossible to develop POWER without STRENGTH. This is a basic concept.
Do you want your football player getting beaten off the line, even if he squats 100# more than the linebacker in front of him?
Do you want your wide receiver to be unable to develop enough separation speed from his single coverage so that he can deadlift 150# more?
Strength is NOTHING without speed in sports. This, again, is BASIC. Yes, strength is of incredible importance…but you need POWER to be explosive and effective in a POWER sport like football. You really don’t understand Olympic lifts and the rate of power development, do you?
The evidence makes it correct. I’m still waiting for yours.
From here basically Chris says he doesn’t have time to deal with it. We found this funny given at the exact same time he was arguing about this on Training Anarchy, he was doing the exact same this at JP Fitness. For being so short on time he sure did get that argument around.
Take home point is that Olympic Lifting does have a researched and tested reasoning in multiple sports, but especially football.
Be careful the next time you argue on a forum or blog, you may just be apart of our next “Fight!Fight!”
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