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Consider Efficiency When Cutting Weight
The Junior Pan American Championships were a huge success. We won 29 medals between the men and women’s team. Last year, only one athlete totaled over 300k, and this year only two totaled less than 300k with one of those totals being 294k. This group of men and women has a real chance of changing the mindset of American Weightlifting.
This entire group was going after Gold. We brought home four Gold Medals, and a lot of other athletes were really close. The most exciting part of the trip was coaching athletes that were totally focused on winning. Nobody wanted to just medal. They all had their sites set on 1st place, and that’s exactly what it takes to compete with the rest of the world.
One lesson that we learned was considering who should and shouldn’t cut weight for competition. Here’s the thing if you are a very efficient lifter meaning that your clean & jerk is 90% or more of your front squat, then you really need to consider not cutting weight.
If Nathan Damron cuts 5 kilos to make weight and his squat drops 5-10k, it’s probably not going to affect his snatch and clean & jerk because he has an excess of absolute strength. However, if Tom Summa cuts 3-5 kilos, there could be some trouble. Tom clean & jerks a little over 95% of his front squat. If his front squat goes down 5 kilos from a weight cut, his clean & jerk is probably going to feel the impact.
If you are totally efficient like Tom, I would recommend staying within 1-2 kilos of your class. You should also consider maximizing your muscle mass with clean eating. It’s a lot better to weigh 85 kilos on the dot at 8% body fat than 88 kilos at 16% body fat. Look it’s a new world in weightlifting. Coaches like Kevin Simons are maximizing every detail to give their lifters an advantage.
Coaches are just now becoming masters of the mundane. They are looking at all the different aspects of human performance like:
• Nutrition
• Recovery methods
• Mobility work
• Muscular balance
• Proper Sleep
• Sports Psychology
These are just a few of the different areas. Americans have a disadvantage that we all know about, and that is the drug use in other countries. We aren’t going to change that anytime soon, but we can maximize all the little things. We can outwork them. The better that we get will equal performances that slowly begin to match our competitors on the world scene. I believe with all my heart that America can medal in the Olympics if we truly take a holistic approach to training.
My boys and I are in airplane headed to Chicago right now. Then we will take our last flight of the day headed to sweet home North Carolina. We will have four days to enjoy our families, and then it is off to the National Championships in Salt Lake City, Utah. I am so excited to see what our newly formed team does at Nationals. We have all worked very hard, and now it is time to see where the cards fall.
Team Mash Elite Weightlifting is still looking for partners that are interested in:
• Becoming a Mash Elite Weightlifting Affiliate
• Financial partnership
• Assistance with Grant Writing for a 501c3
• Identifying Foundations and Grants
• Administrative assistance
• Prayers
If you are interested in finding out more about these partnerships, email me directly at:
Travis.Mash@mashelite.com
At Mash Elite Weightlifting we want to improve the quality of American Weightlifting all over the county. We also want to use the barbell to improve the lives of kids all over the world. It breaks my heart when I see a child that is abused and/or neglected. I want to spend the rest of my life limiting that as much as possible. I hope that all of you will join me in my quest.