Check out one of our six E-Books:
• “Squat Every Day”
• “Eat What You Want” (Nutrition)
• “Squat Every Day 2”
• “No Weaknesses”
• “Mash Program Sampler”
• “The Mash Blueprint for Program Design”
Check them out here: ⇒ Mash Elite E-Books
Try to Be Logical
Training is meant to be cyclical in nature. That means not everyday is meant to be a PR day. This is the hardest lesson to learn for young weightlifters and weightlifters new to the sport. A program should be designed in a way that will break a lifter down forcing the body to adapt.
Normally when a lifter begins a program, they see immediate results because they have tried something new. Then they get into the meat of the program, and they start to experience the “truth” of weightlifting. When I say the “truth” of weightlifting, I am talking about the rough periods that you will go through to experience the magic of a cycle.
What is the magic? If a plan is designed correctly, the athlete should experience supercompensation. Here is what the father of supercompensation, Ivan Beritov said about the concept in 1959:
.
.
”When an athlete is training, his body undergoes stimulations which traumatize it, wear it down, tire it out, and even destroy it. If a recovery period follows these training sessions then the tissues will be restructured and the athlete’s body will come back, not only to its former level, but even surpass this level in the case of a sufficient stimulus. If appropriate control measures are not used such a preponderance of break-down and build-up leads rapidly to injuries.”
This is a pretty brutal statement, but it pretty much summarizes the reason that weightlifting is a brutal sport. You literally need to destroy the body to make it stronger. I am expressing this point today to keep you all sane mentally.
If you are in a strength block with lots of squats, pulls, and presses, then your snatch and clean & jerk are not going to increase during that period. That’s ok. That is what is supposed to happen. Focus on speed, technique, and movement during this phase.
If you are going through a high volume phase of snatch and clean & jerk, you are probably not going to PR. However, the magic is right around the corner. All that is required is a deload to reload and recover the body. Then it is PR City.
The keys that one must remember during high volume periods are:
• Lots of rest with 9-10 hours of sleep per night.
• Increase the daily intake of calories.
• BCAAs
• Vitamin C & D
• Chiropractic
• Active Release Technique
• Soft Tissue Work
• Proper warm up with joint mobility
• End with some static stretching
These are just a few of my recommendations for high volume periods. The main point that I want you to remember today is that training is a process. I want you all to embrace the process. It is not always about the daily win. It is important that you understand the phase that you are in, so that you know the goal of that time period.
At the end of the day, I want you to have a good time. When we forget to do that, training will start to diminish quickly. A simple smile on your face will do wonders for your performance. It’s sometimes hard to remember that we all love this sport.
Nathan is known to go hard quite often. Do you really think that he expects to set PRs every single week? He spends quality time multiple times per year killing volume and heavy squats, which sets him up for the brief time periods where he sets PRs in the lifts. He understands the process. He is happy when a weight becomes a new minimum. That means he can open higher, and take more cracks at bigger numbers during competitions. It is a process. If you don’t grasp that process, this sport will drive you crazy.
Understanding the process is the key! Now go and enjoy the process!
Check out one of the Online Teams:
• Mash Mafia Bronze
• Mash Mafia Silver
• Mash Mafia Gold
• Eat What You Want
• Eat and Lift What You Want
Check them out here: ⇒ Mash Mafia Online Teams