PM Tamara
Where do I start? I've been enthralled lately, especially tonight after getting flat-ironed by the barbell - it just pushed me to learn more and correct my form. I just saturated my brain with youtube videos of people lifting, mostly californiastrength, and I'm craving some reading material.
What sites, blogs, video series, forums, etc do you weightlifters here frequent?
Ends and pieces is starting to grate.
Edit: Check out this video. Spencer is lightning fast.. how the hell do you move that quick?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l5n0p7O4Uc
PM Tamara
Spencer's jerk is fabulous. He rarely misses a jerk. At the American Open last year, he hit a 204 kg clean and jerk to take the Junior American Record from Caleb who held it with 203 kg.
I am obviously biased, but I would recommend reading everything you can and taking what you read with a grain of salt. Weightlifting is a very small sport in the United States, but the amount of drama on the internet would make you think that 50,000,000 people care about it instead of just 50. So, as long as you go to the forums and read and realize that many of the people posting are either pretentious old pricks who think the influx of new weightlifters due to CrossFit/internet is the end of the weightlifting world as they know it OR people who have 10,000 opinions about technique but who don't actual lift or coach any lifters themselves, then you will be okay.
There are a lot of good YouTube channels out there. I would recommend watching some that show elite level lifters and some that show beginners. You can spend hours and hours on YouTube. A few to start with are:
www.youtube.com/gymmoser - Jim Moser's site
www.youtube.com/pdxweightlifting - PDX and Nick Horton's site
www.youtube.com/coffeesgymmarietta - Coffee's gym in Georgia
www.youtube.com/namarang - Mine, of course
www.youtube.com/zaurbor - Gwen Sisto's site
www.youtube.com/crackyflipside - Videos of Miami lifters as well as a ton of videos from world championships, Olympics, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/NorwichGrad97 - Joel, who sometimes posts here and who coaches a lot of teen lifters
http://www.youtube.com/44252005 - Klokov videos
And then there are a million more.
As for forums, god, just stab yourself in the eyes instead of reading them :-). Or just read everywhere and you will see...
In terms of less drama, Greg Everett really does do a good job of keeping his forum on task. It's not the most active forum, but he has a ton of videos and articles on the Catalyst site and he is often funny and he (usually) doesn't come off as a huge prick like so many of the people that I would like to punch in the face (and yes, I realize that some people would say the same about me). He gets his digs in about low bar squats, and the way he coaches the lifts is quite different from the SS method, but intelligent people can figure stuff out and try things for themselves and actually learn from experience instead of listening to so-and-so just because...
Also, obviously, watch the platform videos here and read through some of the threads about weightlifting because contrary to what some people would have you believe, Rip actually Knows About Weightlifting.
Last edited by Tamara Reynolds; 11-22-2012 at 06:23 AM.
I agree with Spencer's jerk comment but for me Akkeav has easily the most impressive jerk. I seriously thought think Ive seen him miss one. Look at this, he struggles so much with the clean AND has to readjust massively. and still NAILS the jerk.
4:25 for the lift:
I got bit by the bug too. I watched about 500 videos and went out into the garage and practiced. I still had a bunch of things wrong though until I got in front of a good coach.
The funny thing is that I paid money to two different guys who said they were USAW level 1 coaches. My lifts didn't really improve. When I finally got in front of a real coach, I found that they had given me contradictory advice. The right coach makes a difference. Since that one coaching session in Aug, I've added 40 lbs to both my snatch and cj. I would say find someone you can check in with periodically even if it is only once a quarter. Once a quarter with someone who is helping you will be better than everyday with somebody pretending to be a coach.
Video is a great tool too. You can video yourself and compare your bar path and positions to the people lifting the weight you want to lift. Just be careful to pick examples of people who are lifting in the same model you and your coach have agreed to.
Yeah i thought you might say that. I was going to edit it but cba.
Nevertheless even as a teenager (you can find clips) his jerk is just so damn impressive. Maybe thats one of the reasons he got to WC?
Take a look at Clarence Kennedy http://www.youtube.com/user/clarence0 and his site weightliftingfix.com. He's 18 and squats 262 ATG at 87 bodyweight, which is quite motivational, and has a 350 total.
Also: http://www.youtube.com/user/podiumgoldwlclub
There are some videos of Hysen lifting as a kid and a teen there. Lightning fast even at age 9.