So this week at work, I’ve taken it upon myself to learn more about Weightlifting. Since I don’t have my REAL books with me, currently reading Training of Weightlifters, by Roman, I have to use the internet. Until now, I’ve known only online resources for Powerlifting – EliteFTS. Well, EliteFTS offers (almost) nothing to Weightlifters. I started with the blog of my coach, Wil Fleming. I read LITERALLY every post on that blog – other than the podcast ones, because I am at work. That was a great place to start and helped me know where Wil is coming from when I look at the programming he gives me. Next, I started to look through the internet. I started with my usual home, EliteFTS, and found a couple useful posts. The best post I found was an interview with Greg Everett. To find new stuff, I always read something and then google the interesting people or places from the article. So I googled Greg Everett and found his Catalyst Athletics page, complete with TONS of useful articles and information for Weightlifting. To boot, many of the writers on the site are VERY fun to read! I spent several hours reading from the site and wil continue to do so for WEEKS, haha. Here are my favorite articles, ordered by which source they’ve come from, and beyond that put in order of favorite to least favorite. There are many from Catalyst, a couple from EliteFTS, and a couple from Juggernaut. I read several really crappy articles Juggernaut, but managed to find a few good ones.
Like I said, Wil’s blog is awesome, especially if he’s your coach.
I found that Mike Gray is probably my favorite author on Catalyst. His writing style is informative and phenomonally entertaining. My top favorite from him, because I’m new, is 10 Things All New Weightlifters Should Know. This is closely followed by part two of this article, 10 More Things All New Weightlifters Should Know.
Next is an article from Everett himself. Here he discusses the Weightlifting squat and why it should be done a certain way. Coming from Powerlifting, this was very interesting to me. Both sports have very different goals, and I’m still learning how to maximize the usefulness of my squat for Weightlifting.
While Wil’s video series on warming up is very good, I also liked Everett’s explanation of the warm-up that he coaches and uses with his athletes. I do like Everett’s better, as it closely resembles the warm-up I already do. After reading, I’ve added a few things to mine, but for the most part it hasn’t changed much.
Again from Mike Gray, this is an article where he lays out what he thinks are some Simple Keys for Weightlifting Success. For one that’s more funny than anything, Mike makes some wishes. For some motivation and a no-nonsense approach to training, Mike asks Why Are You Here. For a good way to challenge you, read this – however training partners are required, so it’s not much use for me.
A one-time-writer for EliteFTS wrote about how to keep some fluff in your Weightlifting progarm to stay healthy.
My favortie piece that I found on Juggernaut was an interview with Sean Waxman. He completely explains the difference between triple extension and catapult, which I did not understand before reading. He goes into detail on several other issues regarding the training of Weightlifters and some topics about powerlifting methods were discussed, so I was obviously interested.
Then I found a couple articles from Colin Burns. First was 10 Things You Need to Know Before Starting Weightlifting and the other was 11 lessons he learned from The Dream Team Seminar at Waxman’s Gym.
I will continue to read this week and add links to this post as I go!
Update 1: After speaking with Brandon Smitley this morning, I’ve looked up a couple more resources. The MDUSA athlete blogs and Wil Fleming on T-Nation.
On T-Nation, Wil has written about 6 Common Snatch Mistakes and about how more squatting can push your weightlifting numbers up. Both are well worth the read.
Tanner of Purdue Barbell 