Training Philosophy

In order to better understand why I program/train people the way I do, a little background information is necessary. If you know me, or have seen basically anything I post, you know that I love Russia. My love stems from my obsession with Olympic weightlifting, and strength in general. When I first started weightlifting, I worked with a few different coaches who all had the same basic approach. Learn the power positions, learn to catch deeper, then snatch and clean more frequently and you’ll get better. While this approach may work for some, it did not work for me. Enter the russians. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Boris Sheiko through a friend of a friend, and after some begging and pleading, Boris sent me some literature and a program to get me started. It looked nothing like anything I had done before, and after 8 weeks I had made some major improvements.

Me with Boris Sheiko

That was it for me, for the rest of my weightlifting career, I was going to train soviet style. I was also fortunate enough to work with Vasiliy Polovnikov for a short time, Ilya Illin told me that my front squat was strong but my clean “sucked”. Point is, I’ve spent the past 6 years learning how to train and coach like a russian, from russians.

So what have I learned and how do I implement it? The first part of this question is not simple to answer, but here goes something. Great technique will yield great results, great technique must be built and developed over time, and it starts with the basics. Once the basics are mastered, advanced techniques can be used, and the right exercise will fix the right problem. After you fix a few problems, add weight, test/compete, and after you hit a PR, the process of fixing new problems and adding weight begins all over again. Simple enough, right?

13-year-old Noah working on his overhead squat.

Let’s take a look at how this philosophy gets implemented into training. First and foremost, right from the start, we are looking for great technique. It makes no sense to add weight to something you can’t do well, learn to do it right. In order to learn how to do it right, variations must be used, but not just any variation. It has to be the right one for you! Let’s say you have an error in the 2nd pull of the snatch, even though a snatch balance is a great exercise it will never fix your problem in the 2nd pull. The right exercise must be selected, like a high pull from deficit, or a high pull with a pause just below the knee, in order to fix the problem. We do not do exercises just because, there is always a reason.  Once we have identified and corrected a few problems, weight will be added, and the lifts will be tested. The results will then be used to set up the next block of training.

This is Kyle hitting a 106.5kg snatch, good for a 4.5kg PR, 7 months after he began training with me.

So why should you train this way? Simple, it’s reliable, and the results speak for themselves. Even though this training system was most famously used by Olympic Weightlifters, it can be applied to other sports quite successfully. Weightlifting, Strongman, Rugby, the sport of life, you name it, we can train it.