Just Get A Coach

Programming for yourself is 9 times out of 10 a really terrible idea. It is truly difficult to keep yourself accountable and have an objective approach to training when your ego is influencing your programming. A great example of this is that many 'self taught' weightlifters start their programs at 75% of 1rm for snatch, which is really high for week 1 of a weightlifting program. 

The easiest solution is: just get a coach. If you cannot get a coach, buy a program. If you cannot buy a program, then use a free program made by a reputable coach. 

Every elite lifter ever started with a coach. Especially for weightlifting, a sport that literally has the most complicated technique AND programming out of any other, it is crucial to have someone who knows what they are doing to take an objective approach to your training. I have a coach, and I know the ins and outs of weightlifting programming. I've seen top lifters who know almost everything about technique, still get called out by their own coaches. 

Paid programs also work. I've said it in the past, but if a program is free, it is usually shit (unless it is from me 🤑 ). Apart from getting one of my programs, you can also get them from Sika Strength, Gabriel Sincraian etc. 

Do not be discouraged if you can only run a free program. I've run free programs in the past. As a beginner-to-intermediate lifter, you can still make progress from a sub-optimal free program. Just don't run it forever.

A final note: NEVER, EVER, DEVIATE FROM THE PROGRAM. You MUST follow the program word-for-word. Every program is written based on the assumption that you are following it word-for-word. If you deviate from it (ie. skip a day or perform worse on a lift), please make sure you or your coach is adjusting for this in the future. 

Putting Accessories In The Context Of A Weightlifting Program

Here is the best way to organise accessory work in a weightlifting program.

First, let's categorise accessories as either upper body or lower body. A lower body accessory is one that will affect our weightlifting performance from a moderate-large extent (at least, this is how I define it). So lower body accessories would include core work (even though the core is not fully in the 'lower body'), quad work, hamstring work, or lower back work. The remaining work would be upper body assistance: presses, isolation work for the back, chest, and arms. 

Now, let's take a typical weightlifting split:

Day 1/3/5: Heavy Snatch + Clean and Jerk, snatch pulls/clean deadlifts

Day 2/4/6: Lighter Snatch variation + Clean and Jerk variation, back/front squats

Day 7: Rest

We should not do accessory work the day before days 1, 3 and 5, since these are days where we do the full lifts and want to be as fresh as possible to maximise performance and ingrain good motor patterns. However, we can do accessory work on Days 1/3/5 since the days after are lighter days. Therefore, we have 4 days where we can allocate accessory volume: days 1,3,5 and 6(day 6 is followed by a rest day).

Let's split each of these days into 2 days where we do lower body assistance, and 2 days where we do upper body assistance. You could allocate this 3 days to 1 if your lower body is really weak or vice-versa. 

Lower body work should probably be done on days 1 and 6. Day 2 usually has the lightest squats of the week, so it is fine to tire our legs a bit the day before. Day.6 is followed by a rest day, so we can really hammer the legs without needing to worry about training the next day.

Comparatively, the upper body recovers much quicker (largely by the next day!). Therefore, we can put upper body assistance work on days 3 and 5, and they still won't impact performance on Days 4 and 6 too much.

Here are some exercises you can do for each:

Lower Body Assistance:

• Side planks
• Quad Nordics
• Split Squats
• Romanian Deadlifts
• Crab Walks
• Back Extensions
• Rows

Upper Body Assistance:

• Strict Press
• Weighted Pushup
• Weighted Pullups
• Rows
• Tricep extensions
• curls

A Simple Way To Structure Weightlifting Sessions

Here is a simple way I structure weightlifting training for myself and clients:

1. Warmup: combination of aerobic work and specific mobility to prep the body for weightlifting (mostly lats, T spine and hips)

2. Snatch (full lift OR close variation): a full snatch could involve just regular snatching, or something like a snatch + overhead squat. Common close variations are no foot snatches, pause snatches or block snatches. Snatches are done before clean and jerks because they are less fatiguing and because they are done first in competition.

3. Clean and Jerk (full lift OR close variation): same thing as snatches. Good full lift variations of the clean and jerk are low/high hang cleans + jerk. Good close variations are pause cleans, rack jerks and no contact cleans.

4. 1-2 weightlifting assistance exercises: These are the important weightlifting assistance exercises. Think back squats/front squats, snatch pulls/clean deadlifts, strict presses, push presses or snatch balances. The first exercise will probably be a pull/squat, and then some press or hinge (although the second exercise may be included/excluded in some blocks of training or depending on the athlete's individual weaknesses).

5. 0-2 accessories: This is just accessory work for injury prevention or hypertrophy. Common things here for weightlifters would be core work, stability work for the shoulders, quad work or bodybuilding for the chest, back and arms. 

To some, this may seem obvious. But I've seen my fair share of cookie-cutter programs that still over-emphasise the snatch, add in some useless fluff work, or ones that don't include any pressing or relevant accessory work. To avoid this issue, this is a tried-and-true workout structure that is simple, specific and produces results.

Upper Back Position In The Back Squat

Holy shit people mess this up. 

Upper back position in the squat is pretty important. Ideally, we are as upright as possible to 1) prevent our bodies from collapsing under the barbell and fucking dying 2) maximise force applied onto and by the quads.

There are 2 common incorrect elbow/forearm positions I see often in the back squat:

Observe lifter A, the one on the left hand side. This lifter as overemphised the cue of "set up your forearms like you're about to do a behind-the-neck press". What this means is there forearms are far too vertical. What this does is elongate the traps and upper back muscles, making them more prone to rounding as the lifter comes out of the hull. This is an even bigger problem if lifters do not have good isometric upper back strength.

Now observe lifter B, the one on the right, who is arguable more stupid than lifter A. Lifter B set up the back squat like it's a front squat; but with the bar one their back. Lifter B has far too horizontal of a forearm angle, which provides a terrible shelf for the barbell to rest on. This also makes it harder to maintain extension of the upper back throughout the squat.

This is what a good upper back position looks like:

The angle between the torso and the forearms should be 45 degrees more-or-less. This makes maintaining upper back extension the easiest, and thus is the best upper back position for the squat. This position makes it much easier to squeeze the traps inwards whilst also keeping them depressing and resting the barbell on a good (and slightly lower) upper-back shelf. 

Finally, a note on wrist extension. Wrist extension should be avoided. When your wrists are holding the bar, they should be as straight as possible. This means your palms should be pressing forwards and down. This is an easy issue to fix.