Strength and Power Notes January 2009
I hope your holiday season went well and that the New Year is starting off on a positive foot. One thing I’m looking forward to in the very near future is a newly designed Newton Sports web site. This work has been underway for some weeks and promises to make the site more efficient and effective.
During the holiday break I enjoyed having top US lifters Jason Brown and Sean Hutchinson come by “The Sweat Shop” for a few workouts. Jason and Sean are both students at LSU-Shreveport, under the watchful coaching of my long-time friend Kyle Pierce, EdD. Both these lifters have put in a lot of effort in the Newton Sports garage training center and this time of the year is no different.
Sean just returned from his first international meet, the World University Weightlifting Championships in Greece, last month. Jason took most of 2008 off with a nagging lower back/hip injury. As you can see from his 200kg/3 squat, Jason is quickly getting back in shape.
Both lifters look forward to making their season debut at the 2009 National Collegiate Weightlifting Championships, recently relocated to their home campus, April 17-19.
at "The Sweat Shop" during their Christmas holiday break from LSU-S.
- View Jason Brown in this squat video filmed at "The Sweat Shop"
It’s been another busy month getting STFC System orders out, primarily to readers of www.RoadBikeRiker.com. Long-time friends Ed Pavelka and Fred Matheny started RBR in 2001 and have developed a large and enthusiastic following over the years.
RBR featured a number of supporting links for Strength Training for Cyclists and the customer response has been very positive. If you’re a cyclist or triathlete and you’re not a subscriber to this free, weekly electronic newsletter, I strongly advise you check it out and join up! Visit www.RoadBikeRider.com for a sample of the newsletter. Newcomers also benefit from an excellent and free e-book on cycling training by Coach Fred Matheny.
Check the archived newsletters for many of the Q&A responses I had with readers on the topic of cycling and resistance training.
In addition to the exchange with readers within the RBR web site, I’m also featuring a number of questions I’ve had from customers of Strength Training for Cyclists System. Here’s the first one:
I recently purchased the Strength Training for Cyclists DVD and manual through roadbikerider.com. I think it's great! I'm currently working in the Foundation phase and in a few weeks will move to the Basic Strength phase. Nowhere in this manual can I find how long you suggest resting between sets. Am I missing it? Can you please provide your views on that subject? I want to be sure I'm training "correctly" according to your methods.
Thanks very much,
Richard
Hello Richard-
Rest interval between sets is always a touchy question for endurance athletes. So many want to take very little rest, keeping the heart rate high. You know my mantra, lifting weights is anaerobic and should not be confused with endurance training.
Recovery varies based on the intensity involved. In other words, when training with the lighter sets one might take 60-90 seconds between sets. I'm assuming you are using what is called a 'priority system' of training, that is, Exercise A, Set 1 is followed by Set 2, etc. Then you would go to Exercise B. The opposite is a circuit, in which one does Set 1 of Exercise A, then goes immediately into Set 1 of Exercise B, etc. until all first sets have been completed. One then takes several excursions through the circuit.
Circuit training provides good cardio-respiratory fitness, but the recovery is too short to allow for much strength gain.
So, in a priority training model, you would probably vary your recovery from about 60 seconds to up to 180 seconds. This would be for the Foundation Phase, where reps are fairly high and intensity is moderate. When you shift into Basic Strength, the intensity goes up, thus the recovery may increase a bit as well, at least on your heaviest sets. For most exercises, though, 3 minutes provides adequate recovery.
What drives endurance athletes nuts is the downtime between sets. But trying to fill in that recovery time with more exercise defeats the purpose of higher intensity training.
I hope that helps. Please let me know if I can provide any further assistance.
Many thanks,
Harvey
Coming Up! Toward the end of January I’ll be in Santa Fe with longtime colleague, Les Knight, PhD doing a four-day law enforcement program. Plans include getting by to see long-time friend and former USA Weightlifting national coaching coordinator Carl Miller. Carl, author of The Miller Fitness Plan, runs Carl & Sandra’s Physical Conditioning Center in Santa Fe.
Angela Candage is one of the most gifted weightlifters I’ve had the pleasure to coach. We first met when she was about 15, at Seabreeze High School. I’d had known her father, Jeff, an elite-level powerlifter, since he had been about the same age.
Jeff started Angela off well; she was an accomplished powerlifter by the time she started high school. Florida high school competes in “weightlifting,” although it is a hybrid combination of powerlifting and weightlifting that includes the Bench Press and the Clean-and-Jerk.
Angela rose through the ranks quickly, winning the National Junior Championships and representing USA at international competition. She trained at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs for a while and then returned to Florida to enroll at Daytona Beach Community College. Angela then decided a stint in the US Air Force would be an exciting option. After excelling in recruit training Angela got stationed in New Jersey, not far from the Moorestown home of East Coast Gold.
Angela is rested and ready to make a run at the 2012 Olympics. Read more...
Here is Angela Candage snatching 45kg in
her first weightlifting meet back in 2003.