Bob Takano of Takano Athletics

Bob Takano and I both got started in the sport of weightlifting with the same issue of Strength & Health magazine, back in the early 1960s. Bob served time on the platform, has written extensively on the sport, has produced Olympians, and continues to contribute. Recently I learned of his electronic newsletter and immediately signed up. I suggest Newton Sports’ readers do so right now and enjoy Bob’s many words of wisdom. Check www.TakanoAthletics.com. To give you a sampling and to share the soapbox with a fellow weightlifting coach on “the same page” I’m printing here some of Bob’s recent commentary relative to squatting. (A lot more has hit the airwaves just recently about the “death” of squatting, but that will wait for another time)

From Takano Athletics, Vol. 2, No. 19, September 01, 2009 (with permission)
I'm not sure who the author is but there is a link to http://www.femaleathletesfirst.com where more can be learned about female athletes' issues. The owner is Margaret Hoffman. There are some valid recommendations among the 15 points to help women deal with the fact that after puberty girls have an overall ACL knee injury risk of 1 in 50, 3 x greater than that in men. Unfortunately there are two key points that I have to disagree with.

The first is to avoid full squats. The second is to perform standing squats (I presume without resistance) while keeping the knees from protruding beyond the toes. I keep hoping that we had gotten beyond this point, but I'll try to go over some well-trod ground since I know this is being read by a lot of people that haven't encountered it before. Full squats with resistance performed properly (which means the knees protrude forward beyond the toes), will strengthen the structural integrity of the knee as well as the surrounding supportive musculature. Furthermore this exercise will develop most of the agonists and synergists involved in vertical jumping, sprinting, stopping, turning, pivoting and other movements involving the legs. By supporting a relatively heavy weight on the shoulders, the athlete will also work at stabilizing the core musculature. How can anyone prohibit the inclusion of full squats in the training of healthy volleyball or basketball players?

By the way, the no knees in front of the toes stuff goes back to the powerlifting squatting technique which was developed to increase poundages in that sport's version of the squat. It was never established as a knee protection maneuver. Somehow it has become dogma on how to squat and no one ever questions it.

I think that I need to invoke a couple of real world discussions here with all due respect to the authors of the previous articles. Women have been competing in weightlifting in this country for the past 28 years, at a world's championships level for 22 years and in the past three Olympic Games. These women are performing full squats, both back and front, with much greater regularity and with greater weights than the majority of comparably sized male athletes in the world. We just are not registering an epidemic of female weightlifters experiencing ACL injuries. This should put the Q angle argument to rest (never mind that the Soviets purposely looked for men with exceptionally wide hips to train as weightlifters).

I've personally trained hundreds of high school and college female volleyball and basketball players. All of them were taught to perform power snatches, power cleans, split snatches, split cleans and power jerks. And they all did full back squats and full front squats from two to three times per week. The number of non-contact ACL injuries during that span of 16 years was zero. It shouldn't be surprising to realize that a stronger joint structure is less apt to get injured. For too many years I've been reading about this crisis, but the vast majority of articles seem to miss this point. Girls that squat with appropriate resistance do not get ACL injuries.

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Pulling Technique Revisited

While living in Colorado Springs I met Don Ramos, a masters weightlifter. Don always impressed me with his performance, especially for a lifter who took up the sport “late in life.” Actually, Don knew the lifts during his earlier lifting career, but then he went off to powerlifting. Don disappeared from my radar screen until just recently when he signed up for this e-bulletin.

Don is just back from the World Masters Games where he broke the world records (80-100-180) in the 105kg category, 75-79 age group. He now holds all the marks in the 85, 94 and 105kg categories. Don was named Grand Master of the meet and now plans to move down to 77kg and break the records there!

Check out this link prepared by USA Weightlifting: weightlifting.teamusa.org/news/article/28589

Here’s a recent question from Don Ramos, a masters weightlifter, that revisits my previous comments on pulling style:

Hi Don-

We often create confusion with our terms and theories, none of which makes for easy answers.

Agreed, our strongest power-producing posture is one similar to a 1/4 squat. This involves a slight forward lean of the torso, as you pointed out, more or less depending on grip width, segmental considerations, etc. But from here forces are directed mostly upward.

"Shoulders over the bar" used to mean "in front of the bar." USAW has dialed this in a bit by mentioning the shoulders stay "forward of the bar" in the starting position. Obviously by the time one has reached the so-called power position, the torso angle has changed, thus preventing one from keeping the shoulders “forward” of the bar (unless the knees are nearly straight). However, in what I consider to be a proper position the shoulders can remain “over” the bar, this time meaning above the bar. It's generally accepted that the lifter's shoulders remain over/above the bar until the final stages of the pull. Of course, there are many individual differences in which the stated sequence may or may not be maintained.

In my opinion, US coaches and lifters have not learned this “power position” well over the past 15+ years. The US was behind the learning curve on this evolutionary change in technique when it first occurred in the early 1960s. By the late 1960s and early 1970s many American lifters considered the new practice of thigh contact in the power position as simply “bouncing the bar off your thighs.”

It took the teachings of Carl Miller to drive home the realities of modern pulling technique. But, as I explain in Explosive Lifting for Sports, this method of pulling continued to improve into the early 1980s. And we all see further tweaks available even today.

I realize that what I suggest and write about is considered old school or dinosaur-like. I have no interest in entering this debate to any great extent, but I do examine technique details as our sport evolves. From what I see in the current USAW coaching materials, coaches and lifters are not taught to take up a power position; it is implied that this will take care of itself, perhaps due to an SSC or an “impulse.'” There are those that say this position cannot be taught or learned; I disagree.

Bottom line, I think your observation relative to current US lifters' technique is valid. I also think such teachings have done US lifting a disservice.

Best wishes,
Harvey

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