This video, explains 3 very useful concepts in Chinese weightlifting.

A. Fast
B. Close
C. Low

The graph above illustrates well what what “kwai,zun,di” means to us. It’s very simple.

First you have the straight line, that illustrates your center of gravity that usually doesn’t change that much except after the pull.

Then you’ve the bent line, which illustrates the bar path.

The nearer you get to the straight line, the better your lifting’s going to be (theoretically)

Number 2:

Dis amazement video, towards the end you’ll see this guy squatting a triple. And the coach says “Jiang de kan jue ma”. It means “That’s the feeling you’re looking for”

Now in Chinese weightlifting, the “kwai, zun, di” is considered religion. I think we can all agree. Fast, accurate/close, git low (I just made a better rap song that Lil Wayne ever did) is damn good in weightlifting. Even if you’re not strong, you just need to have enough strength to get past the sticking points. With speed, you’re like a spring. Without speed, you’re like a drunk man’s penis.

This combined, with “kan jue” which means “feeling” is probably the magic to Chinese weightlifting if anything. A LOT of emphasis is put into feeling, which is why we do slow first pulls. Yes, without doubt, you’ll produce a lot more power, moving fast off the ground. Soviet research has proven that. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

It’s just that Chinese are more artsy fartsy. They think that if it doesn’t dance a little, all too stoic. They don’t like that. 4000+ years of culture gives you a lot to play with.

With the Chinese, there’s a GREAT amount of emphasis on how beautiful the lift looks. We also believe that the more beautiful a lift looks, the more you’re going to REPEATEDLY hit the lift. We don’t want to gauge the lifter’s lifts by mere KGs. We want to see grace and dance in the lifting. Now don’t forget, a lot of weightlifters have gymnastics influence and points are given for grace. So clearly, they’re going to impart their influence on grace to the weightlifters.

Btw, Katherine Webb’s an amazingly gorgeous woman with her makeup on.

No I do not like her boyfriend one bloody bit. I wish I could squash a hot butter waffle into his left nostril. Yes, I am reasonably certain I would’ve made a much better partner for reproduction. Her looks, my brains, within 1 millennium, the world’s going to be a much more beautiful and intelligent place.

Weightlifters in China, focus on a slower first pull not because they can’t pull fast. We think, that the faster you pull from the ground, 2 problems occur

1. You’re not as accurate (face it), so reproducing these results may not be certain when the time really matters
2. The floor’s too far away

Now you see, while everybody looks at it as if we’re lifting a bar off the floor and overhead, we don’t!

We see it as lifting the bar from above the knee only. This way, we minimize the variance of joint positioning in the first pull, in order……to set up for the most PERFECTLY positioned SECOND pull (of third pull in our dictionary).
We’ve found that too many people mess up a lift, cuz they’re trying to lift fast into the second pull and extend. We think “Why don’t we lift slow and steady, so we bring the “FLOOR” closer to our hips and be so much more accurate as we’ve REDUCED the distance to our “power” position?”

The below knee portion is considered EXTREMELY important, but not for the same reason of generating force that most people may think. We think it’s extremely important because we don’t want to “miss” the good position/timing for the SECOND pull. Besides that, we truly don’t give a rat’s ass about the first pull. No this isn’t a stab at deadlifters. We’re not even in the same sport.

So when you see the Chinese do pulls with ridiculous weights on top of their snatch and clean max, don’t just shake your head and say they know nothing and ASSUME these guys don’t have groundbreaking research crew. There seems to be this odd stigma of “I know best, the Chinese are just experienced and have tons of people” You, do, not, know, that. If they know nothing, they’re doing a damn good job at knowing nothing because they’re still breaking records.

Just give the Chinese science a chance. It’s actually much deeper in science than you may think. I know, because I’ve sat in numerous discussions on technique and if you think your research books are deep, sit in one of these.

They’re SO much simpler to understand and it works so well.

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself” ― Albert Einstein
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” ― Leonardo da Vinci
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” ― Henry David Thoreau
“One should use common words to say uncommon things” ― Arthur Schopenhauer

U. Me. Belong together.

Too many people, complicate weightlifting programming. Relax …

There’s a way to break down the sport and then LOOK into how the training should be done. I can’t believe stuff I learned in management school is actually useful for this.

Breakdown.

WHAT is this sport?

• It’s a sport that requires you to lift a bar from floor to overhead in one motion
• It is a sport, that requires you to lift a bar to your chest, and drive it overhead

What does it require?

• Strength to lift, power to give that temporary momentum so you can slide under, speed to slide under and loads of coordination to accelerate, deacclerate and sneak under

How do we develop this skill?

• Loads of practice in the snatch and clean and jerk

What would our biggest challenge be?

• Balancing between the strength gained, making sure that strength is transferable, using that strength.
• Coordination
• Injuries because this is a sport with such a ballistic nature

Okay, so let’s take see where this all boils down to. We need the strength that’s transerable. So we’ll probably need;

• Upper body strength to hold the bar overhead
• Lower body strength, to generate the power
• Midsection strength during the pull
• Midsection stability during the receiving
• Lower body flexibility to enable proper muscles to work
• Tons of coordination

So we’ve Abadjiev whose techniques have gotten many people strong. At the same time, its hurt many people. So we dissect the issue with his program (I truly truly think this many contributed to weightlifting a lot, and this isn’t a knock on him. I would NEVER dare to.)

The Great:

• You lift close to extreme weights all the time, so you get confident with those weights and hit PR’s easily
• You’re very specific to the sport, which means you practice 3 hours, and you’re getting 3 hours of solid practice. Others practice, 3 hours, get 2 hours specific, another 1 hour unspecific. Through the years, it adds up

• There’s too much volume, that it hurts the average person
• It’s extremely boring
• It’s terribly difficult

Now we’ve the Russians and the Chinese that have taught us a bunch of things too. What’s the advantages and disadvantages?

Advantages:

• You’ve tons of volume at lower weight to build connective tissues
• You’ll get strong in a general term which isn’t exactly a bad thign

Disadvantages:

• You don’t spend much time with the lifts which can prove to be a disadvantage against the Buggies (My nickname for Bulgarians)

Now……let’s see…..can you girls and guys see something here? It’s like building, a tall building.

Once you’ve created the foundation, with a variety of exercises, wouldn’t it make sense to reduce the variety, and focus more towards the main lifts? Of course, along the way if you find a weak spot, spend some time on the weak spot and go back to what your sport entails.

Does it sound like I’m pro Bulgarian training?

I just use whatever the hell works. I didn’t even know there was a classification that you couldn’t do this, if you do this system.

For a Masters lifter. Reduced reps, more sets.

The most common way that I’ve seen training, being logged is where, they state the exercise, weights, sets, reps. That’s arguably the most common way of logging.

This is how I log in my diary;

I usually, state;

• Exercise used
• Weights planned (To keep me accountable)
• Weights, sets, reps, tempo
• How I feel
• % of misses and why I missed
• How to correct it and whether that correction worked. (this helps you learn so quick)
• % of loading that’s beyond 85% 1RM
• What activation and stretch I did prior to the main exercise, and how it worked
• What to study tonight (this helps me understand why something worked or did not)

I find that a lot of time, people argue about how this and that worked better. I have engaged in this argument once, and never bothered to again ever since I started logging like this. Writing down if the correction worked, and why it worked, enabled me to go beyond what normal athletes do. From here, I didn’t have to argue with any other coaches, because I would just add their thoughts into my log. From there, I applied, analyzed and reviewed if their methods were better. If they work, I’ll have a new entry to my page of “Stuff that works”

If there don’t work, it goes into my head as “Try when all else fails“. It’s not that their cues were bad or mine were better, its just different cues for different people.

What matters most is the information and the movement pattern is transferred in the most effective way.

And yes I’ve said, “bang” the bar and “jump up and down“. As long as it teaches the cue. Some people, don’t understand “scoop into place” or “flick up“. I’d rather get the message in quick, than argue who’s right or wrong.

EDIT: This is a picture of Lu Xiaojun’s training log.

I can’t read a word it says but I’m hoping someone else can. Yes I speak it, but can’t read it. I’ve only ever learnt the Roman alphabets.

WooH!

Xi Tong – Systematically
Xun Lian – Training

So translation, “Systematic training“.

The Chinese DO have a somewhat “standard system” behind the training. A few key points that ALL coaches agree in;

- You should spend much of your time as a beginner, with a dowel or an empty bar till you get perfect technique
- It’s easier to teach them right the first time, than to believe in that rubbish of them figuring it out later
- Be extremely consistent with training. (Xi tong xun lian)

Apart from that, everything else is up to the coaches.

They also, are able to consistently produce good lifters from many parts of the country. And for a country that size, many attribute their success to gene selection pool and steroids. I personally, think its much more. I think the excellent technical coaching lifters get from the beginning is one reason. And I think, the second and far more important reason, is consistency.

There are tons of great lifters with, less than what we’d call, perfect technique. That’s because despite how your eyes, see technical imperfection, it’s well within what that lifter calls perfection. Sounds a bit confusing, but “perfect” technique is only to a certain point. Sometimes, lifters have limitations within their thought process, limitations in their body composition, anatomy, structural balance, muscle type, age, background, etc. However, based on my reading, I believe strongly that the way the mind conceives the movement is most important.

That is why, through the years, I rather train consistently with less than perfect technique, as long it’s as it gets me good numbers. Of course, as you go along, you will modify your technique, but keep the modifications to a minimal unless you know what you’re doing. Most of you guys reading this, won’t, because if you did, you’d have a coach that can help you with it already. So don’t muck around with it too much.

Now, back to the topic.

I know there are Chinese coaches that use a system that’s extremely Bulgarian’like, where all they do is squat, pull, snatch, cnj with the standard, push-presses, rows, strict presses. They include that to ensure the athletes don’t get injured. They get fantastic results.

Then there are coaches, that believe that training must not go above 85-88%. 90% is an occasional thing too, and reps of 3-5 for the Olympic lifts are better than singles. They too, get fantastic results.

That’s why through the years, I realized that it really doesn’t matter what I, or that coach thinks about the program. Coaches from Belarus would laugh at Chinese coaches methods and vice versa. Yet they both work. As long as you stay away from injuries, accumulate the “workload” into your body, and recover, you will progress. Sure, some are better than the others, but in this world of quick fixes, it’s good to know some people still take the long route.

Here’s an epic photo of Dolega snatching.

Prime example of less than perfect technique, by some definitions, but still has held world class records. It isn’t just technical perfection guys. It’s really, consistency.

There are generally three contact heights for the second pull.

Each has its own users and for different reasons.

Some athletes, have a slower upward extension. Their hips move forward, “nibble” on the bar and then pop a little more slowly than other athletes. These athletes generally have weaker lower backs and stronger legs. So if they were to hit at the blue spot, they’d end up having the bar too horizontal. So because they’re slower, they’ll contact the red dot so when they finish the pull, the hip is aimed UPWARDS.

Athletes with stronger backs however, can pull themselves into the “nibble spot” a little more quickly and have a quicker vertical finisher. These athletes can contact the bar into the blue spot.

The black spot, is the happy medium for some individuals. Even strength in the legs and the back, they nibble on the black spot and can immediately create an upward thrust without actually hitting the bar and creating a horizontal force.

The yellow line however, is where I call the “Beginners line”. That line is extremely useful, for some athletes can be used as a START marker to intiate the second pull. There are some athletes who cannot accurately position the bar and have enough time to pop the bar up once the bar touches the red, black or blue dot. We use the yellow line as a cue to start “shrugging” the barbell up. By the time the bar nibbles the hips, they’re in a good position to extend and generate force to position the bar in line with their shoulders, hips and ankles in the receiving position.

Newbies are usually taught to start the second pull from the yellow line, so they’ll go slightly higher and be right in position for the hip pop.

All these spots however are useless if one doesn’t have proper hip and shoulder position, so the first pull still has to be trained consistently.