Carl- I read in one article you rarely use olympic lifts with your athletes. Can you please explain why? I notice you rip on Mike Boyle and Coach Dos here and there. Coach Boyle seems to be pretty intelligent with why he does things. I really like your analogy with building robots versus cats with the way we train our athletes. Can you explain how you differentiate the two please? A lot of the methods I see used in athletic training are pretty robotic movements that do not emphasis fluidity (footladder crap, agility drills that rarely involve faking out an opponent, jumping drills, etc) Weightlifting does not really train fluidity. I think people have to learn to relax a certain amount in a given activity as they become more efficient. If Kobe Bryant starts boxing, at first he wont look very fluid, but he will probably get there soon enough. Thoughts? Thank you and I enjoy your opinions.
What percentage of athletes should do olympic lifts? Can you see rowing, tennis, and swimming doing any of the olympic lifts? Most of my track athletes do Olympic lifts and most of my football athletes do. I work with those that do Golf….no olympic lifts. Endurance? No. Cycling? No. How many pro baseball players olympic lift? The lifts are great but the article is my thought process on sports training. What I do for Track in general is a different deal. The debate that if you don’t do a lift you don’t know how to coach it or that olympic lifters were tested magically in Mexico City is just nonsense.It was my first article and I hope I didn’t label myself the no olympic lift guy.
As for the robots vs cats I am more of a coach that tries to enhance natural motion vs trying to get athletes to get things to move from point a to point b.
Weight lifting (olympic) can be elastic and smooth. Even a pull-up can done with a rhythmic motion that flows neatly.
Kobe will most likely get more fluid with good coaching at new activities but the best athletes will get there faster and farther. They always make it look easier.