Responsiveness To Training
By Donny Shankle
Sleep is obviously very important. You will spend nearly a third of your life asleep for good reason. Without proper rest, your muscles will not grow and your coordination will be poor. These are just a couple examples of the negative side effects. Whenever my sleep schedule is interrupted, I feel it immediately in the gym and my response to training ceases. On the other hand when I am sleeping great especially between the hours of 2200 and 0400, my strength in the gym surges. It’s in periods of rest that the muscle and nerve cells recover. Adaptation and response to stress cannot take place unless you have the self discipline to meet an early bed time. It is for this reason a repetitive night life should be avoided by the weightlifter.
Keep the room you sleep in cool and clean. There should be no bright colors and no television in the room. Especially when in training, it should be thought of as a quiet place. Reading is fine but if you read in your bed do not do so on your back with your head propped up on a pillow. This will cause strain on the neck and you will feel it the next day you lift. I enjoy reading in bed but have learned to do so on it on my belly propped up on my elbows putting myself in a chest up position which is beneficial to lifting. If you are a side sleeper, do not sleep on your shoulder without any support underneath it because this too will cause strain on the shoulder too. The best way for the weightlifter to sleep would be on his back with something under the knees to remove strain in the lower back. Since we spend so much of our lives sleeping, pay attention to the positions you sleep in. You may be feeling a chronic ache or pain not because of improper lifting form but because of weird sleeping positions. Warm milk, a melatonin supplement, and magnesium baths are aids I have used in the past to help me sleep. The best way I have found however is to be self disciplined and adhere to a schedule.
Continuous response to training requires stricter specificity as your level of development increases. If you are in the gym doing numerous physique shaping exercises because you are trying to look great in front of the mirror then this is energy you are wasting. Don’t worry about doing extra exercises to look good. Snatches, Cleans, Jerks, Squats, Pulls, and Presses are enough exercises to give you a great looking ass and masculine shoulders. Focus on performance and lifting more weight. As Bill Starr says, “They don’t award style points in weightlifting”, and you will not get three white lights just because you have washboard abs. The muscles will take aesthetic shape as you place heavy stress on them with these weightlifting exercises alone. Any energy expended towards any other exercises is energy you could be putting towards the competitive lifts. Move away from the idea of lifting to look great and start lifting to be great. The former is a happy byproduct.
The muscle does not need to grow in huge dimensions and be shredded in order to be strong. Hypertrophy (muscle growth) and muscle strength are two different animals. Each requires the muscles to be put under stress but strengthening a muscle involves greater nervous system conditioning to activate more muscle fibers. A strong muscle is a coordinated muscle. The greater your coordination the more muscle fibers you can call on. It is for this reason so many hours are devoted to the same exercises. Limit your training to Snatching, Cleaning, and Jerking especially the closer you approach competition. Since training should never stop, certain Subordinate Exercises can be implemented to maintain conditioning and mental sharpness when injuries may happen to occur. Notice, however, all lower class SUB EX’s are done for no more than five to ten minutes to improve performance and keep you engaged by breaking monotony.
ME conditioning (strength endurance) could be down or the climate may be taking its toll on you. When you are not responding to the training in these cases, it may be because you need to take more rest in-between your exercises. This does not mean you have to rest a complete hour or two. Taking extra rest in one given training session can mean twenty to thirty minutes between your Snatches and Cleans and Jerks and Squats. A little reminder from a Weightlifting Legend and Strongman is worth paying attention to here.
“Remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare and be content to go slowly”. - Arthur Saxon
Don’t train weary. Why would you? As you rest more, the training session will last longer but be of greater quality. Too often people refer to over training when the weightlifter just needed to eat and rest for longer intervals in-between exercises. If you are a professional weightlifter and have the luxury of training all day then divide your training with longer rest periods. Change your training too if your climate changes. Here is an example of a Daily Split I have used in High Humidity.
EXAMPLE
AM (0900)
2 exercises
PM (1400)
2 exercises
PM 2 (1800)
1 exercise
The training here is divided up into sessions I can complete quickly. The humidity after that time significantly depletes my strength. There is no point in training if you are feeling very weak. It’s better to rest, eat, and try and get some place cool. Come back later when your strength returns. These longer rest periods like I said are great if you have the luxury but you can also have shorter rest periods and still train optimally. Here is another example of training with a little over two hours in the gym.
EXAMPLE
Exercise 1 (25 minutes)
(rest 20 minutes)
Exercise 2 (30 minutes)
(rest 15 minutes)
Exercise 3 (20 minutes)
(rest 10 minutes)
Exercise 4 (10 minutes)
Split up your effort in the gym. Do less exercises and take advantage of longer rest times. If you are not responding to the training it may be because you are doing too many other exercises not relevant to improving strength and coordination at the SN and CJ. Your choice in the number of exercises you are doing at one time could also be depleting your energies. Divide your effort with more rest. This way you will have the same energy at the end of training as you did in the beginning. Weightlifters who do not do this tend to have lower Clean and Jerks compared to their Snatches. Like the hare you could be moving at an all out sprint but this doesn’t matter if your energy leaves you before the race is over. Pay attention to other factors like age. An older lifter can still respond in training. He may only be able to do one exercise a day but this is OK. Adaptation will be slower but he will still respond to the training and improve. Adjusting your training to your conditions is often times necessary and unavoidable.