10 April 2022
Welcome to the thirteenth edition of my FREE monthly Newsletter on Weightlifting.
Happy Spring! I’ve missed the last three months. It’s been a busy start to 2022 for me and I’m sure the same is true for you.
As we move through 2022, know that I plan to continue sharing my recent discoveries related to health, info from my library and of course a topic on Weightlifting.
Happy New Year!
COVID-19
health - /helTH/
noun
the state of being free from illness or injury.
It’s been a crazy time for all of us, world-wide. Not to mention, of course all of those who’ve lost loved ones. This health crisis has, in a weird way united all of us against a common enemy. COVID has wrecked supply chains for goods around the globe, created economic upheaval, loss of employment for thousands and endlessly stressed health-care workers and hospitals. Today it seems that for most of us to be mostly behind us, but is it?
China is dealing with yet another version of this virus while the rest of us have stored our masks wondering if we’ll have to start wearing them again in grocery stores and airplanes.
218 million Americans are fully vaccinated, a little over 66% of our population and 4.6 billion worldwide or almost 60%.
Muscular Balance
The longer I coach athletes the more I’m focused on muscular balance between left and right sides. Of course with weightlifters when we look directly from the front or rear it’s easy to see the compensation between left and right that’s often required to rise from a heavy squat. If this compensation is too great, injuries or stains will occur. I’m now keenly aware of this discrepancy working with Sprint athletes.
This past week one of our Sprinters, who was recently cleared by our medical staff for return to training and competition from a hamstring strain was in the weight room. I put this athlete on the leg curl machine and set up single leg work. I discovered that the previously strained leg was able to perform the movement very well where the non-strained leg wasn’t. My hypothesis is that the initial strain might have occurred because the leg had to overcome deficiency of the weaker one.
As weightlifters just like in Sprinters, our legs are the primary movers so we squat and pull tons weekly in a bilateral manor. How often are you training each leg separately?
I program single leg work much more regularly to manage individual leg bias and avoid injury.
Train smarter.
Technical Video Tutorials on Weightlifting
I’m often asked for technical advice for improving an athletes movement patterns of the Clean and Snatch lifts. Over the past few years I’ve accumulated some teaching videos to help illustrate efficient technique. Assembled on YouTube is a play list on my channel :
Have a look and check back regularly as I’ll continue updating the playlist with additional skill practice videos and technical explanations.
Coach Miller’s Library
“thedrive"
By Dr. Peter Attia
This is a podcast I recently listened to:
#201. Deep dive back into Zone 2 | Iñigo San-Millàn, Ph.D (Pt.2)
This is a bit lengthy and may require some Ex.Phys knowledge to follow, but a huge wealth of information. Dr. Attia dives deeply into Dr. San-Millàn’s work with elite cyclists to maximize training, mitochondrial function and how working in the heart rate area of Zone 2 is the biggest influencer of fat oxidation.
There’s also a great bit of info related to Type I and Type II Diabetes, Cancer and heart health.
Have a listen. Once you click on this link below you can choose some of his other interviews. All of them are fantastic!
Speaking of Newsletters —>
Check out my chosen AM daily news update, the Morning Brew. Lot’s of great info in an easy to read and usually amusing tone.
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