The 2 Things You Need in Weightlifting
When I first started writing about weightlifting, my goal was to make it as simple as possible so that everyone could digest the information and get something out of it. The challenge was to make the science understandable.
As I started to grow as a weightlifting coach in a small club in Melbourne, this became more striking for me. To keep things simple when approaching training my guys and girls. Biomechanics provides the details and the underlying concepts needed for good technique and sound programming. But at the end of the day, the purpose behind the program is to be kept simple. And it’s to gain improvements in two things. What two things you may ask?
Maintaining a Strong Trunk
Developing Strong Legs
“Oh! That simple?!” might be your response. But what it takes to improve in those two areas are laden with many components, factors, methods or whatever you want to call it. So let’s take a look at what it really means and what can be done to achieve these two things.
Credit to Hookgrip. The combination of strength in the back and the use of the legs was probably what made Rybakou’s snatch technique one of the most efficient and pleasant to watch.
Maintaining A Strong Trunk
When we talk about biomechanics, we are looking at how the body moves in any movement skill. In weightlifting, most of the biomechanical analysis looked at movement of the body through the sagitaal plane (side on) which was one of the most accessible ways to assess technique. In this modern age, that is now coupled with understanding what happens on the frontal (face on) and even transverse (top view) planes as we begin to see more imbalance issues in the body which can be masked through viewing the lifts side on.
With the spine having at least 24 moveable parts (in your cervical, thoracic and lumbar regions of the spine) in the directions of flexion, extension and rotation, maintaining a strong trunk has a huge demand on the ability to move weight well. So when we talk about maintaining the stability in the trunk, we have to look at strengthening the ability to reduce movement in all moving parts in any direction. This is why the work to strengthen the trunk is so complex as we have to assess where in which direction does the trunk struggle to hold position. If we are talking about resisting flexion, then our extension strength (back and erector spinae muscles) need to be doing their part. Our obliques support the ability to hold or resist rotation while our abs work to resist overextension.
Li Hongli (M77kg) with the detail on his back showing the development of the trunk.
The second part of the equation is where the trunk is stuck in position and where mobility drills need to be implemented to improve movement so that other moveable parts dont need to take the strain. Afterall, our goal in maintaining a strong trunk is to allow the power expressed from the legs to come through the trunk and move the barbell.
Developing Strong Legs
While the squat is the king of developing leg strength, like the trunk, we have to look at what’s weak and what’s not moving in order for us to increase the strength in the lower body. Like the trunk as well, the legs can be assessed in the three main planes of movement and for some of the joints, it’s a combination of planes of movement during the lifts.
While the goal is to develop strength in the hinge joint of the knee which occurs mostly in the sagitaal plane, the ability to properly express the strength of the legs is affected by the movement of the hips in all three planes (frontal, sagitaal and transverse). At any point of time, if the hip lacks sufficient movement in any of the planes, the power expressed easily from the knees in flexion and extenison gets lost and cant be transferred effectively through the trunk. So the muscles to support these planes of movements need to be functioning appropriately for that to happen.
Picture taken from @luxiaojunbarbell of Li Dayin (M81kg) showing a good transfer of strong leg force development through the trunk in his snatch pull variation.
And if we look deeper into weightlifting movements, it’s a ground-based movement pattern where the feet drive the connection of the lifter to the floor to develop the power to transfer through the bar. This means that the 33 joints in the foot plus the ankle and lower leg also play a part ensuring force transfer to allow the knee to develop the drive needed off the floor into the hips and into the trunk. If any point of those lack movement or strength, we lose the ability again to develop maximum strength and force through the legs.
Putting It Together
Building the trunk and legs may seem like very complex processes but it can be simplified by understanding the planes of movement first. With the trunk, reducing the movement in the planes is key while with the legs, improving the planes of movement is critical to force development. The more stable the trunk, the better the movement from the legs to develop force can be efficiently transferred through so that every Newton of force produced through the ground up is not wasted to move the barbell.
And that’s where the science of programming is manipulated to help with pushing for these two things to happen in your training in order for your lifts to be more effective. Moreover, there are many ways to skin a cat. That’s another post for another time on HOW to develop these components in your movements and WHAT to do to get the most out of your training.
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