Linford Christie's Training Philosophy

David_W · June 18, 2007, 9:50am

Dazed:

Not Chinese whispers my friend. I don’t know about full power lifting depth but it was definitely down to bench depth. At that point he decided it was too much and wasn’t really helping on the track.

In later years his guys only 1/4 squatted as reported. Darren was still squatting in 2006.

You’re correct about cleaning technique. In 2005 he was cleaning ~ 130kg and was all over the place. Big twist and backwards step as it got heavy. He did say he’s cleaned substantially higher than that though. Still 130 is pretty huge when you’ve not been really training for a long time. Darren’s form wasn’t too bad - but there was no double pull, just straight up from the ground, to rack 140, and he claimed Linford was much stronger.

Something you have to take into account when you’re talking about this group is that they sent a huge amount of time in the gym compared to other groups. 2-3 times a week for 3-4 hrs a day in a competitive environment will get you pretty damn strong.

Many very talented Olympic lifters are training 8 sessions+ per week and can’t power clean 170! David Morgan was 4th in the 84 and 88 Olympics at 82.5 and only power cleaned 165. Andy Callard was a Commonwealth Gold medalist at 94kg and his max was 160…

eroszag · June 18, 2007, 10:19am

http://www.fidal.it/showquestion.php?faq=12&fldAuto=571

tape number 12, if I remember correctly

eroszag · June 18, 2007, 10:22am

You cannot Imagine how big talent there is…I saw 165kg clean from the best italian Bobsled pusher 2 years ago, and now cleans 172,5…with good form, and is 102 kg…in Italian weightlifting there are overall maybe 2-3 guys who can do more…overall…

des · June 18, 2007, 10:30am

yes, i have this tape! you remeber correctly

martn76 · June 18, 2007, 1:48pm

I ve seen Dalton Grant squat 300kg partial squat. He Linford and Collin trained together. According to him they did very little half or deep squat exercises.

maris · June 18, 2007, 2:13pm

Linford’s group do 1/4 squats yeah. Darren’s best clean is 135kg, his technique looked odd to me. I don’t recall Darren squatting in 2006, but I never went to Australia with them, but in Cardiff I know he didn’t do it a lot.

Dazed · June 18, 2007, 10:05pm

Kinda like a straight legged deadlift? Still it’s smooth and not ragged like Linford.

mortac8 · June 18, 2007, 10:24pm

Ah… a little help here? Is the tape available in NTSC format? Would a dumb English speaking-American like myself be able to order it from that site?

eroszag · June 19, 2007, 2:52am

PAL, and…also dumb italians can have problems:)

fracchia85 · July 5, 2007, 9:00am

Linford is still in an impressive shape