Some of the tech on this video is very questionable.
hell of a lot better tech that most videos i see unless is Dr. Form squatting 135 and running 5.0 40s
i agree but i expected better from tommy.
Yeah, I see what you mean about the power cleans and squats…surprised that there weren’t any dislocated kneecaps!
I know they’re the tigers, but it felt more like a nature channel show than a football video!
I’m not surprised that the technique on many of the lifts is horrible because this is the status quo for most S&C programs in the US.
What I am surprised by is the fact that someone thought it was a wise idea to show how pitiful the weightlifting instruction is to the world on youtube.
This only reaffirms my repeated statement that, regarding collegiate sports, recruiting is far more meaningful than training and concerning the powerhouse programs this only reaffirms my repeated statement that what they do in training is secondary to their ability to recruit the nations finest.
What’s unfortunate is the fact that the athletes, and apparently the coaches, are none the wiser and will leave the program oblivious to the fact that so much more could have been done to further their physical preparation.
Meanwhile the unknowing masses will go on thinking that the training at the powerhouse programs is top of the line.
So again I ask, imagine what ‘could be’ if the training was truly optimized.
tamfb, do you know how the training is programmed? I wonder if it is as poorly planned as it is executed?
Now let’s see if anyone chimes in with the ‘technique doesn’t’ matter speech…
James I will share some of my tommy notes later i am in too much pain at this time…
With maximal lifts you will see poor form because you subrecruit to get the lift done - watch any powerlifting competition. Having said that you have to question if you want to encourage this on a daily basis! I think James said the rest pretty well.
TopCat, while a trainee of lesser ‘trainedness’ will often resort to faulty mechanics to make a maximal attempt I wouldn’t imply that this is to be expected across the board.
I would invite anyone to our weight room when our guys test in order to see what well coached athletes look like even during limit attempts on barbell lifts.
I should point out that I no longer test an athletes 1RM on a lift that I am not confident they can perform with solid mechanics. As a result, any of my athletes who are tested on a 1RM are those who demonstrate efficient mechanics- hence trainedness and preparedness.
At the world class level one will notice more mechanical deviations from the Olympic lifters vs the powerlifters as the powerlifters (IPF anyway) are held to very rigid standards with respect to evenness of bar path, kinematics, and so forth in order to receive three white lights. Meanwhile the weightlifters are simply required to complete the lift, regardless of kinematics, so long as the barbell is securely fixed overhead and held with control prior to its release.
The weightlifts being more ‘dynamic’ by nature- naturally leave more room for mechanical deviation during limit attempts, even from world class sportsmen.
What we see in the LSU video, however, is not the type of mechanical deviation a weightlifter or powerlifter would demonstrate (ergo assuming a ridiculously wide foot stance when receiving the barbell in the power clean, going in to major valgus stress at the knees coming up out of a squat, legs moving all over the place during the bench press, etcetera) but rather the faulty kinematics that someone would demonstrate who is of insufficient trainedness and strength preparedness. (ergo someone who hasn’t been effectively coached, and who hasn’t been performing the lifts correctly for long enough at sub-maximal capacities to warrant limit attempts)
More than anything, such ugly attempts are a fantastic representation of the fact that maximal efforts on that particular lift are not yet warranted from that trainee and that the limit of their strength on that lift will be furthered via the continued performance of sub-maximal efforts.
All of this pointing to the fact that errors are occurring at the coaching level.
From there end I would suspect any reply to such claims would be ‘who’s the national champs’, however.
Thus the irony continues.
In high school my team had a competitive weightlifting coach teach us how to clean. He would make us perfect the shrug and jump portion of the lift for nearly three months before we were allowed to catch the bar. After all this, we still had kids perform the clean with technique similar the one’s shown in the video. My point is, regardless some athletes are not going to have great form. Especially in a complicated lift as the clean.
I’m not arguing for or against the clean, I’m just saying the technique in the video could be far worse. I’ve seen plenty of world class olympic weightlifters with increased valgus during a squat as well. I applaud preaching and striving for perfection, but I don’t really see much of a problem with the video.
What you must understand, however, is that while your high school prepatory experience may seem to have been relatively extensive to you it was, in reality, a minuscule amount of prepatory time compared to the number of years a developing weightlifter may spend prior to attaining relatively high stages of sport mastery.
Another point of interest that must be acknowledged is that just because a world class athlete might demonstrate mechanically compromised technique on limit attempts does not justify a lesser qualified, or different sportsmen all together, demonstrating the same.
In fact, any sportsman other than a weightlifter is even less justified than the weightlifter, in demonstrating mechanical inefficiency on limit attempts, as the lifts themselves are more needed, relevant, meaningful, necessary, and specific to weightlifting than any other sport.
Meaning, weightlifters, and only weightlifters, are the ONLY sportsmen who MUST perform weightlifts, and their variants, in order to compete and attain sport mastery.
Likewise, powerlifters, and only powerlifters, are the ONLY sportsmen who MUST squat, bench press, and deadlift in order to compete and attain sport mastery.
Any other sportsmen have their pick of exercises as no conventional barbell exercises (such as weightlifts and powerlifts) are specific to any sports other than weightlifting and powerlifting.
Having been a physical preparation coach for American football for the past 5 years I can assure you that cleans, snatches, jerks, bench press, squats, and deadlifts, while ‘great’ exercises, are unnecessary to perform in order that the trainee may attain high sports results as the special exercises of high transference require the use of different apparatus and many other non-specific exercises may be performed to strengthen the proximal/postural muscles in place of the classic weightlifts and powerlifts (ergo dumbbell lifts, loaded and unloaded calisthenics, cable exercise, band resisted exercise, plate loaded machines, etcetera).
For this reason it is my position that the exercises must be selected and performed at capacities that are most well suited to the trainedness, preparedness, and needs of the athlete leaving the only “MUST perform exercises” to those such as the competition exercise itself and specific variations of high transference.
There are no non-specific lifts that are important enough to the ultimate objective to allow for structurally compromised technique on limit efforts. While I state this as firm opinion I have an uncompromising belief that it is fact.
You bring up some good points James but we must remember that we are not developing olympic lifters, when athetes are using the ol’s to develop sport performance they only need 80% efficiency. According to Ethan Reeve if he can get his athletes to develop 80-85% efficiency then it will transfer over to the playing field which I found to be very accurate. I must say Tommy is a great motivator which is half the battle of being a great coach.
I wouldn’t argue against the premise that 80-85% efficiency transfers or not.
My argument is that the structural cost/risk of being inefficient far outweighs any possible benefit when there are so many alternatives at our disposal.
Furthermore, I , for one, am perplexed by the notion that a physical preparation coach would permit a 15-20% margin for disaster and absolutely unacceptable injury risk.
Regarding the motivation concept- while this is a prerequisite characteristic of leaders, and I agree that unified belief at the team level is a very powerful and vital component of team sport success, it is meaningless without purpose, calculated action, wisdom, strategy, and on and on.
I could formulate military analogies ad nauseum in order to decimate the fruitless motivation concept.
Remember, the trail of lemmings follows the front of the line right off the cliff without hesitation yet the purpose is futile.
Bro motivation is huge and is often overlooked, got to get ur troops to run through a brick wall for ya. When you have a motivator like Tommy the athletes buy into the program and bust there ass daily, they become “bullet proof”. If you have any questions about tommy training feel free to ask.
Also I dont think the injuries increase with only having 80-85% efficiency, look at wake forest football team.
You misunderstood, and I think was clear in stating the importance of motivation.
The point I would urge you to understand is that motivation, alone, is not enough; and when a supporting mechanism is flawed the powerful motivation then detrimentally becomes the larger hammer driving the still square peg into the round hole.
Ironically, sporting success, ESPECIALLY TEAM SPORT, often comes at the price of costly and misdirected prepatory measures which are continually ignored, unnoticed, or mistakenly validated by stating ‘look at our record’.
Record is great- all kinds of things go unnoticed, ignored, etcetera regardless of injury and so on.
Record is lousy- people get fired even if some of them are doing an expert job.
Lastly, we must think cumulatively regarding training stress and injury potential. Another irony:
small percentage of college players go on to the NFL- and those that do not often cease training by any intensive stretch of the imagination and, therefore, we’ll never know what lifting related injuries may have manifested down the line.
The small percentage that does make it to the NFL are subjected to varied programs and are largely in charge of what they do.
Something to note is that I have, personally, yet to come into contact with one NFL veteran who will even think about voluntarily performing cleans or overhead lifts due to the stress of the game. Many veteran linemen won’t even squat due to trashed knees.
One of my guys, a proven league veteran at a west coast team (I prefer not to mention), showed me the off-season program that he was given that included snatches, cleans, etcetera- he looks at me and says “Fuck that”. And thus he opts to forgo the major cash he gets for participating in off-season training (it’s part of his contract) and comes to train with me instead. Keep in mind he is only one of a group of NFL guys that come back to work with me and Buddy because they don’t buy or won’t do what the team strength coach sells.
I’ll admit that my argument is difficult to support because it is very challenging to account for all the different stressors that a player is subjected to between collegiate training, practice, games and professional training, practice, and games.
I continue to stand behind it, however.
I know Mike Clark, Steve Watterson, and Bert Hill always had a great turn out during the offseason also by the way the greatest rb of all time barry sanders offseason training included:
1: back squats
2: power cleans
3: bench press
4: lat pd
he threw in some other stuff at times but the above drills were the stable of his program.
Off topic, im pissed bc the panthers took a big reach in drafting your boy jeff otah.
Don’t be pissed. Jeff is going to do a hell of a job in the league.
Im pissed bc panthers gave up too much for a unathletic right tackle.
dont look like lsu are getting the freak athletes to me:
DL Glenn Dorsey (6-1 ¾, 297): Ran the 40 in 5.13 and 5.12, had a 25 ½-inch vertical jump, 8-foot, 4-inch long jump, 4.80 short shuttle, 7.52 cone drill, and ran position drills. Scouts like his long arms, which measured 35 ¼ inches. Former NFL player Tim Krumrie ran the workout and he has a reputation of running lineman pretty hard… but he couldn’t break Dorsey, who looked very good.
» WR Early Doucet (6-0, 203): Ran the 40 in 4.59, 4.64 and 4.69, had a 34 ½-inch vertical jump, 9-foot, 6-inch long jump, 4.45 short shuttle, 7.40 cone drill, ran position drills and kept everything else from the combine. Had a very good workout.
» LB Arlington Highsmith (6-0, 221): Ran the 40 in 4.87, 4.72 and 4.70, had a 29-inch vertical jump, 9-foot, 4-inch long jump, 7.34 cone drill, 23 reps in the bench press, ran position drills and kept everything else from the combine.
» QB Matt Flynn (6-2, 229): Kept all numbers from the combine, ran position drills and looked very good throwing the ball.
» RB Jacob Hester (5-11 1/8, 225): Had a 29-inch vertical jump, ran position drills and kept everything else from the combine. Caught the ball well in workouts.
» DB Jonathan Zenon (5-11 ¾, 185): Ran the 40 in 4.62 and 4.54, had a 37-inch vertical jump, 9-foot, 6-inch long jump, 4.36 short shuttle, 6.85 cone drill, ran position drills and kept everything else from the combine (but he did not do the bench press in Indianapolis due to an injury.)
» S Craig Steltz (6-1 3/8, 210): Ran the 40 in 4.60 and 4.65, had a 35-inch vertical jump, 9-foot, 10-inch long jump, 4.19 short shuttle, 7.03 cone drill, had 10 reps in the bench press and could have done more but he injured his right shoulder. He did not work out at the combine, so there are no other numbers for him.
» CB Chevis Jackson (6-0 1/8, 192): Ran the 40 in 4.57 and 4.58, had a 40-inch vertical jump, 10-foot long jump, ran position drills and kept everything else from the combine
He’s actually surprisingly athletic for his stature and enough so to play left tackle throughout college.
Fox and crew were here for his private workout so they saw everything they needed to, apparently, to warrant the deal.
Yep, and mel kiper said it was a dumb move. 
He cant pass block; hes a mauler.