All right, buckle up and settle in because we’re going to go yard on this one. I’ve talked about this idea in the past, but not in great detail, and it’s an important concept, especially these days with all of us being bombarded by technical information online that we’re not always sure what to do with.
 
The premise is that in most cases, it’s better to use training exercises as the primary method of error correction and technique improvement in weightlifting rather than relying on technical cues, despite the latter being what everyone seems to be clamoring for.
 
Why Use Exercises?
 
Everyone’s looking for that one magic cue that will suddenly solve a problem, but this is rarely how it works, and more importantly, cues are not self-contained entities and have serious limitations. A cue is just a reminder of previous instruction, not instruction itself—a cue is only effective if what it’s intended to remind the athlete to do has already been learned. We can scream “heels” all day long, and it’s completely meaningless, or maybe worse, very easy to misinterpret if that athlete doesn’t already know what we’re trying to get them to do in response.
 
Moreover, cues can only be effective if the issue we’re trying to resolve is exclusively skill-dependent, and few errors are because of the nature of the competition lifts being irreducible combinations of multiple physical qualities. It doesn’t matter if you know what you’re supposed to do if your body is physically incapable of doing it. An obvious example is maintaining optimal pulling posture with heavier weights—the body needs to have the posture-specific strength to support the positions and movement the athlete is trying to execute.
 
An exception to this example would be pulling posture degrading as weights increase because diminishing confidence encourages rushing the break from the floor.
 
Inherent Problems with Cues & Instruction
 
Not all athletes are motor superstars and many have trouble translating instructions into movement, no matter how eloquently described by a coach. Many are also huge overthinkers and will mangle your instructions through interpretation or paralyze themselves with analysis. The long term goal with the Olympic lifts is to minimize thinking as much as possible so eventually a lifter has to focus only on force and aggression—we can encourage this process by minimizing the talking and focusing on the movements.
 
Additionally, the Olympic lifts are not exclusively skill-dependent, like a baseball pitch or golf swing, for example. Even if a lifter executes with technical perfection at a light weight, they may not have the physical ability to preserve that motion through heavier weights, which means no amount of understanding, skill or instruction will make any difference—the previous example of pulling posture and squat posture are good demonstrations of this.
 
The body will seek the positions and movements it’s strongest and most comfortable in as weights increase. This is why training exercises are typically superior to cueing and thinking. If posture in the pull is fine with warm-up weights, but tipping increases as weights increase because the athlete doesn’t have the necessary posture strength, no amount of conscious effort to maintain posture will produce the desired result.
 
We have to strengthen the positions we want so they become the body’s natural choice regardless of conceptual understanding. Instruction and cues give the mind a goal, but training exercises give the body the ability to meet it.
 
How to Select Exercises
 
Now that you’re convinced, the question is how do we select exercises? Here is the process.
 
1. Identify the problem: Keep it simple and objective, like jumping forward, bar unstable overhead, etc.
 
2. Determine the source of the problem: This requires a solid understanding of technique and experience. Example: Jumping forward in a snatch can have several causes, and what corrects one will have no effect on another, such as shifting forward to bar after knees, weak or short leg drive and hips pushing through bar, or stiff arms in third pull.
 
3. Create a solution: Start by using existing suggestions by established coaches and see how and when they work and don’t, and over time modify according to your experience and create your own by experimenting.
 
Exercise Selection Goals
 
Select exercises that:
 
1. Address the technical need. Diagnose correctly and choose suitable movements.
 
2. Minimize the need for the athlete to think and understand. Reduce as much as possible to segments or simplified variations that specifically address the problem rather than trying to focus on one small piece of a more complex motion—that’s no different than simply trying to correct the problem within the original competition lift.
 
3. Encourage the body to execute as desired naturally. This means making the desired motion easy to do by wisely choosing starting positions or segments, using exercises that strengthen the positions/motions needed to support the attempted technical execution, and always reinforcing proper posture and balance—for example, making sure an athlete doesn’t shift back to the heels in good mornings or RDLs.
 
Why We Have to Get Creative
 
Athletes have a limited capacity for volume—we can’t simply continue adding more exercises to their existing program to address problems. We can’t also just replace critical fundamental exercises like squats and pulls with other exercises that address technical problems.
 
We need to find ways to address the athlete’s problems while also handling the fundamentals as the basic program intends. There are two primary ways to do this well: complexes and warm-ups. For example, instead of simply doing snatch pulls as the program would normally call for, we can do a halting deadlift + pull to improve pulling posture and balance, or parallel front squat + squat to improve strength in the sticking point of the clean recovery.
 
By adding technique exercises to warm-ups, we can address problems without adding considerable volume or time, and we improve the effectiveness. This is also usually best done with complexes, such as adding multiple dips to jerks to improve position and balance, high-pulls to snatches to improve drive and bar proximity, or power cleans to cleans to improve turnover speed and meeting the bar.
 
Next month, we’ll cover more specifics on exercises and execution.