Episode 2 — Do Olympic Lifts Belong in Group Classes?

Recording. Here we go. Alright, so before we start, I want to get a quick take on a few weightlifting cues. So I know a coach who hates it when people yell, push someone's in a competition, they've weight over head. Go, go. Push, push. And he hates it. I don't know why. I don't know if it's like childhood trauma or what's going on, but he just hates it when people yell. Push. So I want to get your guys' take on a few cues. You tell me, is that a good cue? Something you should yell while someone's lifting [00:00:30] or a waste of breath and you shouldn't yell it. All right. So what do you think about push?

Coach Metz (00:00:37):

I think

Danny Lehr (00:00:37):

It's a waste. Waste push is a waste. Wes?

Wes Kitts (00:00:41):

Yeah, I kind of agree with that. It's sort of or hold. That's another one people like to shout.

Danny Lehr (00:00:47):

Okay. What about stay tight?

Wes Kitts (00:00:49):

Oh, during the lift.

Danny Lehr (00:00:51):

Yeah, they're on the platform. They're lifting. You don't stay tight,

Wes Kitts (00:00:54):

Bro. I don't think. I don't know that. Throwing noise at people while they're fighting with big bars over [00:01:00] their heads probably ever really helpful.

Danny Lehr (00:01:02):

Okay. What about right before they start? What about chest up? Chest up?

Wes Kitts (00:01:07):

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can get there. So there's a couple little things you might be able to remind somebody you've been watching 'em train, right? They might not be keeping their core tight when they lift or thinking about that they're sort of wrapped up in the stress of the weight or whatever. You sneak in one little, set your core queue before they go. I'm in for that. I like [00:01:30] to get a last word in before they start the lift, but not too close. You don't don't want to distract them

Danny Lehr (00:01:36):

Chest up. You okay with chest up?

Coach Metz (00:01:38):

You know what? You can yell whatever at me while I'm lifting on the platform. I won't hear it.

Danny Lehr (00:01:43):

Alright, how about this one? So I know a guy who would yelled this to people during competition before it was a CrossFit competition. Yelled, sacrifice your back. What do you think about that? What? No. Wes, huh? Yes. Yeah. There we go. Sacrifice your back. What [00:02:00] a win. What about this one? Barely move your feet. Too many words. Too many words.

Wes Kitts (00:02:07):

Ineffective.

Danny Lehr (00:02:07):

Okay, so they grind out a heavy clean. They're getting ready for the jerk and you just shout out, oh shit, that looks heavy.

Wes Kitts (00:02:14):

Yeah. Yeah. I think that could help me. I think just having someone agree with me while I'm feeling how heavy it is, just sort of confirming my bias that is in fact heavy. That could be helpful.

Coach Metz (00:02:27):

Just fact check. You've heard that one be yelled during.

Wes Kitts (00:02:29):

No, I

Danny Lehr (00:02:30):

[00:02:30] Thought it'd be fun. I thought it'd be funny. Yeah, the barely move your feet. I thought that was a good one too. One time we were coming up with antiques and so we decided those would be good. Or they're really grinding their back's, rounding out and you're just like, oh shit. Drop it, drop it,

Wes Kitts (00:02:47):

Give up. Go home. Yeah, that can be helpful actually. That's good for injury prevention, I think.

Danny Lehr (00:02:54):

Yeah, nothing builds your confidence like, oh shit, that looks heavy, huh?

Wes Kitts (00:02:58):

No.

Danny Lehr (00:02:58):

So today we're diving [00:03:00] into weightlifting, primarily weightlifting in a group environment. So CrossFit classes, strength and conditioning for athletes, et cetera. Do we actually need it or we just teach them? So you can yell cues, get people fired up and pretend like we can point out Bulgaria on a map. So today with me, two people who actually know how to lift, not just talk about lifting. We have West Kits, two time Olympian American record holder and the only man I've seen pass out mid lift on an international stage with the gold medal on the line. [00:03:30] He loves it when I tell that story, but it's all right. It's a tale of sticking to it. Cause he come back. He came back and won gold couple years after that, couple years in a row after that we should say. And also Ryan Metzker, coach Metz, collegiate, strength coach, international speaker, national level weightlifter, and the only five foot one inch tall, 117 pound strength coach I've ever met. I'm Daniel Lear from Caffeine and Kilos, longtime gym owner and caffeine peddler. Welcome to Not In My Box. [00:04:00] All right, so here we go. Little gets to know you round because if people are going to listen to your advice, we want to know where you're coming from and so little kind of about you. So we'll go Mets first. Mets. When's the last time you mowed a lawn?

Coach Metz (00:04:17):

When I was in elementary school.

Danny Lehr (00:04:18):

Elementary school. All right. Doesn't know how to work a lawnmower. Interesting. Okay, Wes, what about you?

Wes Kitts (00:04:24):

Probably 18 years old. That would've been 2008.

Danny Lehr (00:04:28):

Wes been outsourcing that for the [00:04:30] last 15 years. His life. Okay. Do you prefer to eat chicken thighs or chicken breasts Mets?

Coach Metz (00:04:38):

Chicken breasts.

Danny Lehr (00:04:39):

Chicken breasts. Interesting. Wes.

Wes Kitts (00:04:42):

Thighs.

Danny Lehr (00:04:42):

Thighs. Not a fairsome fat. That's good to know. How many candles are in your bedroom Mets?

Coach Metz (00:04:51):

I don't think any.

Danny Lehr (00:04:52):

No candles. Wes, how many candles in your bedroom?

Wes Kitts (00:04:54):

I don't have any candles. But

Danny Lehr (00:04:55):

There's not a single candle in your bedroom.

Wes Kitts (00:04:58):

Not in my bedroom, no.

Danny Lehr (00:04:59):

You're [00:05:00] married Wes, you're a liar. There's got to be candles in there. No,

Wes Kitts (00:05:03):

No, no. There's no candles. It's in the living room. That's where the trash in the kitchen open space. So

Danny Lehr (00:05:13):

No, I was trying to set you up stinky. Alright, when's the last time you ate something out of a squeeze pack or a tube?

Wes Kitts (00:05:22):

Mets first?

Danny Lehr (00:05:23):

Yeah,

Coach Metz (00:05:25):

Probably when I worked at Clemson, we had these fuel by fire. Fuel the fire, I dunno what it's called. [00:05:30] Squeeze things. They're cool.

Danny Lehr (00:05:32):

Got it. Wes, when's the last time you took your kids applesauce?

Wes Kitts (00:05:37):

So that's exactly when it was. It is probably been a month since I sold applesauce packet.

Danny Lehr (00:05:41):

There we go. Alright. Alright. So last one. True or false, just a little true and false here. Metz, you received the 2022 NSCA Assistant college Strength and conditioning coach of the Year award. Is that true or false?

Coach Metz (00:05:55):

That is true

Danny Lehr (00:05:56):

And true or false. One time I was staying at your house [00:06:00] and you ordered pizza for dinner at 8:30 PM and drank an entire two liter of fully led Coca-Cola in less than an hour while eating that pizza on your couch in front of the tv. Is that true or false?

Wes Kitts (00:06:11):

That sounds right. That sounds true.

Danny Lehr (00:06:13):

All right. This is what peak athletic performance looks like. So now that they know a little bit about you, here we go. So the big question is that I want each of you to take a few minutes and just discuss is do non-weight lifters. So we're talking athletes, so college athletes [00:06:30] or whoever, CrossFitters, just general gym people, gen pop, actually need to do full snatches in their training because let's be honest, most people the goal is to look good naked and not die early. Although with the athletes, their performance aspect. But if we're talking about just kind of people in general, so are we teaching the snatches because they're useful or because we know them and they're fun to coach? So Wes, why don't you go ahead and go first. You can [00:07:00] take a few minutes and let know everyone know. What do you think about weightlifting specifically the snatch in general population, and then also in regards to a CrossFit class and just general athletes?

Wes Kitts (00:07:12):

Yeah. Well can I start with the Dave Spitz story?

Danny Lehr (00:07:15):

Yeah, five minutes. You can just do whatever you want.

Wes Kitts (00:07:18):

Alright. So I started coaching when I got to Cal Strength, I started coaching in a high school football weight room, and they had no strength training [00:07:30] culture, it was non-existent, sort of open the weight room, they'd probably write something on the board and just let the kids have at it. So when I got in there, I wanted an organized program. Everybody did everything. We had a plan, a progression and expectations. So anyways, I get that started. We'd been going a few months, obviously I've got quite a few objectives before I had planned on getting to teaching kids how to snatch and we were building [00:08:00] the culture up. Kids we're getting stronger, we're in summer trying to get ready for the season. Anyways, Dave asked me during practice, well how are they snatching? How's the snatch looking? I was like, well actually we hadn't done it yet.

(00:08:12):

Immediately face gets upset. I don't know if you've seen Dave's upset face. It's not great. Immediately upset. Why are they not snatching? It's like, well, I mean, I don't know. We just we're doing other stuff and teaching squat cleans. We're trying to get ready for football season. I hadn't got to it yet. Just getting 'em through a workout is [00:08:30] hard enough. He's like, those boys need to be snatching. Alright, alright, so next week we get in there, I think I put it in on Thursday. What did we do? Probably high hang power snatch plus overhead squat and took about five minutes to go over it. Everybody in the weight room did it. Some of them loaded it and it was no problem. Everybody did. Excellent. So it's actually, especially if you're not going from the floor, you're not receiving [00:09:00] in a squat, it's a really easy movement to teach.

(00:09:03):

And I think it's a lot more friendly than the clean because you don't have to deal with the front rack. A lot of people can put a bar overhead and a wide grip, especially when they're not squatting and jumping catch from the hip is a pretty simple cue. So I think that if you utilize variations, there is a place for it. And there's benefits that they're not necessarily completely unique to the snatch. If [00:09:30] you're already teaching cleans, you're getting a lot of the force absorption, force production, you're getting that kind of stimulus. But when you're putting it over your head, it just requires a little more, I think thoughtfulness, you're doing the force absorption through the shoulders as well. So I think there is a lot of reward with pretty minimal risk teaching the snatch from the I hang, catching it in a power. And then if you have these athletes over time, you can get to [00:10:00] where everybody's doing snatches without looking bad.

(00:10:04):

Everybody can safely do a snatch. For me personally, it's not hard to teach. I've taught it the beginners over and over. Once you know the skill, you know how to get people to produce passable snatches. It's just not this mystery of an exercise that's so difficult that no one can do it. It's actually really simple and I argue it's more simple than doing [00:10:30] a clean and everybody's, not everybody, but a lot of people are pretty comfortable with that. Do you need to do a snatch? No, it depends on what you mean by need. Are there benefits that are you need to the snatch? Sure. But I just think that, and these demographics are completely different too. You have athletes in gen pop, so there's a lot of, for an athlete and most of these weight rooms are filled with the best [00:11:00] athletes in our country, especially in the collegiate setting.

(00:11:05):

You can't convince me that every one of them couldn't learn to do a snatch with minimal effort. Now you get to your CrossFit class and you've got Derek's me mall is 80 and she's in her first month of training. We could probably push that off for a little while. Maybe we don't need to do it and you can always pass our PVC [00:11:30] pipe on snatch day. So I think nobody is beyond learning something new. I don't think that the snatch is like, this is untenable mystery of an exercise. I think it's pretty simple once you get used to it. And I think that honestly it's an excuse. People don't like it because they've not been taught to do it well. So if your gym's full of people that don't like to snatch, you [00:12:00] don't have enough frequency and you're not really coaching it very well.

(00:12:05):

And if you're a strength coach, that's a burst to Olympic weightlifting, just you probably in the wrong profession. I think you should probably be comfortable teaching anything on a barbell even made up shit. You should just be so comfortable with a bar that you can get the best athletes in the planet to do these exercises. Even if they're not your number one favorite thing to do year round, you should still be able to coach. [00:12:30] So everybody doesn't need to snatch. I'm not going to sit here and tell you you have to snatch your athletes. Spitz told me I had to do my high schoolers. I have to do what Dave says no matter what. So I listen to 'em immediately. But it is, it's not a necessity. Think it's a great exercise. I use it a lot and I'm not scared to coach it or teach it to anybody, but I've done it at a high level for a long time. So I guess I [00:13:00] have a pretty comfortable position to coach it from. So time.

Danny Lehr (00:13:05):

Yeah. So one thing you mentioned there is you don't have a problem with it or you think it's not as difficult as other things. And that reminds me of one of my favorite responses to questions is something is this difficult to coach? A great response is, well compared to what? And so that's whole thing. Well, compared to a pushup, like okay, arguably it could be more complicated. Although if you speak to a high level gymnast, they maybe [00:13:30] tell you the intricacies of a pushup. So there's that, but compared to what, so in your mind, compared to a clean a snatch might actually be an easier thing to teach. I'm not sure if I agree with that or not. I might though. But I think that that's an interesting kind of point on that, right? It's like, well compared to what, maybe it's the coach's ability is really the limiting factor here. So alright, coach Metz, strength coach working with a lot of collegiate athletes primarily. And so [00:14:00] just your thoughts on it, maybe from the strength coach perspective or just general population as a whole. Wes said that Derek's memaw maybe doesn't need to know how to snatch. However, I think it might be good for her to learn how to open and close her hips. And so what are your thoughts on this coach Metz?

Coach Metz (00:14:20):

Yeah, I mean a lot of my experience lies in the collegiate setting instead of gen pop. And so I learned how to Olympic lift very early on in my coaching career. Kentucky is where I started my internship [00:14:30] and became a ga. So that was one of the first things you learned was how to move the barbell and how to do it well. So we all learned how to Olympic lift all of the teams Olympic lifted. There were very few exceptions to that within that program. And so as a young coach, I thought everyone had to, so when I moved onto my next position, VCU, I made all of my athletes Olympic lift. I taught them how to clean, I taught them how to snatch if I felt like it was appropriate. I taught them some of the [00:15:00] overhead jerk variations and all of that stuff.

(00:15:03):

And then I started to realize some of these positions look pretty terrible or maybe this isn't really getting the stimulus that I want for these athletes. And I feel very comfortable coaching and teaching the Olympic lift. So it was never an issue of comfort for me. When I got to Clemson, they were very much Olympic lifting. They said, we don't do that here. And I was like, well that's cool. So how do I get the same [00:15:30] stimulus that I need from my athletes? And I realize that Clemson, I don't have to do the movement, I just have to find a way to either get the pattern or get the stimulus. And so when it comes to Olympic lifting, do my athletes need to snatch or need to clean? No, not necessarily. I think the most common strength coach answer is it depends who's your population, what the stimulus you're trying to get from it.

(00:15:54):

I kind of have a different train of thought. I think it's way easier to teach snatch if you've already taught your [00:16:00] athletes how to clean. And the reason I say that is because a lot of the movements and positioning is similar. And so if they're comfortable moving that bar in a pattern from the ground to their shoulders or from their knees to their shoulders, they're a lot more comfortable letting it pass their face. So I like to teach the clean first and then the snatch. I can't say that I have ever taught athletes snatch from the ground. So we're not pulling from the ground. It's always been from the hip. And [00:16:30] so again, I just think it's what stimulus do you want? What's your population and does it make the most sense? And if not, what other variations or things can you do for the athlete to get something similar that you're searching for? So it depends.

Danny Lehr (00:16:45):

So on that, what would you do instead? So you go to Clemson and you feel like you've kind of got this shit figured out. If I want kids to get explosive and learn how to open and close their hip or open and then close their hip and be [00:17:00] proficient at that and that type of thing and work on the speed and all the other benefits of it. So then you show up and they say, oh, we don't do that here. And so what'd you figure out or what did they show you or teach you or how'd that go? What did you use instead to get that same stimulus and that same response you're looking for?

Coach Metz (00:17:20):

I, in my opinion, feel like Olympic lifting really, you get the most bang for your buck. So it's the quickest way to get the best stimulus possible for that type [00:17:30] of adaptation, at least in my opinion. And so when I was kind of faced with like, Hey, we don't do that here. I was like, okay, let me break down the Olympic lifts and why do we actually do them? And then let's talk about how I can get that somewhere else. And so what I started doing with my athletes is I peppered in a lot more mobility work with them. I did a lot more strength work with them. I paired it with a lot more plyometric work. I called them high CNS and low CNS jumps. And so in our warmup sets we would do some low CNS, smaller pogo [00:18:00] type of movements. And then in our working sets when we're going really heavy on a lower body thing and pairing it with a really high CNS taxing jump, so they're still getting the stimulus, they're still getting that pattern, but you have to kind of jigsaw it together so it takes more time.

Danny Lehr (00:18:16):

Yeah, it's funny. It's like can you get the same stimulus? Well honestly, probably not. Can you get a similar stimulus? Can you get 80% result probably. But why [00:18:30] would you get an 80% result when you could just teach something and get 100% result? Right?

Coach Metz (00:18:36):

And so the other workaround that I had was that I started being very creative with movements that we did in the weight room and disguising them so that they weren't Olympic lifts if someone saw them. So we would do rotational landmine movements for our softball athletes so that they learn how to throw weight quickly. And so I learned to be [00:19:00] very creative and have a workaround but still get the same patterns and stimulus that I wanted.

Danny Lehr (00:19:05):

So as part of the reason they didn't want to do the Olympic lifts, was it a fear of injury,

Coach Metz (00:19:10):

Fear, risk versus reward? And I think it was just a lack of comfortability with those movements.

Danny Lehr (00:19:18):

So on that risk versus reward and a fear of these athletes maybe getting injured in the weight room, is that something that either one of you have seen be an actual thing? Not specifically with people training weightlifting full time, that's a different story, [00:19:30] but with an athlete or someone who is using the weightlifting lifts in their training, have either of you seen that actually being a bigger risk factor, having athletes get injured during those lifts more than other lifts?

Wes Kitts (00:19:45):

I've not had a acute weightlifting injury with anybody that I've ever coached, especially in a strength sports setting. And a lot of times we'd still max [00:20:00] cleans, we wouldn't go heavy on the snatch, but I'd let 'em do some open-ended clean workouts and no, I think if you're paying attention and everybody understands the movements pretty well, I don't know, you can pretty well mitigate those acute injuries. Coach.

Coach Metz (00:20:19):

If you take a look at the research and all the literature you'll see weightlifting actually has the lowest incidence of injury of anything that athlete playing their sport has a higher risk of getting hurt out there [00:20:30] on the court, on the field, on whatever than they do in the weight room. And so as far as actually seeing an injury, I think maybe I've seen one and it was on a max out day and someone tried to save a lift that they should have dumped. But as a strength and conditioning coach, you have to teach them how to miss lifts as well because if you are going to put them in situations where things are heavy and you think that there is a risk of injury, then you teach them well beforehand, this is not for you to [00:21:00] get some crazy max out number. We're literally doing this to help supplement your sport. You catching that clean for five more pounds isn't worth it, just drop it. So I've had those conversations before, but I mean beyond that, a number of years ago as like an intern watching, I can't say that anything sticks out.

Danny Lehr (00:21:21):

Is there any athlete specifically maybe in a general population person in a CrossFit class or an athlete in the weight room that you just wouldn't do snatches with? [00:21:30] So baseball's an interesting thing, right? So I've heard both ways. I've heard that there's more recently in the past few years actually been some research and stuff coming out. There was about baseball players using the snatch and the cleaning jerk and having these incredible benefits. And they don't know if it's a relationship between you are holding a barbell, is that, I don't know, it's a cylinder kind of like a bat or whatever. I don't really know. But basically there's some things where they've been doing some more with baseball players and getting incredible results, which isn't really a shock to [00:22:00] anybody who's comfortable and has experience with the lifts. However, I've also heard that's one sport that people get real touchy about because there's all these shoulder and elbow injuries within the sport itself. So I'm not sure if it's a concern for overuse or if it's just people who just don't know how the fuck to teach the Olympic lifts or whatever's going on. But that's just one sport specifically I've heard a lot of pushback on. So my question is maybe touch on baseball specifically, but even in the broader sense, what athletes [00:22:30] or what individuals would you just not do weightlifting with for some reason? Or is that a false fear? Is there no group that you think shouldn't be doing 'em?

Wes Kitts (00:22:44):

Where I'd be careful is if somebody's been hurt or is hurt, usually weak or weak muscles, bad patterns, that's not going to really give you a good stimulus anyways. They're going to be [00:23:00] kind of moving around this injury that it's not going to, if you can't get a good lockout, you're going to start chewing your wrist up, your shoulder up. So there's maybe people that we have work to do before we get to weightlifting or maybe you're just too hurt, you've been too hurt, your elbow's just never going to be straight again. So there's those instances where I'd consider it. But as far as [00:23:30] to baseball, the reason we use weights is to be more durable. We take on resistance, we produce force absorb force to make our bodies more resilient. The weight room should be rehabilitative, right?

Danny Lehr (00:23:46):

Sure.

Wes Kitts (00:23:47):

And where they get the overuse injury is likely on the field. So they're doing an asymmetric pattern over and over again across the same joint and then they completely skip the rehabilitation process in [00:24:00] the weight room because for some reason that's the part that's bad for you not throwing the ball a hundred times 95 miles an hour or whatever they do. I don't know if I've not looked at a baseball pitching load or anything like that, but I mean just to me, if you can't snatch because it loads the joints that you use in the sport, then you can't lift weights because it loads the joints you use in the sport. Like a football player [00:24:30] is going to load his hips in every direction repeatedly in a practice. So by that logic, we can't do hip extensions or absorb force at the hip because we're going to overuse the hip I think. So that being said, you have to load it correctly. You can't just max their snatch all the time because they need stronger shoulders, elbows, wrists. But can you implement it to make a more durable athlete? I'd say yeah, probably.

Danny Lehr (00:25:00):

[00:25:00] Alright. What about your coach Metz? Is there any athletes that you would just, if it was completely up to you, that you would say, Nope, this specific sport or these specific people should just not use the lifts?

Coach Metz (00:25:12):

That's a really interesting question considering my current situation right now. So my boyfriend is a head baseball coach in college, and so I actually handle all of the strength and conditioning for his 60 guys. And that's a discussion that we've had. And for me, [00:25:30] I have always grown up in a culture of baseball does not Olympic lift. And because I think it's always been a risk versus reward, and I can't say that I've explored it a ton, but I do tend to move away from it for them because I don't think that putting the stress on the elbow or whatever it may be for the sake of a clean is worth it because you're supposed to be putting stress on those joints to play the sport. So again, [00:26:00] I kind of go in the direction of doing things subset together where we're doing jumps or heavy lifting or whatever it may be.

(00:26:08):

I do implement a ton of upper body prehab for those guys, but I also know that UCL tears and Tommy John surgery runs rampant the way ACL with soccer does. And so you just want to be really, really mindful and I just can't imagine what would my home life and work life be like if one of the guys got so hurt [00:26:30] in the weight room, we did a snatch. I don't think it's worth it for me with them. And so I don't do it with baseball. I have done it with my tennis athletes and I have had a lot of pushback from other coaches with tennis because again, they say stress on the elbow. I thought it was great for them because they're explosive athletes and they work in a short small court and they loved it. And so as long as [00:27:00] to West's point, if there's poor movement patterns, if there's injury history, when I was a young coach and I was watching my lacrosse players and some of my field hockey players just they weren't moving well, I probably should have had a better solution for them, but for the most part special population, I probably would shy away from it more so for baseball than any other team.

(00:27:22):

But you have other things to consider.

Danny Lehr (00:27:25):

So something else that an interesting kind of a way someone could push back on that I'm not necessarily [00:27:30] going to, I'm not sure how I feel about this. That's one of these things I'd have to think about and explore more. But so you have that kind of catch 22 where it's, okay, well these people, their elbows and shoulders get a lot of abuse and so do we really need to have them put a barbell overhead in a dynamic movement? However, you could also argue the exact opposite. Say, hey, these guys elbows and shoulders go through a lot of abuse in their sport. And so strengthening them in a more controlled environment like with a snatch [00:28:00] or a clean, could possibly the best thing for it because doing snatches, if done correctly is going to be strengthening those joints, not a detriment. And actually getting a bar up behind your head, you could see some shoulder girdle strengthening and actually stability. So it might actually increase the stability in those joints.

(00:28:23):

But again, it's the comfort teaching the lift also with a lot of other coaches, obviously you are comfortable with it and also [00:28:30] with, okay, how often are you around this athlete? How much training are they doing on their own? How old are they to the degree of how mature are they? If it doesn't look good and you tell them that they need to use less weight and if it looks good and this person is a proficient snatcher, it's probably not going to be doing much more harm. It may just be strengthening the joint to a certain degree. However, if they're sloppy with it, then that might cause a problem. So will they actually lower the weight and use an empty barbell or whatever if they need to [00:29:00] clean up the technique. And that's where it gets tough, right? Yeah. Alright, now on that kind of same topic, sports specific training, I have opinion on this.

(00:29:12):

I'd like to hear your guys' take on it. So you have an athlete we stick with whatever we stick with. Baseball I guess doesn't really matter. You have someone who says, okay, I'm going to do strength conditioning for baseball players. And so based on the sport and what the movement patterns within that sport [00:29:30] look like, there's lots of rotational things. And so we should definitely be throwing a me ball against the wall using a rotational pattern. There's a lot of whatever throwing. And so we should be doing these same movement patterns. What are your thoughts? And you can tell me if I'm wrong, tell me that you disagree, but I always thought that that seemed like the silliest shit I've ever heard of in my life. They're going to practice and the guy's swinging a bat whatever a hundred times every single day. And [00:30:00] then you're going to go in the weight room and you're going to have 'em do the same rotation movement with a medicine ball, throwing it against the wall, trying to develop more power.

(00:30:07):

But what you're really doing is you're just doing the same shit. You're doing the same movement pattern and I think that then you are actually you. You're just going to be the cause of these overuse injuries. So my belief is that really in the strength conditioning environment, the goal is to make them the best athlete that they can be and to not necessarily to avoid what [00:30:30] they're doing on the field, but the idea of mimicking playing movement patterns in order to strengthen those movement patterns, I always thought seemed probably not the best way to go. So am I totally off here? Is there a lot more benefit to doing that or do you think that that might be the way to go? Right, is the goal is to make 'em a best all around athlete possible and that mimicking the movements they do on the playing field is probably not the best way to do that. [00:31:00] Tell me if I'm wrong or right or

Wes Kitts (00:31:03):

Not each. No, that's how I feel. So I've always thought of the weight room as a general tool. So you want general strength, general power, you're developing a well-rounded person and then they get out on the field, that's where they do the sport specific stuff. So they're applying this strength and they're applying the power that you help them get in the weight room to the sport there. I think there is a role like baseball, they do [00:31:30] things the same way. If you're right-handed, you always swing, you throw right-handed. So you could think about patterning the opposite.

Danny Lehr (00:31:38):

That's

Wes Kitts (00:31:38):

Interesting. So you get in the weight room if you want to do some med ball throws, I mean do they need to do two to one to the other side to try?

Danny Lehr (00:31:48):

They are fun.

Wes Kitts (00:31:49):

They are fun, they are fun. They break walls sometimes too, which makes you feel powerful. But for me, in the split [00:32:00] jerk, and I learned this as I got older, I didn't recover as fast, but doing the same foot forward, I could only do it one way. I learned late in life and I got really good at doing it that way. But eventually I'd wake up at night to go take a piss and then my shoulders are facing the wall and my hips are facing forward and I'm like, what's going on? But basically that just slight, the feet move, right? The hips come around just a little bit. They're not supposed [00:32:30] to. Ideally they stay stacked, they move a little bit. You sort of build this pattern, this twist through your spine that as you get older and don't recover as well sort of gets locked in.

(00:32:40):

So now when I do split jerks, I do split jerks on both sides and I try to do some unilateral, I'll do split squats, so I'll make sure that I'm trying to reverse pattern the one that I'm loading. So I could see that being put into your accessory work or something you do is [00:33:00] in your health protocol, in whatever you use to keep your athletes healthy. Not necessarily a big part of your training, but if I'm going to think about, okay, they're doing this thing on the field all the time, one way let's try to get the body back to balance by doing it the other way. So it's not going to be a primary or maybe even a secondary thing that I'm putting on a program. But I could see myself [00:33:30] doing a little bit of that. And it is fun. I mean you do slam balls, everybody tries pretty hard at slam balls. So if you want to just get kids to try hard to do something, especially if you're in a high school weight room, set a dummy out and 'em beat it up just for one of their accessory movements. And that's something they'll try hard at. And anytime you try hard, you get some kind of stimulus, some kind of result. So I guess that's where I'm at on it.

Danny Lehr (00:33:57):

Yeah. Coach mess. What do you think?

Coach Metz (00:33:59):

Yeah, well [00:34:00] I mean you opened the question with sports specific training, and I think I have a very different definition of sports specific than probably most strength and conditioning coaches that kind of talk about this. When I think sport specific, I don't think movement patterns. I think what are the qualities and characteristics that you need in order to play your sport? Okay, how can we get that? And so just for a really quick example, I always explain to when I would talk to recruits and stuff, it's like, okay, we're not going to be, if I'm playing baseball or [00:34:30] a soccer athlete, we're not going to kick the soccer ball in the weight room or we're not going to swing the bat in the weight room. But if you need a strong lower body, we're going to get lower body strength and how do we do that?

(00:34:41):

So that is sport specific to me as far as staying on theme with baseball, your weight room stuff, just like Wes said, it should be pretty general. And so when you are so far out from competition, your program for a baseball team might look just like your program for an off [00:35:00] season soccer team. They should look very similar, very vanilla and very basic. The only time that I get a little bit more sport specific and do some rotational patterning is when we've already built it up their core and their pillar strength enough in order to handle that so that they can actually produce power through the rotation. And then kind of to West's point, if we're doing med ball stuff and you always are going to swing righty, we're still doing med ball and left in the weight room. So we're still training both sides, [00:35:30] but we're obviously not doing it at the volume or maybe even the intensity of which they're going to be doing it out on the field.

(00:35:38):

And I know that we were talking about over training as kind of the reasoning behind it, but I have a question that I was thinking about, and maybe you guys can talk about this, but it leads into my point of symmetry versus asymmetry and what makes athletes really good versus what puts them at risk of injury. And so if you only always train the right [00:36:00] side, but that's because you are a righty, should you be training the left to try to balance it or do you lean into constantly training the right because that's your strength. And so that's one of the things that I always kind of go back and forth with is do you fix the asymmetry work both sides or do you constantly lean to the side that the athlete is already strong in because that's what makes 'em so good at their sport.

Danny Lehr (00:36:25):

I had like to hear Wes' take on that too. My initial thought on that is [00:36:30] I think the number, well, I dunno if I say the number one, number one job of a strength coach or for training an athlete is, well, I mean you want to make them best athletes possible, but I'd say number one A with that or whatever one B, however you want to say it, is to have as many players available in the last game this season as possible. And so that's the balance is you don't want to, I don't think you want to be so soft [00:37:00] that nobody's making any progress. However, the main part of the job is not even talk about in the weight room specifically, but part of the job is to help them not get injured on the field and help them not get injured. I mean a lot of times most people you talk to that throw their back out, it's not when they're maxing out their deadlift, it almost never happens.

(00:37:21):

Then it happens when they're getting something out of the fridge or it happens, they're warming up and there's 135 pounds in the bar and they're just fiddle fucking around and something [00:37:30] goes wrong. And so in those regards, if an athlete gets hurt on the field, now obviously if it's football and they get hit, that's one thing, but you're talking about whatever like ACL injuries and soccer or UCL things in baseball. So the goal is to prevent as many of those things as possible as well. So you want to make them the best well-rounded athlete as possible so they perform well on the field and as part of that, have as many players as possible be available in the last game of this season. And so I think that's [00:38:00] really where the answer to this kind of lies is. Do you work both sides? Well, I think yes, because if you just lean into as asymmetrical movement, think of the arm wrestler who's got one jacked arm and the other one type thing. Okay. So yeah, there's something to that. But also I think that less, the more balanced people are, the less prone to injury they're going to be. And if all of your athletes are taking a piss facing the wall, [00:38:30] the wrong wall in the middle of the night, then I feel like they're more likely to get injured on the field. Well, and so that's just kind of where I guess where I come around to it, I think there's an answer in there somewhere.

Wes Kitts (00:38:40):

Yeah. Yeah, I think you definitely want symmetry in your back, your hips, right? That's sort of like your alignment and I don't know, I feel like even as you develop that one side more, you still need the resistance from the other side. If the wine gets so tight to one side, [00:39:00] it's like you're already wound, you, I mean I'm sort of talking out of my ass a little bit, but if you get so twisted up now you don't have that resistance from the other side, you're sort locked into that one. But to Max's point about being sports specific, as I get closer to the competition, I'm not going to try to do my jerks with both feet forward at my competition weights. I can't. I'm going to dump something on my head, but I need to be sports [00:39:30] specific in that moment. But as soon as I compete, we're going back to power jerks, push press, we're going back to bilateral shoulder to overhead, and then I'm staying on my unilateral accessory work to try to get back to baseline. So I think the back, you always want to be symmetrical, the hips now you see the tennis players, they've got a juiced one forearm and then a little wimpy other one. We can't do enough, what are they stress balls or [00:40:00] squeezes to get those forearms tied. It's just not going to happen. You're not going to ask 'em to go play tennis to try to catch it up. That asymmetry we could probably let go, right? We're not going to fix that

Danny Lehr (00:40:13):

Perhaps in the warmup. Same thing with even when you're in competition season, you could potentially, when you're warming up with an empty bar, do a couple split jerks on both sides, just kind of loosen up the body. And although you may not get a bunch of strength gains out of that, you may at least loosen up some muscle tissue and not be bound up [00:40:30] on that other side. Right?

Wes Kitts (00:40:31):

Yeah. And I didn't know that was even a thing. I thought you just had your foot, you always used your foot. I was talking to ti because I ended up tweaking my hip and I was telling I feel like I'm always twisted up, got this bad strain and adductor rectus abdo doing a heavy jerk. It's like, yeah, we actually do both feet forward pretty much until the realization phase, your last bit of training [00:41:00] before you go into your meet. And then even on those days we don't stop switching until you get to the heavier weights. So in other systems, they just do both feet all the time. They still have a strong foot, but they always ramp up the lighter weights with both. And then I guess they sort of mitigate that imbalance. Now, I don't know in a baseball setting how you utilize that, but I think certain asymmetries [00:41:30] are going to be really important to pay attention to and mitigate. And then some are just going to be untenable. You're not going to fix the forearm or the huge bicep or whatever, and maybe we don't need to, but if you're all twisted up like a corkscrew after the game, we should probably try to get you back to some kind of balance.

Danny Lehr (00:41:52):

So on the same topic actually leads right into something else I had down here, his back squats. So there's a popular [00:42:00] strength coach who's been on the athlete shouldn't back squat wagon for decades. My personal opinion is that he has that opinion because if you're a contrarian, people pay attention to you. And anyway, but so Mike Boyle, I'll just say it, I'll call him out, don't care anyway, says that athletes shouldn't back squat. That they're silly for athletes. He says a lot of stuff, but that's kind of his main shtick. That's the hill he's decided to die on. Is that back bad for people? [00:42:30] He's also had a lot of success as far as whatever, being the strength coach for a baseball team, the one World series, although the difference between being a strength coach for high school and collegiate athletes, professional athletes is a different thing as well.

(00:42:45):

But just things set that aside. He's done some college stuff as well, but also recently on a podcast, this was on my psyche recently because someone sent me a podcast of him and a couple other old guys talking about things that people shouldn't do [00:43:00] because they're just, the risk reward isn't there. And every single one of these motherfuckers had some sort of injury that prevented them from regular life stuff, right? Mike Boyle says people shouldn't back squat because the risk reward isn't there. And then later on in the podcast he goes on to say that his shoulders are so jacked up, he can't even swim. And that's a basic life skill, you know what I mean? And so it's like, am I going to, anyway, I think you see where I'm going with that and also gives away obviously my kind of thought on these things, [00:43:30] but maybe I'm wrong.

(00:43:31):

Maybe there's again, risk reward maybe. So where does back squat fit into this, right? I feel like we pretty much got nailed down the Olympic lifts as far as risk reward, what athletes should, should, and how important. But what about more general things such as a back squat? Is it unnecessary for certain athletes or should every athlete back squat, kind of same general population, if you are able to do a squat with a bar on your back, should people [00:44:00] be doing that or is that something that everyone does just because everyone does it and we should all stop?

Wes Kitts (00:44:07):

I kind of think the squats just a life skill. If you can't do it, you're going to die earlier than your friends. Probably true. You're going to need somebody to help you to stay alive. You can't get on a couch or off the couch or a toilet

Danny Lehr (00:44:21):

Hundred

Wes Kitts (00:44:21):

Percent, you're kind of cooked. I think broken hips is the number one or one [00:44:30] of the highest causes of mortality I think for the elderly. And that's just, I mean that's strength. The thing about back squat, it's like what adaptations do we get when you do a back squat? Our legs get stronger, our core gets stronger, we learn how to brace, we practice stretch shortening cycles, so we get used to loading attention and snapping out of it. But also the only [00:45:00] way to improve our bone density is to load our skeletal system. There's maybe other ways to do that, but I'd say the back squat might be one of the most effective ways to load our skeletal system. I don't know how you could, I don't know the argument you could make to say that they're just generally bad because you're just bending your knees and then you're standing up.

Danny Lehr (00:45:30):

[00:45:30] He also at one point said that he was as a younger man training as a powerlifter of around a bunch of guys that were training irresponsibly. And then he went on to say the back squats are bad for everybody's back. He hurt his back doing them.

Wes Kitts (00:45:41):

Yeah, I mean, low bar back squat is pretty lame. I agree. I agree. I'm just playing. I mean, it's a different movie. I'm not playing, I'm not going to do them. But yeah, powerlift, I don't know. I feel like that's more of a sport [00:46:00] than training. I think a full range of motion, like regular movements, it's like they're sort of playing this game where they're trying to find some kind of efficiency that makes the movement easier and not most productive. The most way to do a back squat is probably a longer range of motion, probably loaded on your shoulders, not your back. Just like to get the best training response on your bench press. It's probably like a more neutral [00:46:30] grip, elbows a little tighter, whereas they'll grip out about as wide as they can. Some of the women will arch their backs until their tits are already on the bar. Once they unrack it, they've got about a two inch range of motion. Did they even train when they did that exercise? I don't know that that's a productive way to train.

Danny Lehr (00:46:51):

Yeah, performance first training at that point, right,

Wes Kitts (00:46:53):

Right. And that's like when his experience with back squats was, how much weight can I get on the bar? [00:47:00] Not how can I utilize this as a tool to make me better at other things? That might've been what messed up his thought on back squat. But even in Olympic weightlifting, squats are an accessory exercise. It's

Danny Lehr (00:47:12):

Not Coach Met. Oh, sorry Wes, I didn't know

Wes Kitts (00:47:14):

You. No, that's it. That's it. Coach Mets

Danny Lehr (00:47:16):

Your thoughts, your thoughts on back squatting for athletes and that type of stuff. In general,

Coach Metz (00:47:23):

Feel

Danny Lehr (00:47:23):

Free to say whatever you want about Mike Boyle. You're in the industry where everybody knows who he is.

Coach Metz (00:47:28):

I probably won't, [00:47:30] but So to your one point though about using, well, I got hurt back squatting my other side of the argument to that, I get very frustrated when people pick a specific movement or exercise where they got hurt because the flip side to that argument is that you don't know how many injuries you being so strong in that movement prevented. So there's no way for you to count that. And that used to really bother me a lot in the college setting is like I think strength coaches get blamed for injuries [00:48:00] in the sport and it's like, okay, this person got hurt, but you have no idea. There could have been 20 other ones had we not been training this way. There's no way for us to gauge that.

Danny Lehr (00:48:11):

Furthermore, just because the injury happened while you were back squatting does not mean that back squat is what caused the injury. It was likely an underlying condition that was going to come out at some point. And this was just the movement that exposed it, right?

Coach Metz (00:48:25):

Absolutely. And just to give a really quick story, I had an athlete doing deadlifts. We were maxing [00:48:30] out on reps. It was pretty, she went to go do one doing great on her fourth rep. She just felt her back tightened and that was that. And come to find out later, she was dehydrated, wasn't drinking any water, wasn't eating. They had just come from practice. I gave the coach the conditioning plan and he decided to go off script and make them run so much more. So it was like there were all these other variables, but guess what? She got hurt doing trap bar deadlifts and now trap bar deadlift is bad. So there's a lot of issue with that [00:49:00] that I see. But to answer the question about back squat, as far as my own training philosophy with my athletes, I've moved away from back squatting athletes in the team setting.

(00:49:12):

But as far as training that lift, I do it myself and I've actually done it for years. And Wes can testify to this. I used to back squat in really, really bad positions and it used to hurt a lot. And until I learned how to back squat the correct way to move more weight, [00:49:30] then it was fine and I could back squat whenever I felt like it. So I think it has a lot to do with, again, what's the stimulus, but also how are you loading it? And it's not a taboo thing. You don't have to be for it or against it. I'm a big fan of teaching front squat first as a foundation so that when we move to back squat, it's

(00:49:50):

That much easier if we do. But I have moved away from it just because I've run into a lot of athletes that seem to struggle with axial loading. So bar on the back loading the spine, [00:50:00] I find that sometimes anatomically it just isn't the best fit for athletes. So it's like, what's your argument for a six 10 basketball player? Do they need to back squat with their butt on their calves? I don't know. So I think there's other ways to get that stimulus. So I don't think back squats a bad movement by any means. I just think it has to depend on, again, your population and what are you trying to get out of it.

Danny Lehr (00:50:25):

So what do you do instead for athletes if you don't, do you front squat? Is it more of, you mentioned [00:50:30] trap bar deadlifts, but that's not really necessarily loading the skeletal spine like Wes was saying. What do you do for the athletes that don't back squat?

Coach Metz (00:50:38):

So it depends again on my setting and things that are available. I've done a lot of pit shark work with them, so they still get that

Danny Lehr (00:50:45):

Hip loaded

Coach Metz (00:50:45):

Patterning. We front squat. I know Wes is a big fan of trap bar deadlift, and so we do things like that. But like I said, I've moved away from the axial loading stuff just because I find that it makes it a lot easier for athletes to be able to do everything. And you [00:51:00] can still load a trap bar up pretty well if you teach the front squat correctly. You can load that. You can load a pitch shark a ton. So there are other options. You just have to search for 'em.

Danny Lehr (00:51:11):

You mentioned the trap bar deadlift, so this is another one of those. Now here's my question and make sure you answer honestly or however you think will help your business be the most successful. Do you think that trap bar deadlifts is actually a safer [00:51:30] slash equivalent or potentially better movement than a standard deadlift? Or is that just something you do because coaches won't complain as much?

Coach Metz (00:51:43):

I think it's a bit more friendly. People seem to appreciate polling with the weight on the sides of their body being in middle of that bar versus it being in front of them.

Danny Lehr (00:51:54):

People like the athletes or people like the coaches you work with think it's more friendly for their athletes.

Coach Metz (00:51:59):

The [00:52:00] athletes, you still will see some technical breakdown, but I find that it's a lot easier to get them in the right position on a trap bar than on a straight bar.

Danny Lehr (00:52:09):

Yeah, I'm kind of torn on this. I feel like people should be able to deadlift with a bar with something in front of 'em. I also feel like if the purpose of a deadlift to a certain degree, it is a life skill, you drop something on the ground, you should be able to pick it up. And there's always the classic, Hey, this doctor says this 80-year-old woman shouldn't be deadlifting. And she's like, well, [00:52:30] if I go to the grocery store, can I carry the groceries into my house? And he says yes. And he is like, well, when I go to unlock my door, can I put the bags down and unlock the door and then pick up the bags and carry 'em in? And of course the answer is yes. But if you think of those specific types of movements, like in life, most of the time picking something up off the ground, especially if it's something heavy or there's multiple of 'em, like having the weight off to your sides instead of directly in front of you may be just as practical. Right. Wes, tell us why trap bars are dumb.

Wes Kitts (00:53:00):

[00:53:00] Well, because there's regular bars mostly. There

Danny Lehr (00:53:05):

We go. All right, next topic.

Wes Kitts (00:53:09):

They're super big. They need their own special place to store 'em. It costs more money to buy more bars.

Danny Lehr (00:53:18):

So it's not that you're against the trap bar deadlift specifically. You just think that it's unnecessary and it's something that rogue and fringe sport like to sell.

Wes Kitts (00:53:27):

What do we get out of it? The weight's loaded [00:53:30] two inches further back on the body as they go to pick it up. Also, you get the higher handle so they don't have to squat down as low so that you can now load more weight. So now you put more weight on the body. That's the exact same strength. I don't know. I'm going to look to the tools I have as opposed to try to find one, a new one. I guess it is just already a pretty easy thing. A deadlift is a pretty easy movement. I'm [00:54:00] just lean towards, we're just going to do deadlifts as opposed to it. But one thing I think is cool to do with the trap bar is a dynamic deadlift where you sort of jump through the top. I think that's sort of a cool way to load an explosive movement.

(00:54:16):

You don't have to worry about catching the weight. You don't miss out on the force absorption a little bit, but whatever. You get to do some snappy deadlifts. I think that's a neat thing you can do with a trap bar that you wouldn't do with your conventional deadlift. But [00:54:30] yeah, I don't know. You see these things get, they just get moved to primary positions and training protocol, the big padded barbell and then the handles you need on the squat rack to do your squats to just barely parallel these coaches. They just have the best athletes in the arguably the world, at least the country doing these things. Just figure out how to use the [00:55:00] barbell. It's a good tool.

Danny Lehr (00:55:02):

You mentioned how the handles are a little bit higher, you guys ever hear of the competition of the 18 inch deadlift?

Wes Kitts (00:55:10):

I think my buddy Ralph, he's a strong man, was telling me that they have some different heights on those and they get 'em pretty high sometimes.

Danny Lehr (00:55:20):

We were at LSU, we met with Matt Bruce and then met with Hatch and Coach Hatch introduced us to a young man there and then said, this guy's got the world [00:55:30] record on the 18 inch deadlift. And what it is, is they start with platforms that are 18 inches off the ground. And so you deadlift off these platforms 18 inches off the ground. So the bar only moves. I mean, it depends on how tall you are. I mean Coach Metz, that thing's not going very far. And anyway, it is awesome though these guys, it's like, oh yeah, he just deadlifted 1600 pounds. It's like, yeah, because he moves at six inches anyway.

Wes Kitts (00:55:55):

Mets might have the world record because I don't know that she'd have to move it.

Coach Metz (00:55:58):

Yeah, I think that's [00:56:00] the next sport that I'm going to need to get into.

Wes Kitts (00:56:02):

There go four ton 18 inch deadlift.

Danny Lehr (00:56:07):

Let's go through, I got a question from somebody, so let's do this question real quick and then just some little rapid fire. We'll wrap it up. Sorry, we started a little late today. I don't know why, because it looks like Tyler Lasek down there was a little bit late. Wes had to go steal somebody's computer. Alright, this goes guy question from Michael on Instagram. His name is at Lift Dad. [00:56:30] So my goal is to do my first Olympic weightlifting event next year and he's going to be 44 years old. Basically. He's right now mostly trains as a powerlifter, a little bit of CrossFit. Can an old dog learn new tricks? What does someone coming from CrossFit over to weightlifting need to change slash undo? I'm strong but have white boy rhythm.

Wes Kitts (00:56:52):

I can't dance

Danny Lehr (00:56:53):

Either.

Coach Metz (00:56:54):

I was going to say, is there a dance competition is part,

Danny Lehr (00:56:56):

I'm not really sure. That was just, Hey, I'm just reading the comment here. He did this little winky face [00:57:00] after that, so I think he knows that's a joke as well. You got a CrossFitter 44 years old, wants to do a weightlifting meet. Should he just not? Or if you knew someone was going to do that, what's little piece of advice you'd give him?

Wes Kitts (00:57:16):

I'd tell everybody this. Find a weightlifting coach. Ideally local, somebody can get eyes on you in person and sort of work with you on the technique. Don't worry about the weight on the bar at first. Just get used to good patterns and good movement. And then sort of let the weight come [00:57:30] up as they get easier. Right? Don't force a max, just move well until the weights get there. And what you'll find when you hyper focus on weightlifting is you get better at it. You go from doing snatch twice a month to four or five times a week. It's not so hard anymore and you'll get better. But yeah, just start with a coach and somebody can help you out. Don't guess

Danny Lehr (00:57:56):

Coach Mets anything to add?

Coach Metz (00:57:58):

Yeah, I mean, do the competition. [00:58:00] I'm not a dream killer. If you want to go do it, give it a try. My assumption is that they already have a decent understanding of the movements of snatch and clean and jerk. It's going to be different as far as what's happening on the platform. They may only catch in the power position. So above parallel. So you're going to find other lifters are going to full squat and probably the biggest obstacle will be just understanding how things run in the back room and when to warm up [00:58:30] and just, I think the logistics of the meat is going to be the most shocking piece of it, but probably we'll do great on the platform. And like Wes said, just don't worry about the weight or other people. Just go out there and just do what you want to do. And if you love it, try it again. And if you hate it, at least you can check the box. So

Danny Lehr (00:58:48):

Go for it.

(00:58:49):

Yeah, I like Wes. I think that's great. I think both you guys to kind of tie 'em together, try to find a coach or a local team you can train with, but a local coach. And if you don't find a coach [00:59:00] nearby you, when you go to the first meet, you can do what I did is you just look around and you find someone who's coaching someone else who looks friendly enough and just go up to 'em and say, Hey, this is my first meet. I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing. Will you please help me with my warmups? And they will almost certainly say yes, probably. They'll ask you what your openers are or tell you to sit down and then they'll guide through the warmup phase. In general, most weightlifting coaches are happy if someone's doing their first meet and are happy to help. But ask for that help. [00:59:30] Don't try and do it yourself. You're just going to get all messed up.

Coach Metz (00:59:33):

Wait, I'm going to give one more tip, please. If it's your first weightlifting meet, know your weight openers in kilos, not pounds. Because I have been helping with weightlifting meets and during weigh-ins is when you give your openers, and I've had people not know that and they gave me their openers in pounds and I was like, oh wow. You're all right. You're strong, let's go. You're

Danny Lehr (00:59:57):

Really strong. Yeah, we were not. [01:00:00] You didn't figure it out. It

Coach Metz (01:00:03):

Wasn't my job. I was like,

Wes Kitts (01:00:08):

Did they go out and try it? Oh yeah,

Coach Metz (01:00:13):

Don't do that. Maybe find someone in weigh in that understands that it's your first meet.

Wes Kitts (01:00:20):

Oh my God, what happened? What happened when they tried to lift it?

Coach Metz (01:00:24):

Well, they bombed out.

Danny Lehr (01:00:29):

If only [01:00:30] someone would've said like, wow, that's a lot. I said that and I was like,

Wes Kitts (01:00:35):

Wow, that's a lot. Could you imagine? They decided like, hell yeah, it is. Well, you think it's one thing and it's twice as much more.

Coach Metz (01:00:43):

Oh my God, I'm dying. I'm dying thinking about it because I remember it being like, oh, geez.

Danny Lehr (01:00:54):

All right, there we go. Now, quick little. [01:01:00] Yeah, we'll go from there because we're short on time here. Okay, rapid fire. So try to keep these short. Just a couple words, whatever, A couple of sentences I guess at most. So no fillers, just quick answers. Here we go. We'll go Mets first. All right. Worst coaching queue you've ever heard?

Coach Metz (01:01:21):

Oh God. I don't know.

Danny Lehr (01:01:24):

I don't know. That would be not a good one.

Coach Metz (01:01:26):

Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I've had some quality [01:01:30] coaching and I only stick with whatever sticks in my head is what makes sense. So if someone says something bad to me, it gets dumped. I don't know.

Danny Lehr (01:01:39):

That's fair. Sometimes I hear someone say something fucking wild and I'm like, oh dude, I can't. It never leaves me. All right. Wes, what about you? What's the worst coaching you've ever heard?

Wes Kitts (01:01:49):

So David McKeller was about to do some really heavy back squats and the spits was on this core to core kick, and we'd sort of been giving him a hard time about his core to core cue. Just me embrace both sides [01:02:00] instead of just your back. And then Dave busts out, yells it because this is an intense moment. Keller's going heavy, tighten your abdominis. Nobody kept it together. Everybody's laughing and it's only funnier because David's just dying under this barbell, so it only amplifies the hilarity of the moment. So David probably missed that squat. I'm crying laughing, and Dave probably went to his office [01:02:30] after that, but that was one of the worst moments in coaching history.

Danny Lehr (01:02:35):

Perfect. Perfect segue actually. Coach Metz, what's a better term? Do you use the term core or midline?

Coach Metz (01:02:42):

Core?

Danny Lehr (01:02:44):

Wes? Core. Oh, man. So you guys are all telling people tighten their intestines. It never, the core thing never made sense to me. It's not the center of anything, right? It's like you, I don't know. I don't really like midline either. Just every time someone says core, I'm just like, I don't know how I say it too sometimes because people know what [01:03:00] it means, but I never, I think it's a terrible term. I like the term grace prefer

Coach Metz (01:03:05):

Trunk. Oh, okay.

Danny Lehr (01:03:07):

I like trunk. Trunk is good. I think trunk is good. I think people know what trunk means. I usually go to midline. I don't know, just core. Just like that's not what you're doing. That's not what you're doing.

Coach Metz (01:03:18):

Well, I teach my athletes that your core is not just your abs, your core is your whole front, back through your hip girdle. Like everything. When I say [01:03:30] that, I think all of that.

Danny Lehr (01:03:31):

I get that, but what you're describing is not the core. You're describing the outside.

Coach Metz (01:03:35):

Yeah, sure. We're not going to squeeze our intestines.

Danny Lehr (01:03:38):

That's what I'm saying. That's my point. This is why it throws me off all the time. That's why

Wes Kitts (01:03:42):

You think of a planet. It's like you're thinking planetary core.

Danny Lehr (01:03:45):

Well, I'm thinking the actual word in every other aspect of using

Wes Kitts (01:03:49):

Core. Yeah.

Danny Lehr (01:03:51):

Or Ben and Jerry's caramel core.

Wes Kitts (01:03:54):

It's

Danny Lehr (01:03:54):

The middle. The core is the

Wes Kitts (01:03:55):

Middle. Right down the middle. Yeah, it is.

Danny Lehr (01:03:57):

Anyway, I don't know. I thought maybe you guys had something for me here. [01:04:00] A trunk. I do like trunk. Maybe I'll try that one. Alright, when you're trying to get someone, okay, this earlier talking about people lifting, yelling at 'em, trying to get someone fired up, motivated. Is it better to actually yell advice or just nonsense words to get 'em pumped up?

Coach Metz (01:04:17):

Nonsense. Yeah. I mean you're not going to yell technical cues to them. If someone was like, move your feet, elbow, elbow up, I'd be like, what? I wouldn't be like Jack to go lay.

Danny Lehr (01:04:30):

[01:04:30] Yeah, Wes.

Wes Kitts (01:04:31):

Yeah. You just want scream in their face, get a little spit on 'em, slap 'em around a little bit. Smell salts.

Danny Lehr (01:04:37):

Hell yeah, that's what I'm talking. Me too. You's people like, let's go we nonsense. You could call all the time. We'd say like shake 'em fucking, they're not shaking any. Are you shaking? Hot, wet. Hot, wet. Shake 'em. You just kind of mix those up in different orders, gets people going. I'm telling you, if you ever want to get some fired up, you dunno what to say. Just start hot, wet, shake 'em different orders every time. Okay. [01:05:00] Best thing to listen to on the drive to practice.

Coach Metz (01:05:07):

I'm going to have unpopular opinion here.

Danny Lehr (01:05:09):

Maybe

Coach Metz (01:05:10):

Not. So I actually like to lift to country music. It just helps me do that. I listen to murder podcasts as well

Wes Kitts (01:05:22):

During

Coach Metz (01:05:24):

Probably not

Danny Lehr (01:05:25):

Popular.

Wes Kitts (01:05:25):

Does it have to be music on the drive to training?

Danny Lehr (01:05:27):

No. No. You listen to whatever you want, man, that's

Wes Kitts (01:05:29):

No. Okay. Well, [01:05:30] number one, this is the right answer is old videos of CT Fletcher doing personal training.

Danny Lehr (01:05:36):

Do you actually listen to that on the drive to the gym

Wes Kitts (01:05:39):

From San Ramon High School to Cal Strength about every Friday.

Danny Lehr (01:05:45):

All right, there we go. And the most overrated accessory movement. What's the accessory movement? Everybody says and you have to do that. You think's a waste of time.

Coach Metz (01:05:58):

I really, really hate, [01:06:00] and I don't think I've done them in a while, but little overloaded liftoffs where you lift the bar barely off the ground. I don't see a point for me

Danny Lehr (01:06:12):

Like rack pools or

Coach Metz (01:06:15):

That type of thing, but you're pulling from the ground. It's super heavy. I used to have to do them a long, long time ago, and I remember based on the percentages you're supposed to do, it was over what I could deadlift and I was like, how am I supposed to, okay,

Wes Kitts (01:06:30):

[01:06:30] I'm going to go jerk supports. It's mostly just elbow, wrist and shoulder pain, just in a nice little exercise. I don't know.

Danny Lehr (01:06:40):

Kind of a similar thing. Just like very partial range.

Wes Kitts (01:06:44):

Overloaded.

Danny Lehr (01:06:45):

Overloaded partial range stuff.

Wes Kitts (01:06:47):

Yeah, I want to say split squats just because I hate 'em, but I think they're probably good for me.

Danny Lehr (01:06:54):

Interesting on those is those jerk supports. I guess the theory is get [01:07:00] the, anyway, what I'm getting to is I don't see the point either, because if it's more than what you can jerk, then you don't really, but you can do the jerk supports so you're strong enough to support that weight, but you're not strong enough to jerk it. Why do you need a practice supporting something that you can already do if you can't even do the movement to get it there?

Wes Kitts (01:07:22):

I don't know.

Danny Lehr (01:07:24):

Was that a giant circle or were you kind of following me on that?

Wes Kitts (01:07:26):

Yeah, yeah. No, if we're talking about risk gross reward, let's talk about locking weights [01:07:30] out overhead that we could never lift up there.

Danny Lehr (01:07:34):

If we're capable of doing the exercise at more than we're capable of putting there, why do we need to practice holding the weight overhead if we can already do it?

Wes Kitts (01:07:42):

I don't know.

Danny Lehr (01:07:43):

Let's see.

Coach Metz (01:07:43):

Maybe you guys will hate me. I used to do those a lot.

Danny Lehr (01:07:48):

She really liked that. Well, you feel strong. I like feeling strong. That's cool. I'm not against

Coach Metz (01:07:55):

Them, that's why. Well, I was going to say the reason I did 'em was just to give my shoulder exposure to the weight [01:08:00] overhead on days where I was like, I just can't jerk today. My shoulder is very messed up and those weren't painful for me, but I could still get exposure to an overhead just like lockout feeling, so that's why I did, but

Danny Lehr (01:08:15):

Yeah, well your answer, it's similar on the deadlift thing, right? It's like if I can't do a full deadlift with this weight, but I am capable of moving it an inch off the ground, why do I need to practice doing the thing I'm already strong enough to do if I'm not strong enough to do the rest of the movement? Yeah, it [01:08:30] is kind of the same. It's the same thing. Just opposite ends, right? Alright, that's a wrap for this episode of Not In My Box. Big thanks to Coach Metz and the Olympian West Kits for somehow making Olympic lifting sound noble, despite the obvious fact that it's a ridiculous activity. Share this episode with the coach who still preaches triple extension like it's 2011, or with their training partner who support that attitude Nation Red Circle tattoo. We'll be back next week with another topic [01:09:00] everyone's got an opinion on. If you have a question for the expert panel, shoot me a DM or comment on the video and remember if it was pretty, it probably wasn't heavy enough.