Evidence Strong
Errors in Olympic weightlifting and how to fix them - with elite coach Erin Haff
I don't think every coach needs to be some high level weight lifter but they think they do need to have experienced in any sport that sport to understand what they might be thinking at that time so that you can preempt it with maybe giving the proper feedback or cue that you know they're probably feeling physically or might be telling themselves mentally so that they can take on board what you're saying and it actually marries better with what they're feeling so then it'll make a little bit more sense. Welcome to Edna's strong show. Erin, it's my pleasure to have you the second time. Then we talked before about the paper national strength and conditioning association position statement on weightlifting for sports performance. We have had topics all forward and reverse training so teaching weightlifting from bottom to top or the other way around what are pros, cons of two methods and which one is recommended. We talked about the stages of learning so how the athlete will learn the skill, how to support at which stage the athlete is and how to move them to the next stage and we talked through regressions, transitions and auxiliary exercises and how to use them effectively to teach weightlifting. So that's what we talked about in the previous one. Today we'll be talking about errors and feedback but before we do that for one or two people who haven't seen the previous one and meet you for the first time, could you briefly introduce yourself? Sure. Thanks again for having me. This has been fun. My name is Erin Hoffs. I have been a strength and conditioning coach and weightlifting coach for about 32 years now first in the United States and now I live in Australia. I've worked with you through to professional athlete high school division one university in the United States as an assistant strength coach and then professional netball strength coach here in Australia for a little while and now I'm primarily teaching weightlifting to masters students at ECU as well as for the Australian weightlifting federation and for the international weightlifting federation. I work with the education program there. I've been on several resistance training studies peer reviewed publications chapters etc and like I said primarily I'm just working with coaching and teaching education courses for Australian and the international weightlifting federation as well as being on over what 16 international appointment and about 11 of those as a head coach working primarily with youth and junior athlete and assistant coaching with senior athletes. So that's kind of where I've been for the last few years since we moved to Australia. This is definitely impressive. What a treat to have you. So let's start with maybe a definition of an arrow. So what is an arrow in all integrated lifting? Well an error is it's anything that's going to affect the ability to perform the skill appropriately. Errors can come in many different forms. There are several different classifications of errors whether or not you should address them or not address them. Those are all things that we'll get into today. So let's look at first the classification of types of errors that you will see. So one of the types of errors you'll see is in a body position. And what I mean by that is for example if you're in a lift off position and the shoulders are behind the bar that's a body position error. So the shoulders should be slightly in front of the bar not behind it in that lift off position. Another type of body position error might be that the upper body doesn't get vertical in the jerk dip position. So if you have someone that's slightly like leaning forward or hunched or something like that it is a body position error. Another type of error is movement characteristic. So this is when the athlete might be in the right positions but the movement pattern is slightly incorrect meaning they might in the jerk they might be dipping too fast. When it's supposed to be a controlled rather controlled dip to a very fast drive they might be going down and fast you know down really quickly. So dipping too fast cutting the pole or the top of the pole of the extension and getting a forward tension. Another type of error would be balance and stability. So you're looking at their lack of balance or stability in let's say a receiving position. So they're not locked out, certainly like a brace and holding position. They're they're moving or they're rocking or their arms are you know not in the correct lockout position. Weight distribution in their feet that's usually a very typical one that you'll see where you're getting a lot of whether it's and this can happen at any point of the lift where the weight is shifting too far forward in a particular part of the lift or the fact that you've got weight in their feet rocking from forward to back and forward to back instead of being rather stable. There is movement if we get into the biomechanics of all that there is movement happening in the foot but and for an athlete when you're watching an athlete there shouldn't be extreme movement where and then they stay in that forward position it should have it goes with the bar but again that's all biomechanical stuff and that's a little bit out of the realm of where we're going here but I'm we're happy to discuss that in another time. Lack of confidence is another type of error you're going to see usually that comes in the form of an athlete you see them pausing or hesitating when they're into a certain point of the lift especially we're coming through let's say to the transition or second pole you'll actually see them pause in that position diving under the oh let's say with it let's stay with the slower movement they're either hesitating pausing or their lack of commitment to it so they're hesitating to go under the bar wherever it is whether it's a snatch or the clinging resection or a jerk but conversely you'll have people that in their lack of confidence their fear they're not going to be going fast enough or get there in time they dive under the bar and instead of waiting for the extension or they move too quickly off the floor and the start so their knees aren't able to get out of the way fast enough and so then they end up with other issues related to that so that lack of confidence can put bars into our body parts into different positions that they can't then accurately perform the lift so we need to be looking at those other ones might be the flexibility or movement limitation that could be joint restriction if they have like their hips lock up or they have a problem with the shoulders they anything that will affect their ability to get correctly into a position effectively and hold the position effectively so those can also be competitors and bracing an athlete who for example may round or hyperextend their back position when they're lifting the bar rear foot instability in the jerk you've got instead of having the toe facing or the foot facing towards where the so the knee is over the toe they might have the knee in this position but their toe is blaring out in the back and the lack of being able to stabilize then in that position and i'm actually seeing more and more inability to hold positions in the front foot as well in the jerk so that leads to when you got too much movement that leads to instability in the rest of the is it travels up the body so those are basically sick types or categories of errors that you might see when you have an error you've got to think about what are going to be your high level or high priority errors and what are going to be not so or low priority errors and the biggest thing is a high priority error first and foremost is is it going to cause an injury if they continue to do it is it going to hurt them whether it's going to hurt them at that moment or it's going to ultimately cause one over time you need to address that there's no if hands or butts about that another high priority factor might be if it's you're thinking to yourself as a coach if it's not fixed now will that become an ingrained pattern that's going to make it harder for me to fix later for example if they pull with their arms you might be kind of just letting that go thinking all it'll work itself out but if they just keep doing it and it's never corrected it's not working itself out it's being accepted always my husband and i always say what you ignore you condone we do need to be looking for something like okay what they're pulling with their arms or again like i said before if they're raising their hips too fast off the floor that is another issue because then it puts in the bar moves the bar shifts the weight forward so then the bar is moving forward and then you're basically looping it around and as it starts at the bottom anything that happens below the waist is going to be exacerbated above the waist so if you're already starting in the bars moving this way it's just going to keep doing this all the way up the body and that's usually where you end up either too far out front and say in the snatch the bar is going to be too far out front or you're going to jam it through and it's going to get too far behind you in the back either one not ideal so again it's finding if that is there are raising their hips too quickly off the floor then that is something that needs to be because it should be shoulders and hips moving together simultaneously not teeter time the way up the body so we've said basically if it's going to injure the athlete if it's going to become ingrained or harder to fix later that's going to be another one we really that's considered high priority you need to make sure you start nipping that in the bud right away will it immediately impact the overall movement okay for example if you have excessive horizontal displacement of the bar forward or backwards however it's coming around on the body that would that would lead to an instability in the and the ability to hold the bar for example overhead in the snatch if you've got too far forward like i said before then it's going to you can't hold it i mean that's the shoulders trying to hold it as the bars too far out in front of you secondly if it's too far behind you so horizontally displaced too far behind you that's going to put you in a in a hard position to stabilize it through the upper back because it's too far behind you you have to stabilize with the shoulder that could lead to a shoulder injury you know so that it kind of just ticks all the boxes then so that's another reason you need to be looking for that and does it prevent the achievement of the primary objective of the exercise so those are the the four main things so for example on that one if you're say doing a jerk and your transition between the dip and the drive your torso is collapsing that's going to impede the ability the primary objective of the dip and the drive is to create a vertical movement you've just impeded that because you're now moving you collapse now things are going to be moving in a forward position so that would also need to be dressed those are high priority the the thing is with errors and and feedback and i'm just gonna segue into a little bit into that feedback this is a tough one especially with beginning people because you have to figure out what to say when to say it what's appropriate what's not appropriate how is it going to be received was it received and how much that's that's a big one because you want to help them but at the same time we need to be teaching them remember that i'd said it before that it'll coach as a teacher we need to give them the tools but we need to let them explore a little bit on their own because they have to be able to with a sport like weightlifting they have to be able to understand and read what their body is telling them and if we are telling them what it's saying they stop listening to their body and they only listen to us and that's why i would say the coach is a source they're not the bible you need to be taking on board what they're saying with what you're feeling and you need and as a coach and this is where i don't think every coach needs to be some high level weight lifter but they think they do need to have experienced in any sport that sport to understand what they might be thinking at that time so that you can preempt it with maybe giving the proper feedback or cue that you know they're probably feeling physically or might be telling themselves mentally so that they can take on board what you're saying and it actually marries better with what they're feeling so then it'll make a little bit more sense a beginner needs constant feedback because like i said in the previous discussion that we had they don't know how to read that kinesthetic that internal dialogue that's happening they don't and they might feel because you have some their athletes that are very kinesthetically aware but that doesn't mean they know how to fix it and they know what to do so a coach is providing that guidance but at the same time and guidance on how to interpret those messages and that proprioceptive feedback that they're getting but at the same time you need to avoid overcorrecting so there's that fine line that we're talking about because if you give too much feedback they stop listening to themselves and they and they stop trying to listen to what they're hearing and they're only trying to go with whatever you tell them and then they can't they get to a point where they can't function without you giving feedback and that's leads to another thing if you give feedback often and then you stop giving feedback even if it's just for one or two reps or two sets or whatever they will assume something's wrong because you're not saying anything so you have to pick and choose when you're going to give it to them and it can be nonverbal as well as verbal it doesn't always have to be verbal queuing or verbal feedback if you look at someone you're like that's feedback you know and they're looking at it like oh why are you giving me that look that must have been horrible you know but conversely if somebody does something well you're like you know I didn't have to say anything they can see it on my face right so they're reading everything and the younger they are the more attune they are believe it or not because they haven't had enough time with themselves athletically to understand what their body is saying versus if you get a novice who is an adult they've gone through life a lot longer with functioning with their body and listening to their body and they have a better understanding of at least what that might be telling them you know and they get they have a little bit of an interpretation finding that line of how much is too much and what's not enough then and it always depends too on whom you're working with but I would always suggest that you prioritize and address one maybe two thing at a time and be very precise and clear about what you're what you're addressing but also in a dip using different communication methods because you don't know especially if you're working with someone for the first time or you're learning this person they you don't know how they learn unless you put them through a test because there are tests for that where you can find out how they how they acquire and you know learn from you know whether it's auditory or visual or visual or kinesthetic we have to address a teacher does this in a classroom all the time we can give the same instruction but we do it in different several different ways to reach all those different learning styles and that's kind of how you need to do that here because not everyone and I don't know I've been teaching since like I said 1991 is when I actually started teaching as well I don't think I know one student who's just this or just that we're always in some kind of combination or percentages of one and another so usually you want to mix it up so that if you're not if they're not getting it one way and you try a different way that might get in a little bit combination of those two might make more sense to that athlete versus just keep saying something over and over again you know the infamous we used to seek these end movies all the time it was always a stereotypical joke but it's true when when you see those movies when they're you're somebody speaking to someone who doesn't use a foreign to your language or your nation so it was always to being raised in the US we always had English so if they met someone who wasn't English then they just keep saying the same sentence but louder is if that's going to make more sense right so if we just keep repeating the same thing and it's not working then it's not working we need to try something else and louder doesn't always mean better but we do need to be a positive you're gonna get more with sugar than vinegar okay so we need to be positive with it but not sugar coated to the extent like you're saying or if they're doing wonderful if they look like stir-dried poo poo you need to be honest with them but you have to be careful and modulate how you get that across all right so but we're looking for that biggest limiting factor that if we can correct that and that's that high priority error okay if we can correct that then those lower priority errors might actually just kind of dissolve because you fixed it by getting rid of the bigger problem so then that positive the outcomes more positive you're enhancing better learning enthusiasm to keep going so when do we give those correctments it depends on the coach's bandwidth where do they draw the line on what's acceptable not acceptable some guidelines could be do i need to give feedback in these instances and i'm going to say these ones yes and they're going to be very similar to something we've already discussed first one you give feedback if it's going to risk injury because we need to change what's happening or they're going to get hurt and again it might not be immediate but it will be definitely somewhere down the line so for example if you have an athlete who turns their foot or their heel in or their tilt out and their back foot when they're jerking the first few the first times they do that they don't think anything of it it's not a big deal but studies have shown and it's nine times out of ten the athlete will put their ACL at a very grave disadvantage position and most likely will injure it in some way shape or form if that particular technique style continues period so we want to correct that yes you give feedback if the results are a deliberate change on the athlete's cart because they think that this particular change and technique or strategy is going to help them more and it actually probably will not then you need so they're making a physical change for example the biggest one we deal with at the moment is the athletes wanting to mimic the potentiating the off the floor so they're basically kind of rock you know pumping their hips and before they lift up off the floor we well we well maybe not everybody knows i know my husband has worked through the studies of and we've talked to several coaches whose athletes use this particular style and note notably the chinese because that is one that posted up all the time to potentiate the lift off the floor and get some momentum going into that so that you can accelerate a little bit better off the floor the problem with that is that most people i don't think may or may not realize is that you have to have a certain amount of hip strength or squatting strength to be able to perform that effectively to get the most out of that so i have athletes that are doing that who are not strong enough to make that effective and by the strong enough for that particular movement without getting too much into it is you're looking at what two and a half to three times body weight squat so i know for a fact that my athletes can't do that so for them to add that thinking that it's giving them that little bit of something is actually not and the problem with the novice is not only from the strike or the the getting the most out of what that's supposed to be doing for you is not going to happen the other issue you have there is an athlete who doesn't who's not already consistent because they're novice in this case because we're talking about beginner they don't know where that start that lift off start position is the chinese if you watch them when they do it as soon as when they lift off their hips are always in the same space or the same spot before the bar starts to break the floor even though they've moved their hips athletes who do not know where that is because they're learning it are going to be very inconsistent on where that start position then is when the bar starts to lift off the floor so then you're ending up with if you do that three or four or five times you're ending up with three or four five different start positions not effective so something needs to be said you know and i usually correct them and i because i say well so and so does it or i've seen this or whatever and and the easy way around that to be honest for me is to say yes and that and when you get to a lifting of that many years or if you have that strength level that is fine i explain to them this is what you need to be able to do for that to work so when we get there then we can address this and we can come back to it until that time i need to see that you can hit that start position this thing every single time so let's start in the static position and we'll work from there another thing that you want to make sure you uh give feedback for is if you see an error more than two times in a row if you see it once don't be ready to just jump on in because it could be just a one-off it could be they weren't focusing it could be just it's a fluke but if you see it multiple times the same error multiple times then yes you want to make some kind of comment or correction or draw their attention to it if you give them feedback and then you give them ample time to change their technique or their the way they're performing the lift and it's not they're not showing any change then you need to say something again because they either don't and this comes to the last one they interpret feedback incorrectly they're either not understanding you or what you're asking or they don't know how to implement it correctly so you either need to find a different way to say it or to get at it or demonstrate it or you would ask them when I say this what do you think I mean so you wanted to understand what they're interpreting to make sure that they're on the same page as you could you also tell us how to check whether athletes receive and how much do they receive the other any ways the coaches can use to make sure that what they said is received and to assess how much of that was received there's a lot of things that happen around that can affect or or change how the athlete receives first thing is if it's just utter chaos we're not where they're draining because then their focus is only the other thing is if and this sounds really innocuous but if the music like because we have music playing in the background of ours you know if the music is too loud and they can't hear me then that how they gonna get the information you know or an athlete sometimes will listen to headphones and I tell them I said if you're lifting and I don't have a lift with headphones on they're like we're at a competition and they're trying to be within themselves right then I tell them I said when you are going to lift the headphones come out I said but if you're just sitting there and I want the music down enough so that if I were to come over and say at least say your name you can hear me so then you can take that you know I want you to know because I don't want to be yelling at me for you to hear me so eliminating distraction can help I'm not saying train without music although there is a time and place for that because when they go to a competition when they get to a point where they're going to compete there is no music they need to know what it's like to live in utter silence because that can really trip up some people so that does need to be prepared for as well but yeah I tend to have music down at a desk full so where I can be coaching and you can hear it but you can hear me more the other thing is well we learned in teaching you have comprehension checks so if they're it's going to be trial and error for you to figure out what works and what doesn't work with particular athletes I always ask it's very simple you know like if I give them something I'll say does that make sense to you so if I tell you this what do you think I'm me I mean I'm asking so that they can tell me that's a gift that's what I want so okay so when I say this that's what I want when you you go through that it's very trial and error you keep doing that until you start establishing things that you can say with certain athletes or resonates others it does not if I say stay on your heels as long as you can to four of my athletes I know one that if I say that to him he will literally fall on his bum because he puts he's so kinesthetically aware he puts everything all the way back he goes too far lands on his rear end or is going to you know he has a back pedal through so I can't say that to him I have to say center your weight it gives me the same result but for him if I say stay you know keep your weight in your bum that makes no sense to him but if I say it to the other two on the platform that may make sense to them the luxury for me right now is a lot of my athletes or adults so if something doesn't work they just say well what okay what do you mean when you meet when you say that they're like they'll just come right back and ask me a child or younger athlete don't always ask because they think that you're going to look think that they're dumb or whatever if they don't know what that means so I asked them I said well okay I want you to finish the pool I want you to get a better extent and I've demonstrated as I'm talking I actually I've become more and more as I taught K12 for years and especially when I went through K8 when I talk I use a lot of body movement because I was a foreign language teacher for a long time so when I want someone to stay going longer you know and I'm doing I'm doing the movement so that they see what I'm doing and then they hear what I'm saying and it makes more sense to them you know so I end up just doing that now with everything I do so if I want so much to extend like yeah I want you to extend more you know and I'm showing them what I want but I also not while they're going through a set but when they're done I might explain breathe free I'm not going to get into this long soliloquy with them but I want to educate them as to why this will if I'm looking at the bigger limiting factor if we fix this then this will do this and this will do that and then we won't have that problem in your catch like you felt you know and they're like oh okay so they understand they're starting to see a little bit they don't totally get it but they're starting to see more of what I'm looking for which is the cause not the result and if I said we fix this cause then that result will be what we want and I'm constantly just asking it's that simple does that make sense to you if I use a certain word I would say like I want you to get a better extension and one of them turned to me and she said do you mean get taller yeah and that immediately tells me okay don't say extension with her say taller that makes sense to her so it's it's very much knowing and communicating with your athlete and having that open where they can say well you know I've had athletes come up to me and it changes over time what might work through the first four months eventually it just gets old and it just doesn't work so this is why you need to have a lot of different ideas and tools in your toolbox because there are several ways to ask for the same thing and so you can just go through all these different things until one day and eventually that's gonna start falling off the wall it's like no one's spaghetti at the wall right so that's gonna eventually fall down so then we gotta find another one but the other thing too is when you give them those correctives you have to give them time to try and do it so if we if we give them the corrective and then the next rep we're still doing it don't get on them again well let them you know the the ones that we have that when teaching and this is what I teach in the undergrad here in strength and conditioning the biggest ones that that the students have trouble with are snatch balance and push jerking I mean there's a myriad of other things but the majority of the time those are the ones they get a little stuck with because timing and things like that so basically with those I give them more set not anymore reps I'll do like triples with them but I'll say let's do four and I purposely give breaks I stop them and give some instruction to give breaks they think it's for instruction which kind of is but it's also to force them to take a break but I'll do like three or four or five sets of three but I keep it out the really light loads fairly light loads I don't say anything I tell them like partners you're looking for this if I have a group of 15 I can't see everybody out once so I just say all right so partners and I tell them exactly what I want them to look for and I'll just say first set nobody say anything let them do what they're gonna do don't correct it don't say yeah but you got to do this you know or whatever second set let me do the talking so I go around if somebody sees something a partner sees something they'll like brace their hand like me over you know whatever it's usually about the third set where all the sudden starting to come together it's not beautiful perfect it's not gonna be right but the rhythm is there so it's letting the body figure out this what you're asking it to do because if it's totally new to them they're just like their body's going what the you know you want me to do what you know I know it's gonna take a little while for them to figure it out so you have to give them that room but again if it meant that an injury was gonna occur or something like that then yeah you would step it but you do want to give them that time to implement it now types of feedback there are many different types of feedback and they all seem to address or will address a lot of those learning styles but not every athlete is going to respond the same to every feedback so you have verbal instruction again using analogies metaphors and that's even with older adults well because if it's a new thing especially when you get like master's lifters that come in like you um that are trying weightlifting for the first time and if they have strength trained but it's been a while or whatever it is this is still new to them and even if they weren't athlete before it's there an athlete in a different sport and they've done strength training or whatever but not weight they come into weightlifting they have mentally certain expectations of themselves because they were an athlete so they're expecting a certain outcome and they'll get frustrated as well because a this is like a brand new body because the older they are the more immobile they're going to be college they're not mobilizing okay they're gonna have days where they can't do things as well as you know you can't do several like harder heavier more taxing days in a row because they need that time to recover that we didn't need when we were younger you know things like that so there's a lot of different things in dealing with that age group as well as youth so youth and masters you're kind of doing the same thing in terms of how you approach it and how you work in the mobility and stuff because youth they may have the mobility but they can't control it or they don't have the mobility because we got too many kids sitting around nowadays you've got masters who maybe they have a desk job so they do eight hours a day maybe just sitting down all day long when you give verbal cues as well they need to be very succinct we don't want to give long stories it's got to be very quick it's got to have meaning I explained to my athletes I said look when I say tight to specific athletes and everyone has a different one but this one I've talked to one I'll say when I say tight to you I need I want this and this so all I have to say is tight and you know I'm talking about this and this I don't have to say the sentences to get those two things I just say tight that's my buzzword that was something we talked about in the position stance as well you can start by saying look I want you to for example with the girl that said taller I said I want you to get as high I want you to touch your shoulders to your lobes every single time you come up from your pole and then and she'll be like okay so I keep saying that okay as we get through and she's getting more consistent with that then I might say ear lobes I don't have to say let's get your shoulders to your ear lobes anymore I just say ear lobes she knows exactly what that means there's reinforcement that's another type of feedback and that can be where I mentioned before it can be verbal nonverbal it could be positive it could be negative negative reinforcement doesn't have to be there are let's say there's two types of negative reinforcement there's the kind where you're berating somebody or belittly that's me is not reinforced that's not that doesn't even come into the chip I get I don't understand how people think that that's effective but to each his own I guess negative reinforcement to me is me giving a critical assessment in a positive way so I might just say well you're still not quite finishing that pull so that's negative but I'm gonna stand with you then with something that's positive like but you did a really great job of staying tight so if we can hold that same tightness off the floor can we wait just a little bit longer and then finish that at the top so I'm making that negative into a positive and in teaching we call it sandwiching so you're going to positive negative positive so if I'm asking them to do two things I'm going to address the negative the thing they didn't do well first and then I'm going to put immediately put in with something they did well because in human beings and they've done psychological studies away from sport but studies on stuff that shows that people remember everything after the but so if you start with a positive and then say but and then give a negative all they're going to remember is the negative so I start with a negative or I'll say good effort so I'm a positive negative positive good effort need a little more extension but way to get yourself braced under that bar in the cat so they're going to remember all of you're going to remember feeling good because they hear more positive but they're like okay but yeah I need to get that extension so they don't feel so bad about the negative thing and but they're hearing it and that's what we need we need to make sure it's getting in there so there's reinforcement there demonstrating or modeling but make sure that whatever modeling this is another thing we've had discussions with if a coach can't model it correctly then find someone who can't or a video or something because if you're going to use modeling you want them to see what you actually want to happen but if you can then by all means you need to model as well because you're kinesthetic people they usually can be visual as well there's visual in there as well so we've got verbal we've got reinforcement that's more of the psychological but again that's auditory you're taking in demonstrating as visual okay a discovery learnings kinesthetic now be the next one they're going into and video is visual as well and then manual stipulates manipulation that's kinesthetic but you're also giving audio at the same time so I mean there's there's you know we're our feedback and our methods of giving it are usually multi methodical now you have video and now there's pros and cons to video to be honest dives and people that are extremely visual among other ways of learning and they to interpret what they're feeling they actually can't have me just tell them initially they can't have me just tell them they actually need to see it when they're doing certain things I will video or I'll ask I said do you need to see this because sometimes they'll say no no no I got what you're saying and there are others that are be like could I you know because it just helps them so I do but I don't make video a big thing once we get that which I actually try to wean them off of that if I can I pull it out when I need it so video for us comes in in those beginning stages if we have people that really kind of just need to see to get the initial once they've got the consistent movement that's usually when I see them start to say no I don't need video on that I got it like they can feel now and they understand interpret what they're feeling the only other time that I pull it out is if they're testing in the in the facility that we're training so that they can see it so that they can because sometimes they'll say like oh that was way too heavy I couldn't have gone up and I'm like really and I'll show them the video and they'll like oh man I was really moving fast that felt so slow and I'm like remember I keep telling you when it's under load it's gonna be we feel like a house is on top of you but you're you're doing fine so it's just reinforcing some of the things you're telling them as a coach that they're not feeling so they're like oh you're right I ain't allowed to slow them really fast you know so can we do you want to go up well yeah yeah now I do you know sort of thing so it helps with that but other than that I don't really do the video I'm very cautious with video instruction and and a video instruction to me is like well any of these actually are like I said before if you do it too often they start to rely on that so especially with video and verbal if you're constantly giving showing or telling them before they have a chance to process themselves they stop trying to process themselves so you have to be really careful with all of this that it doesn't become that it's a tool that doesn't become a crutch or something that holds somebody back from catapulting forward because if they get too reliant on any kind of feedback it's going to be detrimental to them in the long run does that help yes thank you yeah discovery is where there you basically kind of like I said when I was talking about the the snatch balance or the push chart you're kind of letting them explore through it a little bit on their own before you start jumping in and giving all the feedback you got to be careful that you don't give them so much rope that they can hang themselves if that makes any sense you still are present you still are the experienced one you still have the eyes you are their mirror okay so you're telling them what you're seeing but you do want to especially with certain types of athletes so you have to really again you have to know your athletes certain athlete you can tell if you're giving too much information it's going to overwhelm and they become more mechanical and they start to look like they hesitate and pause and and that you can seem like oh they're hesitating because they're not confident might be hesitating because they're thinking so much because you're giving them so much stuff so that's when you got to just really keep it simple but discovery learning does have its life they need to because they need to actually work through these things now will they do that in the cognitive stage to a degree but you've got to limit it because they don't know what they're doing that they don't know what they're feeling so you still need to be behind the wheel but they've moved from the backseat maybe to the front seat does that make sense so the last one is manual manipulation now of course nowadays we need to be careful with that you always need to be asking if it's okay if you show them by touching them but you also have to be careful where you touch and how you touch but some athletes do still need it so you can model it and then say is it okay if I put you in that position and show you manually putting you there give them that option if they would prefer just just constantly see you do it then there you go and they can try to mimic but it does have its play okay all of these they all have their time in place and in certain combinations you just have to find the right ones and the ones you're comfortable with some people some coaches are not comfortable with touching their athletes at all and that's not saying oh that's a bad coach if you're not comfortable with that the athlete's gonna know so you want to stick with things that you're comfortable with are we done with them types of feedback yeah I just had one thing about probably need to sort of win to give it the timing yeah yeah when you're if you're deciding you want to get obviously everybody wants to give some feedback you don't just leave them off there to explore on their own but when you give it and the type there's names for a couple different types that you would have and when you would choose to use them also as dependent on the type of learner you're working with because when we were talked about cognitive associative and auto auto regulatory so we have two different types and one's called terminal and one's called concurrent so terminal just means that when they're end terminated okay when they're end of the rep or end of the set is when you would give the feedback so it allows for the concentration on the skill because you're not talking while they're doing it and that really works well with the cognitive stages and your associative stages to an extent so you're looking at beginner and lower to intermediate intermediate high you might be able to do some concurrent but you want to sprinkle it in instead of just go switch all the way to that and we'll get into concurrent and admit it but the idea then is that you're letting them perform the lift because they already got enough to think about right when they're doing the left especially when they're beginner we don't want to be adding that so you're just reminding them let's say you have a couple pews before they go might be something like i don't know stay tight and touch your earlobes okay so we've gone through let's say because i've introduced those before so type back and make sure to touch your earlobes don't add anything else and don't be doing that while they're lifting you write it right before they go they go you can either say it again before the next rep or you can wait till the end of the set but you don't want to do it while they're lifting and that's a terminal feedback when you have someone who's more autonomous so they're more the movement patterns are much more ingrained they're very consistent you're obviously going to have one off or miss here and there but they're very consistent with their technique and they're comfortable with it that's when you would have a concurrent meaning that you're talking you can you don't always have to but you can talk while they're lifting so for example if i've got an athlete who's performing a clean and they've cut their pole we'll keep going back to that one but that seems to be a very popular thing but they cut their pole or their elbows let's go with something different they um they don't move their feet and that happens you know like sometimes you know i'm sure you're lifting too like even though it's a weight you know you can do or even if it's on the heavier realm it's like you're confident to do it you just don't think all of a sudden you just out for some reason you just didn't move your feet you're thinking about something else one foot moves or the other doesn't or or they both of them don't move something when that athlete for example has gone into the catch and they're starting to recover i might say that i move your feet so i'm talking to them right before they go into i didn't wait till the end of the rep i said it right then so right when they put the bar down and they're going into that next rep i don't have to say anything i've already said it right so they can when they're in that stage they can focus on in the lip the basic majority the main meat of the lip is consistently performed the autonomous person can now focus on those little minute details that will make it even more efficient and those are the things you can start really getting picky or addressing while they're lifting but still keeping it or one or two with an autonomous i might go up to three but i never go more than three things i want them to work on but they're all three are very related so that they understand how that chain works together um so that it's not just things out in left field so that it doesn't slow in their own mind i guess it it comes down again to not being over focused on being perfect all the time because the learning will require us to explore a little bit and and allow some mistakes yeah or at least some part of time while we've picked the other things they're like that right the pain power has to shift and allow and as they become right when they come become more comfortable and confident they're able to see and tackle more things at the same time that they are at those young those lower stages so we have to recognize where the athlete is at and we have to again meet them where they're at and push them that little bit that one plus instead of trying to go to two you know because they're not ready for that even if an athlete's physically ready i mean you have some athletes that come in that are just physically gifted but they're still novices so that doesn't mean that we should be pushing them to train even though physically if they knew all the positions well they could perform like an olympian today you know or make common welts you know in the next year that doesn't mean that they're actually cognitive ready to do that because they don't know even physically because they still don't know things consistently enough so pushing them through to get their faster doesn't help that athlete and most times and i would love to see a study of this for around the world but my experience and what i've seen and just even the athletes that i've coached at international levels like how often i see one come back every year you know because youth and junior year the composite there is what five six years and then senior obviously lasted much longer how often do i see those same athletes coming through year after year after year or do they stop after a while and then you're like i'm talking to my friends or their coaches say well whatever happened to so-and-so if you're pushing somebody through before you know because then they think that everything is this easy and then when it gets hard they don't like it because what do you mean all of a sudden i'm not getting these massive pbs and it's actually taking me longer to get a five kilo gang there's some must be something wrong with you because we've basically made it so that it's that easy at the beginning and didn't prepare them for the rest of that career because this career actually your best athletes aren't the ones that come in this the first second third year the athletes we're seeing at the olympics and commonwealth games are the ones that have been in the sport most of them for six seven years and so if we got a guy at two years and saying this isn't moving fast enough or why can't it be this way or you're not doing this and whatever or this is too hard now we did prepare them for that stage because it first two years is the honeymoon stage like i said before you can hit them with a stick and they're gonna get better but that doesn't mean it's the right way to do it so and we need to prepare them you know i've had athletes now transitioning from the third into their four it's getting real now like they're putting in the same amount of time and it's getting harder to get those gains which it will and they're looking at me and one of them just turned to me he goes this is what you med isn't it they're like yeah i didn't lie to you i mean i was just making that up and they're just like yep and then we actually have to do different strategies to keep them psychologically engaged and keep pushing themselves so i mean they're different different stages require different goals different ways to attack those goals and different ways to and process them and analyze them and take those steps and figure out what those steps the intermediary steps are and then especially if they get injured because that may happen as well you said you are open to people contacting you so i have to start over here how people can find you it could go to leithin that i am on there fastest way however is probably just emailing and that's the ninja hoff at gmail.com so awesome and the last question i asked you about the colors last time so now i will ask you which is your favorite lift to execute and to coach and why to execute i like cleans all of them yeah i like cleans i and this is going to sound like every other young athlete comes in i was good at it but it was easy it was easy i liked cleans and squatting back squatting not front squatting i i i did it it was a necessary evil but i liked cleans and squat cleans and back squats i could do those all day long especially from cleans from the knee i think that was my when doing knee blocks i just i don't know i was just like yes i get to push this today you know yeah to coach anything where i see the light bulb come on it doesn't matter to me it could be the smallest thing if i see the athlete like get it and then that light bulb you're like oh yeah okay and then they just go and then this like this hold it i feel like i've done my job and that just makes it so i just i just love it yeah we ask that it's funny in training we do that all the time especially how the new people come in we'll have this big talk with everybody in the room so that the new person doesn't feel uh whatever the thing might be feeling but we're always like i have this guy coming now and he doesn't like um he doesn't quite understand the snatch he does it just fine but he doesn't feel as fluid to him as the clean and so he always says i don't like the snatch i said you don't like i said why don't we change the script on that because we don't want to come in thinking negatively about it i said why don't we think of things that we need to work on to make this so that it feels as confident as you do on the clean i said but i get it you're gonna like one lift more than the other i totally get that i said snatch wasn't my favorite thing for a while either i said i didn't understand it i didn't truly understand it until i was probably in my mid thirties and then it was like oh yeah i like this now this is fine a little late though but um yeah we'll ask people in the room like what's your favorite exercise what you lose favorite exercise so you get going around with the room and hear everybody's you know things so that you know they feel like they're not odd man and or whatever it's like oh trust me these guys don't love every single thing we give them but yeah so i would say yeah i definitely anything that they finally just see like there's a spark then yeah that that's all it takes for me i'm easy i have an easy day okay i i think we should we should end here on a positive note thank you so much for your tough day and uh previous interview yeah it was a great experience thank you for having me [BLANK_AUDIO]