Dan Austin - Powerlifting

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Austin, Dan, 1958-

Powerlifting / Dan Austin, Bryan Mann.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7360-9464-1 (soft cover) -- ISBN 0-7360-9464-4 (soft cover)

1. Weight lifting. I. Mann, Bryan, 1979- II. Title.

GV546.3.A87 2012

796.41--dc23

2011049601

ISBN-10: 0-7360-9464-4 (print)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-9464-1 (print)

Copyright 2012 by Dan Austin and Bryan Mann

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T o understand how the body works in powerlifting, you first must understand some basic physiology. A basic understanding does not include topics such as sliding filament theory, the way the mitochondria work in the cell, or the role of fatty acids in metabolism for a long day at a meet. If those topics interest you, you can read books on exercise physiology or even take courses in human anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology. This chapter covers the level of physiology you need to know to become as strong as possible and perform optimally on competition day.

Knowing how the body learns can help you understand how and why to use various techniques. For example, think about how an infant learns to walk. He observes people walking and he wants to try it too. After watching and analyzing others, he begins to try to walk. He slowly pulls himself up to a stand, he wobbles, and he falls down. Next he pulls himself up to a stand, he wobbles, and takes a step or two before falling down. Eventually after persistence, practice, and muscle development, he begins to walk naturally.

In their book Weightlifting: Fitness for All Sports (International Weightlifting Federation 1988), Tams Ajn and Lazar Baroga said that every movement, no matter how new it may seem, is based on previously learned movement patterns. So the more motor patterns you possess, the more movement patterns you can learn and the more quickly you can learn them. Consider two people who start squatting. Why does one struggle while the other excels? Because one person already possessed the necessary motor patterns and the other did not. The second person may be able to master the technique and excel at the squat but needs more time. A coach or trainer must demonstrate the movement several times so the struggling lifter understands it, then the lifter must get under the bar and do it himself. At first the movements feel funny to him, and he does all sorts of funny things as well, just as a baby does when trying to walk for the first time. The lifter may crash his knees together then do an impression of the worm break dance, but while standing with a weight on his back. He may perform something that looks like a good morning with bent legs. All along, he is attempting to put together movements that resemble the squat. The coachs job is to teach him to be aware of what hes doing wrong and how to fix it. Eventually he will have a squatlike movement down but will still need to refine his technique. Louie Simmons once said that a coach needs to educate each one of his lifters to the point at which the lifter is a coach. That way whenever youre doing a lift, youll have 10 coaches watching instead of one.