My latest experiment- teaching young boys basic WL with PVC,

For some reason, I've got it in my head to teach my boy's team how to manipulate themselves with the basic lower body lifts.

Today I ended up using jump ropes for lack of proper width sticks ( our extra empty wood rails are too thick for their hands ). We stretch it taught and treat it like a stick but we ended up using it for OHS instead of BS ( though we did go over a squat with the hands behind the head and elbows out- very FS-ish ).

Most of my boys have stalled progress with working the SingleLegSquat or Pistol whether the free leg is in front of them or simply hanging down ( by standing on a higher surface/beam ). I had one boy who was able to do about 10 on either leg but this was also a boy with far better balance than any of my current monkeys and is currently on hiatus. As well, his VJ and sprint speed and form were better than the other guys. One of my strongest boys has either some weird leg mechanics or just some enforced motor patterns that were never corrected before I came on and it's been a struggle to fix them since then. They are slightly better but still crappy in general.

We have gone through the partial ROM SLS and those are fine but I have come to believe they all have poor balance issues which may be aided by this supplementation. We have been working on wall squats or goblet squats during conditioning but I will be adding this basic squatting to our warmup. We may also incorporate Burgener drills. I'm not exactly sure the mechanics of the clean or snatch may be worth looking into at this point but I'm planning on the Burgener WU at least besides the 3 basic squats and it's good to learn how to pop the hip. I think they'll find it more fun and a different change of modality than just doing depth drops and deck squats and SLS.

An interesting note today is how it went. Besides 2 distractions that mucked up a lot of it, a couple of the boys had a helluva time with them due to actually requiring concentration and focus. Two brothers seemed to do well, but it's hard to say with the older one since he is not as interested in physical activity while his younger brother is a machine during workout.

While I have taught people how to squat before ( adults ) this was much more of a challenge, especially due to our age. I'm trying to get the go to bring some actual weights in as I think they would be really jazzed if they see me snatch or clean BW or close to. I don't really have racks yet to BS heavy but I'm sure one of those beams will suffice.

In lieu of bars because I still don't trust them, I'm planning to build some weighted PVC bars with sand and putting caps on them with glue and duct taping them just in case so sand doesn't get everywhere. Sand should be cheap while lead shot probably isn't.

In case the Team Program Manager gives me any guff or the owners do- I've prepared by stating that the Russians and Chinese are known to teach their gymnasts to squat besides training many of their WL in gymnastics at the developmental stage.

Robert,

It seeme like there are wildly different approaches to leg strength. While the Chinese gymnasts must squat double bodyweight, both Coach Sommer and Tom Kurz have noted that Eastern European/former Soviet bloc gymnastic coaches do not even let their athletes ride bicycles, let alone practice anything resembling an O-lift.

Anyways, I might've poached this article off this site --- I can't remember --- but the title alone should be of interest to you.

Olympic Lifting for the Growing Gymnast

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/oly_lifting_for_gynmast.htm

best,

jason

Thanks for bringing that article to the forum! Really, really good info and training ideas!

I've read this article before and there was a thread on it some months prior.

I'm still debating whether to eventually load it up. At this point, there is very little to no load besides that which the body places on itself. We are also discussing juveniles, young boys 6-10 years old. I'm hesistant to allow them to use barbells and actual weight for a variety of reason, #1 being that I don't trust them to not do something stupid when they can hardly manipulate the pvc and some of these boys focus and concentration is poor.

My hope is to go back towards SLS and BW lower body conditioning as our staple once we have ironed out some mechanics issues with Erik and balance/coordination issues. We'll still be doing graduated SLS, deck squats and depth jumps for strength training or deck squat jumps, lunge jumps, broad jumps, and plyo jumps and sprinting for power.

That is why tomorrow, I intend to make up the weighted PVC bars. I figure these will be handy for other things as well and similar to the weight of the body bars we have in the gym without the exorbitant cost. PVC by itself is too light to give enough feedback.

An interesting note is I was reading one of Pavel's book a few weekends ago and he reccomended the DL vs the BS do to ease of learning and possibly less hypertrophy. Currently, I'm leaning towards that also based on Barry Ross's work with DL and sprinting. 3 sets of high intensity. I thought it was 2-3r but it could be 1-2 and the focus is recruiting motor units whereas sprinting works for the power phase training.

It doesn't take much deadlifting to get strength results. I do one set a week and I'm fine, steadily improving. I think it's important to have a strong deadlift before you start squatting, your boys need to have good back position and deadlift teaches that. Once it's a habit squats go smoother. Also, they may benefit a lot from partial rom heavy squats. While it IS useful and definitely recommended to develop the whole ROM, you want a lot of strength and power in the last 1/4. That's where your takeoffs are, pretty much no matter what kind of jumping you are doing. You can go much heavier, you don't really get hypertrophy unless you really crank up the volume, and the extra loading will increase your functional strength.Just an idea. Super heavy is obviously not a good one for the young kids, that's more for when you get to your 15-16 year olds. But up to their bodyweight is fine, their bones can handle that without warping. That'll probably be more than they can do full rom, at least for a while.

Weighted pvc is a great idea, I think. There's nothing wrong with using bar/dumbbells as long as they are light enough for the kids. It's good for them to develop the neuromuscular coordination. Definitely take it case by case, i'll be interested to hear what you end up doing!

Robert (?),

It seems like in this case, a bit of the poison will serve as the cure --- namely, weight-assisted SLSs will encourage coordination and flexibility in your athletes. I had no idea they were quite that young.

As a side note, in May I completed an 8-week Modified PTTP cycle for deadlifting and back-squatting. It was twice weekly, 3x3. I think the traditional PTTP is 5x5?

It was the second weight-training cycle I've ever completed (at this point, maybe the last), so I made some massive gains.

I have experienced a small bit of lower-body hypertrophy (my wife calls it "filling out"), but nothing compared to the results of the ring-work. I did notice a decrease in flexibility in the quads and hip flexors, though I don't know that'd be a concern for anyone else.

best,

jason

You definitely have to focus on actively maintaining and improving your flexibility when you're lifting. Interestingly, you'll get better gains on your lifts too.

Weighted SLS? Hah, they were barely able to do 1 last testing. Ben, the 10yo boy who could do 10, was working on weighted SLS though. They are hardly able to lower down to the bottom of a SLS without falling sideways, backwards, ya never know really. Ben was pretty coordinated and was a kid who was pretty on FX but these other guys aren't very aesthetic yet. The mobile/flexible one is getting better as he is getting stronger but he is still pretty uncoordinated also because of his lack of focus.

My L5 boy has a weird leg mechanic where his knees track in when he squats or lunges. He has decent foot arch so it's either something that's way beyond my knowledge of PT to guess at or just poor lunge/squat mechanics that were never stressed by his previous coaches. This is also one of the reasons he is so inflexible is because they just reinforced that he was inflexible and didn't bother with it. Well 3-4 years later and you can guess where he's at. He sticks his landings frequently with his feet wide and knees in and does the same thing with his deck squat. Yes, even a simple deck squat.

I have some DB but they are either too light or heavy for them ( 3 or 5# or 25# ). Our body bars are decent weight but those things are thick, about 2" which doesn't work well for small hands.

With most of these boys, we are currently working the stiff leg deadlift from the hang instead of from the shin because they seem to not be able to align their back and chest to be open. Seriously, I'm not sure you could believe how uncoordinated these kids are. Erik is a pretty fair soccer player I here but he is no sight as a runner and his sprint test score isn't that remarkable. Our head coach thinks Adam, the flexible kid has got good running mechanics while Erik runs a bit funny due to his legs. However, Adam is hampered by the fact that he has poor strength overall ( improving ) especially in his legs. His VJ, ability to do depth drops or standing jumps is poor. It's better than it was but it's still poor.

The more and more I think about it, the more and more I like the DL compared to the BS regarding gymnastics. I might do a cycle pretty soon where I omit BS in my programming to test this out, in fact maybe 3-6mo and see what it does. However, I do like BS though it also seems to mess up my back/right leg more than DL.

Robert,

Sounds like you've got your hands full. Just to clarify, I meant "weighted" SLS in the sense of 4 or 5# dumbell, plate or even heavy book, (juuust enough) extended arms out in front of the body, to help balance, coordination, and to help your athletes hit rock-bottom without falling back.

I'm sure you've tried partner-pistols, with two athletes facing each other and gripping each other's hands and pulling. I don't know how that'd work give your athletes' ages (and attention spans). Also, the momentum in the SLS deck squats helped an athlete at our gym approximate the motion, too, when he couldn't hit rock-bottom on an SLS.

Squat mechanics are a bear to untangle. The one idea that came to mind when reading about your athlete with knock-knees was box-squatting, which might help spot at what point his knees dive inward. Box/bench/seated squats slow down the movement within the athlete's range of flexibility in order to work on technique. It's not like you need to add weight beyond a PVC (if that). Box SLS squats are also interesting, and will quickly bring to light deficiencies between legs.

I'll be curious to hear how it goes. It's too bad that one athlete's coach branded him inflexible. Inflexible at 10? That's ridiculous. At that age the possibilities for transformation with consistent practice are endless.

best of luck,

jason

Erik started around 6 and was handed off to another coach around 8 and a half. Both branded him inflexible but I only have an idea of what the 2nd coach programmed his workouts. Exactly, I've been trying to work on his shoulder flexibility quite a bit besides his splits, however he is sometimes a slacker as many boys are when it comes to hard work/pain.

Ahh, counterbalanced SLS. They help somewhat but enough to do multiple reps. They make the SLS slightly easier for Erik but still he loses balance typically. Adam typically just loses balances because of his tendency to " bow over " in his squatting. Of course, he is also one of the boys with poor focus ( my HC would say too much sugar and perhaps too gentle parents is what I would say ).

Blairbob said:

I've read this article before and there was a thread on it some months prior.

I'm still debating whether to eventually load it up. At this point, there is very little to no load besides that which the body places on itself. We are also discussing juveniles, young boys 6-10 years old. I'm hesistant to allow them to use barbells and actual weight for a variety of reason, #1 being that I don't trust them to not do something stupid when they can hardly manipulate the pvc and some of these boys focus and concentration is poor.

Yeah, with the young ones it is all about proper position and learning how to MOVE correctly, you are essentially now teaching them another "skill" with the OHS. For kids, the ability to start where you want them, go to where you want them to go, and then finish where they started are the keys to using weight. Proper body position at beginning, middle, and end is paramount, especially if any of these kids find out they like WL and decide to pursue that at some point in the future...no good if they've trained the OHS wrong for a period of time as youths. I like your approach here and think it's sound.

Yeah, unfortunately I've slacked off with this lately because we've had a few new boys tryout for team and been doing physical strength and skill assessment testing.

I still haven't made up those weighted pvc and pvc bars yet but will probably get around to it soon as I can get around again ( was having some transportation issues for a few weeks there ).