“I’m not built for this lift!”

How often do we hear “I’m not built for ‘x’ lift”, and then see that used as a reason why a lifter doesn’t think they can do much to improve on it?

While it’s certainly true that people can have great advantages for certain lifts, what is also true is that there is always a way to target and achieve fantastic improvements across them all. From a coaching perspective what we do is first understand at a high level what each lift responds to strongly and following that we assess how we can apply that to a lifter and their tailored coaching guidance and programming.

First off, the big three, what do they respond to?

·       Squat - responds to bodyweight / mass, as that acts as a stabilising force, much like a pendulum damper in an anti-earthquake building. The more mass we have the less an impact horizontal forces are able to have, and the more natural it becomes to keep the load centralised during the movement.

·       Bench – responds to upper body musculature. This should surprise no one that has seen gym bros or bodybuilders who have never done strength sports in their lives, but manage to have huge benches, challenging and even surpassing Powerlifters that spend their lives trying to be strong. While the muscle mass of course allows for huge power to be produced, what’s often overlooked is how, specifically upper body muscle mass, acts as a very secure and stable base, allowing the power to be applied efficiently.

·       Deadlift – responds to leverage, more than any other this is a lift that some people really are born to potentially be great at. This is a lift that you see the most parity across the weightclasses oftentimes lifters actually have a better deadlift at lighter bodyweights due to the increased mass impacting their ability to make the most out of their levers.

So, with knowing what the lifts respond to how we can use that knowledge to focus and prioritise training?

SQUAT: The easy option is saying “just get bigger” and while this is true, it’s also lazy coaching and definitely not ideal for everyone (or even most!). What we can do is focus on ways of finding that stability through technique. Always starting with set up, keeping the bar stable, aligning ourselves over midfoot and minimising horizontal movement of the load. This is something that can look very different depending on how a lifter is built, and it’s something that takes time and patience to improve, never looking for perfection but striving to progressively get better and better. As a coach this is a focus area I have used both personally and professionally to great effect, most notably increasing a lifter from a 350kg squat to an incredible 430kgs. A stable squat is a game changer!

BENCH: Unlike squat where just adding mass is not the best option for many, upper body musculature is something we can really prioritise in training, with hypertrophy and targeted programming. But it certainly isn’t the only area to focus on, to make the muscle we have even more effective we can look at technical improvements that mimic having a bigger upper body. Finding ways to increase our stability in our upper back and ability to apply efficient force. A real attention to how a lifter sets up and secures themselves, driving their traps into the bench, prior to and during the lift can make a huge difference, and we can follow this up by making sure we have the most efficient arm angles when applying power, not losing force having to pull the bar back into position.

DEADLIFT: Now while there's not much we can do to alter our physical leverages (unless you have a time machine and can change your parentage!), we can work hard on maximising the levers we are born with. We want to ensure we keep our arms long and are actively working on improving our chest position and back angle. This requires patience, working on deadlift can be a very frustrating task as it is not easy to make sure our alignment, power, and mindset are all firing and spot on at the same time. But it is a lift that with patience and consistency we really can see big improvement jumps when things do align, adding many kilos to our totals through technical improvement alone.

All sounds easy and simple, right? Well, the information above is just touching the surface on what we do, and no two lifters are identical. This gives you a taste of how we apply decades of knowledge and experience to bring the very best out of our lifters, and it’s we you won’t hear us accepting “I’m not built to lift”!