The wife and I do a simple 10 exercise bowflex routine 3 times a week and it works great!
She’s lost 25 pounds and I’ve lost 17.
Nah. Like in a deadlift, in a power clean your hands are just hooks on the pull, and in the catch at the top you’re supposed to catch the bar on your chest with your hands just stabilizing the bar. You may need to work on your arm’s flexibility in order to get your elbows out in front properly, though.
For front squats, I presume you’re holding the bar hands apart, so that it looks much like the finish on the power clean. Try crossing your arms in front and resting the bar on your front deltoids. That’s how I do 'em, and for much the same reason.
Of course, any squat is better than no squat, but the main type of squat you should be doing is a back squat down to parallel (or as close to parallel as you can get). Front squats emphasize the quads, while back squats work your glutes and hams hard as well.
And power cleans are awesome, BTW. There’s a reason football players use them – they train your body to bring all that strength you’ve been building to bear on something QUICKLY, like a defensive lineman crashing into an opposing tackle. F=m*a. Power cleans give you the “a”. It also helps you move your other lifts up by training your nervous system to fire out explosively on a lift.
That’s good advice for someone who’s already moved into a second phase of a fitness regime, but for people just starting out, I would recommend taking things slowly, moving through each rep in a controlled fashion. Going for explosive movements (especially with weight) is just going to make them get hurt :)
Damien, that’s exactly what I mean with “break my hands” - they’re just not flexible enough in the wrists or shoulders to bend back to my chest. The bar may be resting against my chest, but having to bend my hands back to keep the bar in place is seriously painful.
Well, sure, which is why the routine begins with pullups and then subs in power cleans after the trainee’s been at it awhile. And any lift that you’ve never tried before you should always begin with light weight until you master the movement with good form.
Having said that, there’s no reason to fear explosive lifts. In some ways they’re safer than other lifts – you can’t get pinned to a bench, for example; if a lift is too much, you just drop the weight to the floor.
No one should be afraid to try them. I’d be shocked if anyone reading this got hurt doing cleans with the bare bar.
Rippetoe’s book goes into excruciating detail on how to teach yourself the mechanics of a power clean (and the other movements; there’s something like forty pages on the back squat alone). I highly recommend it to anyone interested in weight training.
Squats, bench press, etc., are great for improving your visible physique (which is certainly a valid goal) but I found them to be really poor for improving overall physical ability. As a competitive track athlete and volleyball player I found that the periods where I used a lot of heavier lifting correlated with my poorest overall athleticism. I looked great but I was building up a lot of slow muscle that was worthless for the athletics I was actually doing and just weighed me down.
Personally I think that a good workout plan should be far more varied and should focus exclusively on faster movements. There are “explosive” lifts, sure, but they’re never anything that you couldn’t do faster and better with less weight. While I used some weights, I think there is a lot to be said for a truly weightless workout regimen. It also has the benefit of not requiring any sort of gym. Heck, when I was really serious I used to do toe raises and weightless squats in the shower once a day.
Would you exclusively ride your bike if you were in training for a swimming contest? No, you would focus on swimming.
You say that you are a competitive athlete and that your athleticism declined from heavy weight training, well, that’s no surprise. You should have had your workout structured around your sport. The only way to get good at a perticular movement is to train that movement frequently. Doing heavy tricep exercises will give you massive arms but it probably will not help you on the vollyball field.
As for lifting heavy; yes, it will help with overall athleticism if done with the correct tempo - using correct exercises. How heavy of a weight you lift is upto you and your specific goal.
This is where technique and proper selection of weights, reps, and exercises help. Basketball players, who I’m sure you’ll agree have to be pretty quick, do weight training as well - deadlifts and squats among them. The difference is how they do it: hint, they don’t do the “slow and steady” squat :)