When is Sloppy too Sloppy?

This morning, while I was checking my crack-book for updates and notifications - I came across a post from a new Facebook friend Anthony Mychal that intrigued me.  Anthony said "This make's me sick" so I decided to watch it.  It's the Liberty Football team weight training in the off season.


Here's the video:

There are some amazing things in this video that I'm quite jealous of.  The team camaraderie and lifting atmosphere are amazing for lifting big and setting PRs (personal records).  It would be amazing to train in an environment like this.  However, unfortunately, I'm not jealous about the technique these athletes are using.

Most of the exercises shown in the video are power cleans from a hang and bench presses.  I will say first, that the amount of weight being moved in this video is huge - these boys are strong and much respect to them for this, but where do we draw the line before the risk for injury shoots straight up?  The exercise I'm mostly referring to are the cleans - most of the cleans caught in this video were caught on the wrists - if you have a look, you'll see extreme hyperextension at the wrists during the catch phase with some reps not even touching the deltoids (which is where the shelf is supposed to be created for the catch).  I wouldn't be surprised if these boys had more sore wrists than leg muscles after this workout...

A bar "front racked" correctly

These athlete's primary concern is winning football games.  Secondary concerns: staying injury free and improving all aspects of fitness (strength, explosive power, speed, agility etc).  Moving big weights in the gym fast is definitely going to improve these aspects, but I wouldn't allow my athletes to lift like this just to hit PRs.  When is sloppy too sloppy?  Remember this, weight training is SUPPLEMENTAL to football training and playing the actual games - why risk not being able to play football because you hurt your wrist(s) doing heavy-ass cleans in the off season?  Not under my supervision.

It also comes with the territory that when lifting big weights near your max, your form will suffer a little bit.  We all experience this but I think we need to be able to say when too much weight is too much weight and not just grind it out just to say we did it.  The risk just isn't worth it to me.

This also got me thinking about Crossfit - ya ya I know I know - there is so much controversy on whether Crossfit is a good program or not.  I'll write my true opinion on Crossfit in another post, but sloppy technique runs like wildfire in Crossfit box gyms - it's the nature of the beast - doing timed sets to exhaustion will have that affect on you.  Add the fact that the people who start Crossfit for the first time do not know how to perform the exercises well and/or have minimal training experience.  Getting more reps to beat what you did last time is the name of the game though - again, at what expense?

I was talking to Tom Corrigan, a firefighter and IKFSA kettlebell certified coach about a firefighter fitness article I was writing for Reps! Magazine (for May 2012).  Tom said that their bodies are their job and that really got me thinking.  Well so are the football players in the video above and so is your body for your job; doesn't matter if you're an athlete or not; getting injured in the gym will prevent you from carrying out your regular job.  Training in the gym should not increase your risk for injury (substantially).  Of course there are risks when working out, but these should be minimized with good technique, proper programming and progressions and through exercise/program individuality.

Remember, in the words of Coach Dan John, DO NO HARM.

Thanks for reading,

-JK