Chapter
4
ON
THE BENEFITS OF SUBORDINATE EXERCISES
BOTH IN REGARDS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BODY AS WELL
AS THE WELL-BEING OF THE MIND
BY
DONNY SHANKLE CPT
“Familiarity
Breeds Contempt.” Anonymous
Conclusion
Well there you go. I have given
you an arsenal of exercises to keep you in the gym training and the
variety should keep you excited. These exercises are weapons to get
your body and mind thinking and looking like a professional. Sure,
there will be some old timers out there who will tell you these
exercises are a waste of your time. And that you should stick to this
alone:
Snatch
Clean & Jerk
Squat
Yes, training only the lifts everyday
like this is important, and the closer you get to competition most
subordinate exercises are removed. The truth of the matter is, as a
weightlifter you have to think. Everyday, you should devote some time
about what you could be doing better or what you are potentially
doing too much of. Is the problem physical? Are you not improving
because of a lack of aggression in your training? Are you staying up
too late? Any of these reasons will keep you from literally raising
the bar. You have to use your imagination to improve either your
strength, speed, skill, fitness or all of them together.
Imagination is more important
than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and
understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and
create. - Einstein
You must find ways to improve
your strength (both mental and physical) and your consistency. In chapter seven I will discuss how to incorporate these
subordinate exercises into your training on a specific daily
template. We will discuss programming to meet your needs. Like an
editor who cuts a sentence because it is not working, the same can be
applied to your subordinate exercises. The same can be applied to
training. Avoid training mistakes, train to fix them. Below is a list of the
subordinate exercises I went over in this chapter. Each one resolves
a specific deficiency and we will also go over this in chapter seven.
Variants/Sub ex's with bar (1)
Like I have said before, many weightlifters
have their own style of lifting, but you can be sure they all do at
least these four essentials:
Stay over the bar (strength),
Move the feet (speed),
Keep the bar close (skill),
Stay healthy (fitness).
One essential is not more important than
the other, and focused aggression in addition to the above mentioned,
is a rare essential that cannot be taught. Speed is not above strength, fitness is not above
skill, etc. Understanding and then executing strength, speed, skill,
and fitness together against the bar is the beginning to lifting new
totals. These sub ex's are meant to help you accomplish that. All of these essentials are one and the same. Speed is strength, skill is fitness, strength is skill.
In this list I have provided a ranking of the exercises in an
order furthest removed from the clean & jerk/snatch from the
floor. The exercises are not listed in this order to suggest one is
better than the other with two exceptions. Any subordinate exercise
which does specifically strengthen the weightlifters golden rule will coincide in
importance along with adaptation to the lifts themselves. Also, any
exercise which emphasizes coordination and composure at the “receive”
command will also coincide in importance to daily adaptation. For
this reason, I have only intentionally selected two exercises to be
included in the list towards the top. The back raise and the
snatch press in squat. Think of these exercises as your heavy
machine gunner and your radio man. You don't need them, but you sure
as hell are happy to have them around. The first few sub ex's are very similar to the actual
lifts themselves and all of them improve at least one essential.
The further we move down the
list, bar movements become less and less and the attention is focused
on jumping, posterior chain work, moving violently, and overall fitness to keep
you healthy. Staying healthy is vital. If you get hurt you cannot
train and many of these exercises are to be done meditatively
(meaning, seeing yourself doing them outside your body) and
aggressively. Slap the lead foot on split marches, hold your
ground steadfastly on wave smashes, contemplate on what you
can improve while holding a plank. Accidents do happen but
they are scarce in this sport and typically happen when you get lazy.
Use sub ex's as a way to condition yourself for longer maximal
training and as a way to remember the importance of violent movement.
Aggressive movement/Posterior chain work (2)
At the bottom of the list you
see almost no bar movements and that is because many of these
exercises are essentials to basic strength and athleticism. Exercises
like the push-up and chin-up for example. Extra
posterior chain work is always a good idea which is why you find
death marches and stone lifting. Lastly, many of these
exercises are reinforcements. Get the knee down on split cleans,
stay over the bar on straight legged snatch high pulls, learn
to be in balance on both sides of your body using kettlebells.
Extra posterior chain work/Basic groundwork/Additional reinforcements (3)
As I stated in the introduction
to this chapter you never want to go into the gym and only train sub
ex's alone. You must always push through adaptation. Now some sub
ex's are variants to the actual lifts from the floor like blocks and
hangs. These variants can sometimes take the place of floor training
because they are very similar. However, you should never go into the
gym and call it a day after doing push-ups, drop snatches,
bridging, and med-ball slams. You are a weightlifter and as such
you should always be familiarizing yourself with a weightlifters
discipline, the snatch, clean, and jerk.
Use these exercises to correct
deficiencies, muscle imbalance, and proprioceptive awareness. Use
these exercises as a way to continue training if you suffer from an
injury that keeps you from lifting off the floor. For example, after
a shoulder injury years ago, my arm was in a sling for 3 months. I
used that time to strengthen my legs by squatting every day.
Sub ex's can also be used to keep you in the gym training when you
are despising the snatch/clean and jerk, and trust me you will suffer
many days feeling this way, but training never stops, my friend. Fight
in your heart and roll with the adaptation. Fight staying aggressive
on the platform but move like water with the bar. Cruise, glide, and
dance with your lifts while at the same time looking like a werewolf
during a full moon. Show the ego of a professional and use these
exercises I have shared with you as a means to an end. Every single
one accomplishes something. It is up to you to put it into practice.
