Masters Pressing: Back Recovery

by Atomic Athletic on Friday, February 24, 2012 at 4:54pm ·

The single most important factor in successful weightlifting is recovery.  That being said, it is an amazingly complex topic.  Getting older does not help that factor.  For me, it seems like I was really getting a handle on it and all of a sudden the rules have changed.  I catch myself saying, “I used to be a able to do...  Oh yeah, that was ten years ago.”

The ultimate Masters lifter was Norbert Schemansky, even though it did not exist while he still competed.  Trust me, getting tips out of Norb is like reading tea leaves.  When he gives a tip, you have to really, really think about it.

One thing Norb did believe in was working around an injury.  The injury he is most famous for is that persistent back issue.  For those of you who don't know, Norb went on to get two more Olympic medals and even compete in the 1968 Olympic Trials, after 1950s era back surgery... no robotic arms and computer screens to do the sewing and cutting back then...

Both before and after the surgery, Norb turned to the bench in order to increase his overhead work.  He did mostly flat benching, but certainly did inclines as well.  He did his benching in the “touch & go” style, for reps.  He always wanted to be as explosive as possible.

Try this, after your heavy cleans, clean pulls and back squats, do some bench pressing.  A lot of athletes want to do jerks, power jerks, presses or push presses right after their cleans.  Intuitively, this makes sense, since the lift is called the Clean & Jerk.  After experimentation, I have found that my pulling and squatting will suffer if I do that.  However, I hardly lose anything in my bench strength, if I am doing it at the end.  That bench weight is naturally going to be more than I could have pressed, or even jerked.  In fact, I can usually do 5 rep sets with what I would have jerked for a single, at the end of a workout.  Please realize, I am NOT a bench press specialist. I am doing it to help my overhead work.

I also make sure to really stretch out my shoulders with a broom stick after a workout like that.  I don't want to be stiff for a follow-up snatch workout.  You get the idea.

While I hope you are not dealing with the back issues Norb had, we can all benefit from his experience in workout design.  If you have any lay-back in your standing presses, you spine will thank you as well.  

Enjoy this little back recovery tip.

Live strong,

Roger LaPointe

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