If I just change X it'll all be better...
As I sit stranded by Eunice (a stupid name for a storm if you ask me) I am reminded about something a lifter said recently. She will go unnamed for now but feel free to guess in the comments!
“I’ve changed my start position and my grip width” was the comment that triggered me. A man not easily triggered.
Now, I’d like to say at this point that I am in favour of autonomy and the independence and personal responsibility of the lifters I work with once they are past a certain stage of development. The lifter in question is definitely past the beginner stage and has a good foundation of technique and a great base of strength. So what’s my problem?
What are you trying to fix?
Firstly, we must agree that A) there is an error that needs fixing, and B) the change you want to make actually affects that thing and not much else. We don’t want to make more trouble for ourselves by making a change that doesn’t help or even worse leads to another error.
Have you tried to ‘just do it better?’
It sounds simple or even facetious to ask “have you just tried to do it differently?” or to not make the mistake. Sometimes everything else being equal we just need to understand the problem better and work over several training sessions at doing it correctly. Being patient enough to give the cues and exercises aimed at improving the aspect of the lift is really important. Mostly though, you have to be sure you are doing what you think you’re doing. This is where a coach can help and if you know what you’re looking for, videos are most useful.
One thing at a time
Let’s imagine you’ve tried to implement a change or correction and it’s still not feeling quite right or hasn’t had the impact you wanted. Next you need to figure out if you are strong enough to make the change effectively. For example: you struggle to stay over the bar in the first pull of a clean when lifting over 95% of your best BUT when you hit your best clean you were able to deadlift 20kg more than you can at the moment. So maybe, you’re just not strong enough at that point in time to stay in the right position. What you require is getting that deadlift / pull strength back up and not any real change to the lift itself.
If that definitely isn’t the case (you’re strength numbers are all up and you just can’t get past a certain point in the comp lifts because of a technical error) then it is reasonable to make a SINGLE change to something key - like the grip position , stance width, start position or similar. I do however, implore you to ONLY CHANGE ONE THING!
You’ve got to know if that change was successful or not and you need to know that it will stick as a habit going forwards. It needs to feel effective as well as not create any other problems down the line.
What happened with the lifter in question?
As I like to think I’m not a tyrant, I explained the above principles to the lifter in question but also asked her why she felt them necessary. It transpired that the change to the start position (although not a good change) made it possible to get the shins vertical more easily at the end of the first pull. As desirable as this is, it was at the expense of being able to maintain the same back angle during the pull and lead to being off-balance later. So even though it seemingly fixed the first-pull issue of the bar travelling forwards (an error in almost all cases) it wasn’t the change that was required. What was? Working much harder and using the legs in the first pull more effectively. Once the lifter understood this and how to perform it from her original start position we agreed on keeping it the same. Remember ‘correct’ is sometimes harder to do but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Being open minded and adult about the grip change (moved wider in the clean grip) I could see some benefits in her case due to a larger than average wingspan to height ratio. We are now training this wider grip and so far so good. Her clean has got much better recently and we can now push forwards with a solid technical model towards heavier numbers.
Experiment but don’t guess
At first you should probably listen to your coach on almost all aspects of your lifting. Besides maybe listening to your body and the changing daily fluctuations in fatigue they do know best. That said, once you understand the fundamentals and how key components of the technique effect each other it is fine to try and make positive changes. Just be sensible, talk over the pro’s and likely con’s to that change with your coach and please only change one thing at a time!