Powerlifting by Nicola Vaughan-Ellis

Author:Nicola Vaughan-Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847975751
Publisher: Crowood
Published: 2013-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

The Pole System

What follows is my interpretation of a training method and corresponding key learning markers, never published before, which can be employed to assess an athlete’s body alignment during a lift, as a training aid for teaching the lifts and as a warm-up tool.

Ideal basic body postural alignment – when asking athletes to perform exercises, including the warm-up, coaches should be mindful of body alignment from wrist to elbow, shoulder to hip, hip to knee and knee to ankle, and should be careful not to put the body in a position that pulls it too far out of line.

The method literally uses a pole to simulate a powerlifting bar. The pole can be made from a piece of dowling or rounded wood cut to the same length as and, if possible, a similar thickness to a competition powerlifting bar. The knurl, inside markings and position of the sleeves of the bar should be marked on the pole with different coloured tape. This helps the lifter to find both the centre of the bar and the relative grips by colour and feel. With practice the lifter will able to find any grip without looking. For a seasoned powerlifter locating the bar’s markings and the relevant grips for each lift becomes second nature. However, for a novice this can be somewhat daunting. The pole system fast tracks the cognitive and muscle neural pathways to enable the lifter to seamlessly become as one with the dimensions of the weighted bar. It is also effective when an intermediate lifter changes to a new grip.

The pole system also builds the warm-up patterns of movement which should become as similar as possible to the ideal pathway of the bar and correct lifting technique. The pole helps the lifter understand how to achieve the required skeletal shape and body alignment during the exercises prescribed. If the exercises are conducted with the pole in front of a mirror the lifter or coach will be able to quickly identify when the skeletal system is misaligned. For instance, they will be able to spot when the back has become too rounded and the hips too high when learning the pull from the start position on the deadlift. Similarly, they will be able to see when the body leans too far forward during the overhead squat.

The pole is a useful tool for general warm-up in most training sessions because it simulates the bar and is light. However, remembering that a warm-up is designed to prepare the athlete for the task they are to undertake, I would still recommend the use of generic stretching exercises first to prepare the body to work with the pole. I would then add the pole work as another phase of the warm-up before moving to heavy tonnage. This may sound time-consuming, but it can actually save time in the long run. This is because, since the pole simulates the movement of the bar and the plane along which the bar will move during a lift,

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