Topic: The Progress and Training of Shane Hamman

[Pierre Suter]

I'd like to see him move out near Gough or Burgener and get pushed to his limits for a year or two.  Wouldn't that be a change from the 4 year cycle he seems to have been on?!  I'm not a Shane hater -- I think he's awesome -- but he pretty much stopped improving after 3 years in the sport.  There's something wrong there.  He snatched more in Sydney than in Athens.  If he sticks to his old routine, well I guess at least he will provide Casey with some competition in supers.

[glennpendlay]

shane did more than ANY other american super, ever.  he did this after taking up the sport late in life.

as far as going to the OTC, he did what he thought was best for him.  he followed his coaches plan, which cant be held against him even if you disagree with his coaches.

people expect more from shane, for some reason.

is it becasue he is so big, so heavy a bodyweight that we think he SHOULD lift more?  if that was so, why were kurlovich and pisarenko not totally overshadowed by taranenko and krastev?

is it becasue he squatted 1000 in powerlifting?  if so, why do we constantly harp on the fact that a big squat alone will not make someone an OLer, why are we then not just going out and recruiting all the big squatters in powerlifting?  our whole mindset seems agains this, but conversley, shanes big powerlifting squat is constantly used as a reason to believe that he should have done more.  also on this subject, i believe shanes best OL squat without powerlifting equipment is about 800.  shane has told me that the best guys, like rezezadah, are actually stronger than him, that he would have to get stronger to lift the same weights as them.

are we critical becasue his heavy cleans look so darn easy?  do we not also see many other lifters do PR lifts, even record lifts, that look easy?  is i not one of the truths of OL that often a limit lift will look effortless, then 5 more kg on the bar will result in an ugly failure?

might this not be even more true of someone who is very strong to start with in some positions, but has a limited time (at least relative to those who start young) to condition the nervous system to snatching and clean and jerking heavy weights.

i can identify with shane here, i think i understand.  michael hartman saw me doing clean pulls with 275k once, and commented that they were going high enough and moving fast enough so that it definately looked like i could rack the weight.  i also know that around that time i could have front squatted that weight, based on a pretty easy set of 5 with 250k that i did on the front squat (i should say, easy to stand up with, on the other hand VERY hard and taxing to actually hold on my shoulders for 5 reps).  but the fact is obvious that i could never have cleaned close to that.

now, i tried very hard to convert that strength to big lifts, trying b ulgarian, russian, and any other training style.  it is probably that starting OL awefully close to the age of 30 and not being that good of an athlete to start with precluded me from ever developing the effeciency that some lifters have.  it is possible that this is true for shane also, at least the starting late part.  if this were not true, why not just train on the squat and deadlift till you are 25 or 30 then learn the lifts?


are we critical of him becasue of his training plan, do we all think that if he trained like a bulgarian, he would have done better?  i can tell you, i am one of the biggest proponents of the intense and low volume training style for high level lifters, yet when i was in somewhat the same position as shane, that of an older, very heavy lifter, i did my best lifts when trying to follow a training plan closer to that of alexiev.  when i did my best 170 training snatch, it was after not having done ANY heavy lifts on the competition lifts or squats, but lots and lots of volume on different snatch assistance exercises.  i was by far my strongest at this point.

is it possible that for a lifter in that situation, old, starting the sport late, very heavy and handling pretty big weights after a short career, that this type of training is the way to go?  maybe, just maybe, shane would have been injured and out of the sport before he ever snatched the big weights if he had trained differently.

all in all, i think shane is a great lifter, obviously.  he is the best ever american superheavy.  i think he trained in the way that he and his coaches thought was best...  and we cant fault him for this.  we may disagree, but if we condemn him for this, then we must also condemn barnett, kelley, and others who were coached by the same people and the same system.

maybe shane could have done better with other coaches.  maybe not.  but do we know for sure that rezezedah would not be better if he were following the old russian method and being trained by someone like dragomir.  that old russian system sure produced a lot of good lifters.

[Steve Gough]

Is a coach every truly satisfied?

A 197.5 kg snatch and a 237.5 kg C&J is nothing to sneeze at. Shane could retire today and we could all be proud for the rest of our days with those immense poundages.

An anecdote, though, that goes to the question at top. At the 1996 Olympics my son, Tom, was assigned two people (one being Phil Simms of the NY Giants) I believe by the major news network covering the Olympics to be his up close and personal (or something like that). Tom missed two jerks with 205 after easy cleans, either of which would have given him a 372.5 total and moved him up a big jump. When he was done, Simms partner (an older man) was overjoyed/elated with Tom's performance. While I on the other hand could not get over him missing that 205 jerk. Of course the man did not think highly me and obviously didn't understand. To this day I still revisit Atlanta in my mind. In Tom's case it wasn't a question of committment or guts, but predominately  a case of losing too much bodyweight in the last week and maybe being a little underprepared jerk-wise. Olympic Games are pinnacles. Everything in our being wants our "charges" to not only do what they are capable of, trained for, but somehow squeeze even more so in the heat of that most important battle.

When I watch Shane lift I have never gotten the opinion that he has reached the limits of his capabilities physically. That well has not run dry in my humble estimation. When I look into his eyes, however, I am not quite so sure. And in those eyes is where the rest of his tale lies.

[glennpendlay]

i dont think any coach is ever really satisfied with what an athlete does, after all, isnt your job to be always trying to help prepare for more, more, more.  if donny snatched 180 tomorrow, i would be happy for 1 or 2 minutes, then would start thinking about how to get the world record, and eventually might end up thinking that we had failed in not getting to that world record.  that having been said, right now im looking at 180 as being a dream weight and something to work for and dream about.  right now i am satisfied with the last couple of workouts and the big lifts in them, although i think donny is not, i think he needs 8 more kilos to be even a little bit satisfied.  hopefully in a year, what he did this week, or what he wants to do, will be looked on as failure.  so satisfaction is relative.

this satisfaction thing is a tricky business.  you HAVE to be a little satisfied with what you are doing, or you will simply burn out after a short time.  you cant spend the years it takes to get to the top being frustrated ALL the time and kicking yourself for not doing more.  on the other hand, it takes a little dissatisfaction to improve, doesnt it.  walking the line between realism and fantasy, satisfaction and frustration, a healthy amount of desire or an emotional roller coaster just might be the secret to weightlifting, much more important than doing 1 rep or 3.

[Pierre Suter]

All good points, Glenn.

I may not get the numbers exactly right, but the fact remains that after 3-4 years in the sport he snatched a big 197.5 at the olympic games, and after another 4 years of training, he did less (what, 195)?  Putting aside your friendship and admiration for Shane for a second, do you really consider that a successful training result for the 4 year period?  I was always told that after 3-4 years, you're just getting started in this sport.  I think many are critical not just because of his unreal strength and athleticism but mostly because we rarely if ever saw him attacking big weights, and his progress seemed to grind to a halt so quickly.  When his coaches rarely pushed him at national meets, are we to believe they pushed him in training?  You're right, we don't know what would have happened under a Bulgarian type program.  But after a few years of little to no progress under a more relaxed system, wouldn't it have been nice to see him try?

[glennpendlay]

yes, i would have liked to see shane at nationals pushing for that 200k snatch the year after the olympics.  i have my opinion and had i been in dragomir's position, would have had a different mindset.  and i would love to know "what might have been..."

but thats monday morning quarterbacking.  im sure shane thought that what he was doing was his best chance to do well, to do big lifts in 2004 and medal.  was he right or wrong?  would he have done better or worse on another system?  maybe if he had say, moved to wichita and tried to snatch 180+ 3 days a week, he would have gotten nowhere, or gotten hurt, and we would all be saying, gee, wonder what shane would have accomplished if that good for nothing wanna be glenn pendlay hadnt ruined him.

thats really my point, you cant try two paths simultaneously.  you have to choose, and a person can only live the years 2000 to 2004 once.  with ANY choice shane made over how he would prepare himself for athens, we might well be saying the same things, "what if..."

i know that shane wanted to medal VERY, VERY badly.  i know that he chose the path he chose becasue he TRULY believed it was the one most likely to get him to a medal.  it wasnt chosen out of lack of desire, guts, or whatever.  the path didnt end where he wanted it, or where we wanted it.   but i do get tired, and yes im maybe a little sensitive about it, but i do get tired of people and their criticisms of shane.  this is a guy who wanted to win badly, and who also wanted to improve usa weightlifting enough to give significantly of his time to try and achieve that end totally apart from his success as an athlete.  i think that as years go by you will see shane continue to give back to the sport and the sport benefit by having him around.

[Pierre Suter]

That's a fair comment about monday morning quarterbacking.  Now if Shane is going to keep lifting, let's try something different!  Throw him into a different environment with coaches that will push him and let's see what happens.  What does he have to lose?

For what it's worth, a truly am a Shane fan and wouldn't have started a new thread just to criticize him.  My post was originally in the thread about atheltes' pay, and it got moved to a new topic.

[Mike Wittmer]

"Strength is a greedy mistress."

Bill Starr, circa 1969