McThrows: So, this winter Mykolas Alekna damaged his left pec and shoulder apparently during a bench press max. (Note: Mykolas missed the entire NCAA season but returned to action on June 16th with a 70.60m toss in Estonia.)Have any athletes you coached experienced that sort of injury?
JM: First of all, I just want to say that since I wasn’t present when Mykolas got injured, I can’t pretend to know what happened. I can only talk about the things I’ve seen with my athletes over the years, and we’ve had lots of small pec injuries, which are pretty common among throwers because they bench a lot. I’d say it’s usually the combo of all the throwing and lifting, the cumulative load, that is the cause rather than an athlete going too heavy that one time.
McThrows: Any advice as to how to avoid those kinds of injuries? Are there ever signs that something is about to give?
JM: In my experience, when you talk to the athlete after an injury like that they’ll often say “I felt something, but I kept going anyway,” so the obvious answer is, if you feel something then stop. But how many times do you feel something and keep going and you get away with it? And to quote Jarred Rome, “If I only trained when I didn’t hurt, I’d never train at all.”
McThrows: So it’s a tricky matter.
JM: It is. I suppose in a perfect world, a throwing coach would also be the one who trains the athlete in the weight room like Vésteinn Hafsteinsson or Art Venegas did. That way, they are more aware of everything that is going on with an athlete and can make adjustments in their lifting program that will hopefully prevent those kinds of injuries.
When the event coach and
strength coach are two different people, it’s important to maintain
a collaborative relationship.
At Chula Vista, I liked to stop by throwing and jumping practices as much as I could, so I could understand the effect those sessions were having on the athletes. And the event coaches were always welcome in the weight room. It was a lot easier to stay on the same page that way.
McThrows: What role does lifting technique play in injury prevention?
JM: It’s definitely a factor. There’s an argument right now on Instagram where some people say lifting technique doesn’t matter and the body will adapt, but my contention is that it does matter because if you want to move limit-type loads, it comes down to mechanical efficiency. There are certain parts of the body designed to do certain things, and if we are asking them to move high loads outside of what that part of the body is designed to do, we are asking for trouble.
When you start lifting limit loads, you want things to be lined up, partly to avoid increasing the risk of injury, but also because moving a load in a more efficient way lessens the cost. I wouldn’t expect Joe Kovacs or Ryan Crouser or Payton Otterdahl to perform an Olympic lift as proficiently as a competitive weightlifter, but it’s worth taking the time to work on hitting correct positions, especially when training with sub-max loads, so that the athlete will be able to move near-max loads more safely and at a lesser cost from an energy standpoint.
I never wanted the weight room to negatively impact throwing practice. Obviously, during heavy volume phases it will. They won’t be perfect in the ring during that time. But my goal is that I want to be on the same page as the throws coach so what I’m doing in the weight room supports what they are doing in practice.
In the long run, what matters is
how far an athlete jumps or throws, and we strength coaches have to always keep that in mind.
McThrows: Do you have any advice about bench press technique?
JM: I’ve talked to power lifters who say that some benches are too narrow, which makes it harder for the lifter to keep stable. I don’t think a bench should be less than 12 inches wide, and I like the Thompson bench pad, which is 14 inches. It provides a little more support, which can help with the pecs.
When Andreas Thorkildsen trained at Chula Vista, he bought a power rack from the Danish company ER Equipment and had it installed in our weight room because he liked the feel of it when he benched. A lot of Joe’s infamous Chula Vista squat videos were also done on that rack.
McThrows: When I interviewed Thorkildsen in 2010, he said he could bench 195k.
JM: He for sure benched a lot of weight and with a technique I would not have recommended. He used a really wide grip and he’d lower the weight slowly until it was a couple inches from his chest, then it became a reactive situation.
He’d say to me, “I know this isn’t what makes me throw far,” but he liked doing it, and it wasn’t a problem for him. He had the reactivity and connective tissue strength to avoid pec problems. He also cleaned 155k.
McThrows: Final thoughts?
JM: Even though injuries like the one Mykolas had are hard to predict, my suggestion to people would be to live to fight another day.
If you hit a bench PB,
it’s probably best to take the
win and move on.
Appreciate how much stronger you got, and keep in mind that you can now train off this new max, so every set going forward will be higher. There is certainly risk involved in trying to be the best in the world, but do your best not to be greedy.
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