The Camera Doesn't Lie

Hey guys, had a busy weekend with Steel City MMA making the big debut, Brent won in the 1st Round against a real tough opponent. Hoping to get this post out earlier but unfortunately got caught up doing other stuff. 
I want to talk about a great (and underutilized tool) that I have recently been incorporating into my coaching arsenal and personal lifting and it has made an immediate impact.

Real Cool

What is this mystery object that will add pounds to your clean, squat and dead lift? A camera. I believe that all athletes should have tape of their practices, especially if their competitions are spread apart. For weightroom purposes I am going to advocate the Flip Camera. I received one for my birthday and began implementing it immediately.The Flip is small, easy to carry/hold and I love the frame by frame option for breaking up the videos. It has really allowed me to help the athletes break down their lifts and view where they are going wrong.

From a pure weight room perspective (you are concerned only with your lifts) this is going to help you tighten up technique. I filmed a set of Deadlifts today and could have sworn I had a nice tight back through the full ROM but on camera saw that my shoulders were sagging and I was "reaching" for the ground on the last  3 or 4 reps. This pointed out an issue that I was unaware of and I will be adding some more upper back activation and strengthening work that I would not have otherwise.  From an on-field perspective we can use this to teach an athlete to recruit the correct muscle groups which will relate to a on-field power increase. Take for example a box jump, the athlete is bending at their knees and using their quads only to propel them onto the box. We tape this and show them how their hips need to push back and then extend. The athlete now performs the box jump but this time with glute (the bum muscles) recruitment. This ability transfers to speed and power in their respective sport and we were able to accelerate the athletes learning curve through the use of video.

Below is a video of one of our athletes learning to hang clean. Following there are some of the screen shots that I pulled out of the video to show him.

Now the screen shots...

Poor, poor, poor starting position

Elbow Fexion to early

Turn the bar over to early/Elbows back (which we can link to two previous images)

Catches the weight forward with low elbows

I am really not bashing on John Kyte, the athlete in this video. He is a real hard worker and since being shown this has corrected a lot of the issues seen here. I wish him all the best next year when he goes away to play hockey. The point I am emphasizing is that by using video technology you are able to break down the move and focus on a different area with each viewing, instead of trying to see everything once through in real time. It also gives the athlete a frame of reference to work from and to view the progress. If you are a trainer I would suggest spending the 130 dollars and investing in a camera. It is something that will only benefit you and you clients moving forward.