Tao of Boyle article

[Allen Yeh]

From this article:
http://www.tmuscle.com/issues/622/62...e_tao_of_boyle

As always Mike Boyle has his moments of "huh?" but IMO he knows his stuff even if I personally don't agree with some items.

• Or the flipside, you have the Crossfit guys who are just going to shit kick you until you can't move. That's just as bad. We've got uneducated trainers who don't challenge their clients and uneducated trainers who try to kill their clients.

I just thought that comment was pretty damn funny.

• The trap-bar deadlift is probably the best lower-body exercise. I think it's clearly the best bilateral exercise, since you're engaging your erectors and your traps much more than in a squat.

• I end all my sessions with conditioning. TMUSCLE readers aren't doing enough of it, either. If you're comfortable, or are doing long, slow cardio you can pretty much conclude it's a waste of time. Any young, fit guy should finish his conditioning and have to lie on the floor thinking, "God, that was awful."

[Grissim Connery]

• The trap-bar deadlift is probably the best lower-body exercise. I think it's clearly the best bilateral exercise, since you're engaging your erectors and your traps much more than in a squat.

how do you guy's feel about this?

• Why from a hang instead of the floor? Size differences. Olympic lifting favors shorter people. Suddenly when you're teaching the snatch to a football lineman, they have a hard time addressing the bar on the floor. It's also more practical to do it from the hang since it spares the back.

i have a somewhat stout build, and i find everything hang to be more draining. how do you guys feel about this?

• The close-grip hang snatch is the best power movement you can do. But you have to do them with a clean grip to spare your shoulders. The only reason guys do it with a wide grip is to use more weight, since it decreases the distance the bar has to travel.

thoughts on this?

[Derek Weaver]

Regarding trap bar, awesome. I really like them and wish I had one.

WRT the oly lifts from the hang, I also agree in terms of using them in a team setting. The tall guys may have more issues with a proper setup, but the bigger issue is execution and safety. It's easier to teach lifts from the hang than the ground.

[Garrett Smith]

Any young, fit guy should finish his conditioning and have to lie on the floor thinking, "God, that was awful."

Screw that. That's what Mike Caviston referred to as "drama queens".

[Robert Callahan]

Snatch grip is about flexibility not moving more weight at least for me and the people I have coached. I have had one or two athletes that could overhead squat with a clean grip, the vast majority, including myself, have to go wider.

[Brian DeGennaro]

Any young, fit guy should finish his conditioning and have to lie on the floor thinking, "God, that was awful."

Sounds like CrossFit...

[Steve Shafley]

There's a whole lot of crap associated with Boyle. I view him more as a marketer than anything else at this point.

Take the trap bar statement for instance.

I like them, no doubt. But "best lower body exercise"? I wouldn't necessarily argue with that statement, but I've got to ask "for what"?

Because, it's not the best lower body exercise if you want leg strength and hypertrophy. It's not the best lower body exercise if you need to beef your hips up. Or your lower back.

It's a compromise of an exercise, and that's OK, as long as you understand why, and know what you are trying to get at.

[Brian DeGennaro]

Everything has its place in anyone's training, just depends on who and what.

I don't like clean grip snatches because you need to use your arms and shoulders to lift it overhead more than in a regular snatch, especially beginners. Only people i know who do them right are real lifters. If using a regular snatch grip is messing people's shoulders up, it's because you are teaching them the snatch wrong.

[Kevin Perry]

Originally Posted by Garrett Smith

Screw that. That's what Mike Caviston referred to as "drama queens".

Seriously, that's my biggest turn off about CF and any workout that says a person should be lying on the ground feeling like shit is a shitty workout that has no place in a persons training.

[Derek Weaver]

Regarding conditioning, meh. People are so anti crossfit (I'm in this group) that they view any statement that's close to it as a problem.

Pushing the prowler, or sprinting up stadium bleachers will f-you up. Not very crossfitty, but still heave inducing. An intelligently designed suck fest certainly has its place if conditioning needs to be a focus.

Steve said it well noting that he's primarily a marketer. I actually like a fair amount of what he says, although maybe for different reasons than he does.

I remember a podcast with him a while back where he and the host were going over the successful hockey season they had at BU (I think Frozen Four in '09?) and the remarkably low number of games missed due to injury. He gets his guys in shape and injury free.