Vladimir Safonov on Women’s Weightlifting Training

During Dmitry Klokov’s training camps in Chekhov he invites various coaches to give lectures.

In the following video he had coach Vladimir Safonov speak about the peculiarities of women’s weightlifting training.

If you are not familiar with him, he trained Olga Zubova and Oksana Slivenko among others.

Some Notes:

• Women can handle higher workloads than men
• have more energy left for other exercises
• that’s why they have their women do more volume, more reps
• developed upper body (broad shoulders) is very important for Jerks. Since women have less muscle mass compared to men in that area, they need to spend more time, doing bench press, push press, pull ups, push ups etc
• women can handle more pain, don’t get as many injuries as men do
• other than that exercises are the same for men and women
• women have more trouble learning technique , he thinks it’s psychological in nature
• he likes the girls attitudes in the national team, very focused, on target
• age 13-17 is when girls progress most, for boys it’s from 17-22,
• that’s why girls lift more weights earlier than men do
• To get them to world level in their system they try to get girls at 11/12 years old (max 13/14), so they can teach them technique while they hit puberty. Then when she starts to grow, they prepare her for the “big level”. Age 13/14 at very latest
• he emphasizes the importance of jumping and stretching
• every girl in national team can do splits
• beginners do lots of jumping

Psychology

• from his experience women concentrate more than men
• once technique is on point they like max weights to reduce fear of lifting weights overhead / getting under the bar
• if there is no fear in a girl’s head they already know she can become a champion
• fears are hard to get rid off, to reduce fear, give her big weights to lift at 14/15 when the girl has a good technique

Training During a Woman’s Period

• he had students at world championships that had their period
• every woman is different
• his students trained the same way
• the body just gets used to it
• don’t skip training, do more warm ups, more stretching