Attention deficits and lateral argumentation

This is the comment on my post of 26th of September by Brian:

Eugene, I believe that you are over thinking! GS (snatch) is a 10 minute competition that allows you one switch! You repeatly say that you love the multiple switch sets and you talk and talk about how much better they are than the OTW but you are forgetting that that is not GS. Its like saying that you love marathons but you never run the full 26 miles and that you prefer to walk every 2 or 3 miles! The bottom line is that snatching for 10 minutes with one switch is damn hard and switching mulitple times is easier. Im excited that you are challenging yourself and you working out for long sets and you enjoy it, but try not to put down one switch training because when it comes down to it, training with just one switch is leaps and bounds harder than switching every minute or 20 reps.

My workout on that day was single switch max snatch set. And yet Brian urges me not to "put down one switch training because..." Such is the strength of the belief in OTW that its practitioners cannot pay enough attention to what is written in black and white. The analogy with marathon is also off: do marathoners cover full distance every training session?

As I am becoming addicted to running I am re-reading Daniels' Running Formula. How do you think 5000 m runners train? By running 5000 m every session trying to get faster every time? It may be unbelievable but no! Several methods are used: easy long runs, repetitive runs, hill runs, lactate threshold runs, race pace runs, intervals and even strength training. Why GS should be different beats me. Every training modality has its place and should be used accordingly. Brian, go tell 5000m runners doing intervals that it is not middle distance running, see what they say.

This kind of reasoning is not unique. Couple of days ago there was a discussion of long multi-switch snatch sets for fitness. Catherine Imes made some input. When I replied to it her consequent response was totally out of wack. Instead of continuing the discussion of merit of multi-switch she said that she has responsibility to her clients, totally ignoring principal points of my post. And a nice touch at the end of Cimes' previous post: "hey, who am I to argue..." Catherine, you are not arguing, you are making sure to have the last word, no matter what.

What the hell, I should get used to it by now. The philosophy of GS in the US comes from one source, Valery Fedorenko. I don't want to take anything away from his achievements as an athlete or a coach, but having single source of information unfortunately led to single-sided approach to this sport, and the religios blindness of OTWers sometimes becomes fucking irritating. There is just no way to have a discussion.

But hey, who am I for you to listen to? I am an amateur approaching fifty year old mark and don't have great achievements in GS. Any achievements for that matter.

Therefore this is entirely up to you. I am not sure myself why I continue posting here and on IGx. I guess there are people who have an open mind, and they will get the points I am trying to get across. This blog is for those who are interested in the information that exists out there.

FYI, Brian and Catherine, continuous snatching as laid out on my blog has been recommended by Vasily Ginko, current GS world champion for that matter. Similarly, Russian EDT has been recommended for beginners by a coach and MS Alexey Mandrigelya on Rybinsk GS forum. Ryabchenko - well, Rayabchenko is Ryabchenko, a household name among Russian gireviks. Every author of articles I translated - Rudnev, Lopatin, Gomonov for starters -is either a famous athlete or a coach - in Russia mind you, the country where GS is taught professionally. If they are not reputable to you - well, who am I to insist.

In brief, GS should include several modalities of training that affect various qualities necessary for this sport. By adhering just to one you rob yourself of progress and fun in the long run. But hey, who am I to argue...