• 2 days ago
TK
Transcript
00:00Hey guys, I'm Ry Benjamin, Olympic gold medalist in the 400 hurdles, and I'm going to take
00:20you through what it's like to train as an Olympic gold medalist in the weight room.
00:24I compete in the 400 hurdles, American record holder, second fastest man of all time, and
00:31Olympic champ.
00:32So my average week of training consists of two lifts per week.
00:37The lifts are completely different depending on the day.
00:39On the track, it all depends on the time of year, pretty much November through February.
00:44It's a lot of base work, maintain some level of fitness or gain some new level of fitness
00:49in order to carry on into the actual season of running.
00:53And that now consists of you actually running a lot faster at practice and getting on a
00:59race rhythm and trying to find that race rhythm throughout the year.
01:02Towards the championship part of the season, I always say you don't necessarily get faster.
01:08You just get a lot sharper.
01:09You become more efficient in what you're doing.
01:12Well, enough for me yapping because I'm a certified yap, and I'm going to show you what
01:18my workouts look like.
01:22So the first movement we're going to go through is hand cleans.
01:27You have the bar and you are going into a cleaning motion and catching.
01:32And the reason is to really work on your explosiveness when you're running and being able to absorb
01:39impact and also create that impact into energy moving forward down the track.
01:45The difference between competing at the Olympics and competing at any other meet is you are
01:51representing not only yourself, but your country and your family.
01:55And it's a sense of patriotism, a sense of importance.
02:01And it feels really good when you get the job done and you feel like you made everyone
02:06proud and made yourself proud.
02:09Next movement in our Olympic lifting regimen is power cleans.
02:15And the reason for this, your block clearance.
02:18So that's exiting the starting blocks and really getting that explosive push out of
02:24the blocks as you would if you are pulling the bar up.
02:28So you want to get full extension and we all always, always, always exaggerate having full
02:32extension out of the blocks.
02:34So that is to facilitate you getting that movement, feeling that explosiveness from
02:41a block setting.
02:44My training goals are to always be better than I was last offseason and really kill
02:48the preseason offseason training because I think that sets you up very well going into
02:53the season.
02:54So that's just always my goal.
02:56Some years are tougher than others.
02:59The next workout in my regimen is step ups.
03:03And what that focuses on is hip flexors, leg drives, and core stability.
03:10And that's all important when running, especially being a hurdler.
03:13I need really, really good hip flexor strength and stability.
03:23Diet and nutrition play an enormous role for me as a track athlete.
03:26You want to make sure that you're fueling your body with the right things in order to
03:31perform very well.
03:32I take my diet and nutrition very seriously in season and try to do all the right things
03:37that will help me be successful.
03:39So whether that's like hiring a chef or making my own meals or making sure that I'm taking
03:44the right supplements as well, I think is extremely important.
03:48And drinking water.
03:49Drink your water, people.
03:51Cable core rotation or I like to call it woodchoppers.
03:54I don't know if it's the right technical term, but I think it's cool to call it that.
03:58And what you're basically doing is what the exercise says.
04:02You're taking the cable and you're bringing it front side and you're keeping that core
04:08stabilized.
04:09And as mentioned before, stabilization is super important for what we do, especially
04:15hurdling when you're getting off the hurdle.
04:17You want to be able to be upright and straight and have a good posture and good position
04:22when running.
04:24Last exercise in our lineup is I's, Y's and T's.
04:30And this is basically done on the ground, head facing down on your stomach.
04:35And you are getting six reps I's, Y's and T's.
04:41And that's basically working on your arms, shoulders so that you can have good drive
04:46when running because that's very important because a lot of your power comes from your
04:49arms, especially in those latter stages of the race where you're dying and you feel like
04:55your legs got cement in them, go to your arms.
04:59And that's kind of the sentiment with the I's, Y's, T's, getting that, getting those
05:04areas stronger so that when you're stroking or when you're pumping your arms, whatever
05:09term you want to use, super efficient.
05:11All right, guys, thank you for tuning in with me on how to become an Olympic medalist through
05:17my wonderful, wonderful lifting program.
05:21I appreciate you guys and maybe see you in the next installment, 2028.