A post by John Smith copied from The Ring.  John is the coach of Dan Taylor and the husband/coach of Connie Price-Smith.  Just FYI.

1 I never said my lifting was easy,its very intense. Since I don't have time to go back and see what i wrote in 1999 i will try to show you what i am doing now. In the off season i lift 2 days per week. Those days right now are tuesday and friday.We do nothing but lift on those days.

2.On tuesday we start one week with hang cleans the next week with box cleans. Usually 5-6 sets. Right now we are in 5's. So a hang clean workout would look like this 5x135,175,205,225,245. Then thier is 1/2 rack dead lifts for a 3,3,3,3 and for this athlete 3x225,315,405,495. If they struggle to get the first rep of the rack then it's to heavy. I move these up about 2.5% every 2 weeks. The in between weeks are box cleans followed by speed dead lifts 6-9 singles with 30 sec rest done about 125-135% of clean max.
About 10% of athletes are better at box then hang cleans. In general the hangs run about 5-10% better then the box. I run the reps the same for a month so each workout is repeated once so athletes try to better what they did two weeks preceding.Then its off to some hard benching. The main bench this day is eithier bands from the bottom, bands from the top, chains, or normal bench. This right now is 5's coming off of 1 month of 8,s and 1 month of a 10,9,8,7,6,. Then i have them do 4 sets of eithier 30 or 45 degree dumbell incline. Then 4 sets of weighted dips or skull crushers. Then 4 sets of heavy rows high or low.Then 4 sets of Lat pulls, curls and 5 sets of landmines. Then they are done. It takes 1.5 hours if you are not sitting around. Some of the older athletes are doing my 7 week Russian bench workout but this is a much harder workout that is mainly boards on one day and a volume day the next. I run this only one time a year in the off-season. I usually get a 14-15% bench pr off this workout, but you have to be very careful with it. Its very hard on anterior delts, triceps and pecs.

3.Friday starts with 5 sets of snatches to warm the body up for the squats. Low reps 2-3 for 5 sets.In the fall one week is a safety sqaut workout the next week is eithier Box squats with bands from the bottom or top. I use eithier a 14 or 16 inch box depending on the height of the athlete. The safety squats are done with handles with the athlete standing within one foot of the rack (to make sure they go straight down and not lay back like i see many people use this bar)so its much like a over weight front squat. Loads are heavy and assistance from the handles are needed out of the bottom. Athletes are made to go below 90 and to an olympic full squat if possible. A typical workout done last week is 5x1.5plate,2.5p,3.5p,4.5p,5.5p (Plate is a 45lb, 1/2 plate is a 25lb)Then 5 sets of step ups on a 16 or 18 inch box are done. On the box squat weeks 1/2 rack sqauts and lunges are done.Usually 3 sets of 3 reps for the 1/2 rack and 5 sets of lunges. The rest of the workout is Incline Benching with a bar 30 or 45 degree for 5 sets.5 sets of overhead pressing,bar or dumbell and then 5x8 of reverse hypers, and then end with some landmine.

4.The throwing is done on Mondays,Wednesday,Thursday,Sunday 2 events a day. Saturday is off.


John Smith