Is This Lifting Form REALLY Bad? Lu Xiaojun Technique Review 

Lu when someone criticises his technique . "What colour is your Olympic Medal?"

if an exercise causes you pain or discomfort, no matter how many say it's essential, there's always something that can be done in it's stead. Just ask yourself what your goals are and what you're training for. Sustainability is key

I really thought this was an athleanx video when I clicked on it…

Ultimate specificity. 99.9% of gym goers will never need this kind of training, or understand it.

Over years of learning, adjusting, adapting various programs. Real glad to see Eugene's take on this as context is very important and critical to lifting, especially when training with others. There's not a 1 size fits all program that gets everything people want. Rather to tailor it to whomever's comfort level and goals should be one of the more important parts when exercising consistently. Just because it works for you, doesn't mean it'll work for someone else. As long as you're targeting the main muscles with good form, tension, and purpose, the exercise shouldn't matter provided you're doing it safely. Barbells, machines, free weights all serve a purpose.

I'm a physiotherapist: you can train anything, but of course certain exercises break down joints and lead to impingement. However, the cause is not the exercise, but the fact that the joint in question is not moving freely - either structurally or muscularly. Most people have these imbalances and they should not be underestimated because they go hand in hand with a lack of mind-muscle connection. Top athletes should have worked on these imbalances as much as possible so that they do not cause any difficulties during critical exercises. Normal people will definitely suffer injuries: Our practices are full of them. Amateur athletes, especially ambitious men, can also become victims because they tend to overdo it "bro"-wise.

Really happy you're covering Lu Xiajun! become a big fan of his over the last few months and his strength is just incredible.

Great video. Love that you explored this nuance. Also Lu Raises are killer for your shoulders. Thanks Lu

hi, ex-WLer here. let's ot forget, in all those explanations, that we WLers DO NOT WANT too much muscle! Muscle weighs a lot, and we must maintain category weight ! so the aim of OUR bodybuilding work is NOT to gain muscle mass; it is to develop power (F x V = force times velocity) in certain "dead zones" of the compound lifts; so when you see a WLer doing fast rows, with a lot of momentum, IT IS INTENDED to mimic a pull - for the muscle in focus: here the rear delts, the traps and the lats - but without the whole systemic stress of having to pull a heavy bar from the floor, when we already work the legs and the back so much !! THAT's the main reason!

Damn, Lu got those Asian aesthetics - he 40 but looks 20. And coach Eugene could probably pass for a high schooler lol I'm jealous.

If you look at Shohei Ono (2x Olympic gold medallist in Judo), he does dumbbell rows in exactly the same way as Lu is here, it is absolutely brilliant for training unilateral pulling power.

This is totally out of my league but I couldn’t resist the challenge to watch to the end. I did manage to glean something useful for my own goals though so thank you for sharing your knowledge :)

Most important is to stay safe. The wear and tear on the body is REAL, so always keep that in mind. Additionally, most if not all Olympic lifters are doped up, don't be fooled, this is not even me hating, just facts. Icarus is more proof of what we all already knew.

The context of what makes an exercise good or bad is crucial because herky jerky momentum based technique for Lu is indeed useful for his competition performance. Not only that, he has all the time in the world to train and specifically build his foundation to allow himself to successfully train the way he does. Jeff's videos about behind the head and neck presses and pulls aren't entirely wrong because civilians aren't training for global competition and aren't training in a way that supports those kinds of movements with such weight. It's a lot of work to be able to safely train that way even if you wanted to and at the end of day, they don't target muscles up there any better than regular presses and pull downs for those that just want to be generally strong and well developed.

He is an elite Olympic athlete with training staff, coaches etc and more equipment than the biggest public gyms Everything has purpose

Its kinda funny, before I had an education in sports Science I loved athlean X, after I got educated I started liking Eugene, Jeff Nippard and Fitnessfaq way more. Cheers man

I love your matter of fact tone and rational review of this! I have seen some people in my gym doing lifting like this and definitely judged them. I don't think their technique is based upon this, but it gives me more room to allow different training styles, thank you!

Lu Xiaojun's explosive movements are great..for him..under supervision from his coach. I'd hurt myself doing that, so not good long-term for me. Thanks for pointing this out.

It's all about minimizing risk. Why do the risky lift when the less risky lift gives the same results. Saying the behind the back pulldown is less risky than a normal pulldown is insanity. And what's to gain from it

1:55 Pause. This is one of the most incredible lifts/recoveries i've ever seen. Guy is unbelievable

Important to separate the exercises that an olympic athlete like Lu does, to what an average joe is capable of. Which also is what Athlean X targets. I’ve had shoulder pain from those very exercises he mentioned, so doing alternative exercises with the same result is great.

4:27 "...recreational lifters..." Shows a clip of Daina Lynn Bailey.

Genetics(built for weightlifting), drugs and consistent training. It's ridiculously easy to build strength and muscle on compounds so he can get away with it and would be successful with those accessory movements regardless. Doesn't mean anyone else should lift like that.

It's so fascinating to see how a great deal of ideas I was taught in the gym in the 1990s and 2000s are now considered either debatable or plain incorrect. I started realizing that in 2014 in Kazakhstan, while training with some serious local powerlifters who helped me making incredible progress at the age of 40yo.

In order to understand more deeply this type of training, one needs to put Lv Xiaojun (and all of the male/female Chinese national weightlifters) in proper context. These athletes are generally from extremely poor families with little prospect of economic advancement, so they are willing to sacrifice a great deal in order to obtain financial security for themselves and their families. They are selected from a very young age to enter local gov't weightlifting organizations and trained/evaluated for potential. Those who show adequate promise slowly move up to higher and higher level gov't sponsored weightlifting programs, until only a very few, elite athletes are selected for the Chinese national team. Lv Xiaojun and his fellow Chinese national team members are essentially the best out of 1.4 billion people. They are genetically gifted people who have been trained very intensely from a very young age using state-of-the-art training techniques. Their training techniques are NOT for the "average" person, as Lv and his fellow athletes are essentially the last ones standing--every other athlete who did not have the genetic gifts to survive such rigorous training and excel at the lifts have long ago been weeded out. Lv and his compatriots have been conditioned from young childhood to develop the connective tissue strength, etc. to best withstand this type of training. Even so, I fully expect that these athletes after retirement will have significant joint problems later in life--possibly catastrophic in late life. Over the course of his career I have seen Lv suffer many, many injuries. One should consider the full context of this type of training style before considering whether it is wise to emulate such training. Beware.

The focus of the workouts like the lat pull downs are not to isolate the back. It’s to show the muscles to work together as part of a bigger system, translating to a movement like the clean.

lu is a genetic phenom and been training insanely hard, avoiding the behind the neck stuff is mostly so that newer lufters don't get injured because they may not know the difference between pain and soreness, when you reach a higher level with your training and try them and they work then there's no reason not to do them

he's goal is different from rest so there is nothing wrong with it. He's working out with purpose, whereas most of us are working out for aesthetic and health. That dude n his coach know what they r doing 100%. It's not for us though 😂

Power lifting and bodybuilding for health and longevity are two very different things.

I would try to avoid any exercise that forces me to rapidly move my neck forward causing a straight cervical spine which can in turn cause degeneration in the neck and bone growth which can also in turn later cause your arms to atrophy if the nerves become compressed from bone growth.

Daddy Lu is my favourite weightlifter of all time. He has a tough road ahead of him trying to qualify for Paris in 2024 as his main adversary in that same weight class is his team mate shi zhiyong who while he hasn’t been at the top aslong as Lu has been, shi has been a far more dominant force in the 73kg weight class and has never been defeated since it’s inception. I want more than anything to see Lu have a shot at a 4th gold medal but boy does he have quite The challenge ahead over the next 1.5 years😅 if you’re not familiar with shi definitely watch some of his videos he’s insane!

As a huge weightlifting fan, I can't agree more with this video!

I've come to the following conclusion, building as I once learned, slow controlled, has its moments but overall its weaker. It isolates far too much and creates an abnormal non functional muscle that's only good for one movement. The more dynamic and engaged the body is the more powerful and overall range of power you will have. So this guy effectively is engaging whole kinetic chains of muscle, not isolating a single one but using them all together with focus on the one proving the most work overall, it will provide a much more dynamic body and one capable of working muscles together to deliver much better power. I agree with this now, i didnt always.

The problem with upright rows is that people tried to lock the scapula and make them upright delt raises.... this wreaks havoc on the shoulders. It is called a ROW for a reason.

Creating fear is a big thing and hopefully it will spread thinner as time goes by. Behind the neck things are a question of individual structure and mobility. I am not doing it, but trained a few people who can put their shoulders in position that makes me drop my jaw and they can get away doing these if they would like to. Either way, I am glad you made this video!

I can see what he is training, but I think the risk using machines like that is high for most people. He snatches and jerks huge numbers every week. He is training to compete at the highest level of a sport and is genetically gifted. I am currently nursing a side delt injury just from forcing myself to catch the jerk in the bottom of that squat jerk position. I am going back to split jerks after this and not playing around with that Chinese stuff.

this man is just incredible athlete.

I hate when gymbros see someone doing an exercise differently to what their favorite RU-vidr said and they are like "Hurr 0 reps, 0 reps" or "This is wrong form, you are not going to build muscle" Not everyone in the world goes to the gym to look good on the beach.

Makes sense most of the Olympic lifts include different movements in one lift. So essentially they are training their entire body when doing any one specific movement.

A lot of people like to rag on AthleanX, but he has legit point. A lot of people (including myself) have gotten hurt doing many of the things he recommends against. Most people are taking unnecessary risk with things like behind the neck exercises and one arm bench rows with tons of momentum. What’s funny is I’ve seen programs from other science based creators and they don’t seem to program those exercises much either so 🤷‍♂️

I definitely need to include more plyometrics, my muscles respond really well to it. When hiking somewhere and occasionally jumping onto and off higher stuff for fun often feels like a better workout than deadlifting. I feel my legs, back, glute and core much better than after the gym.

1:37 I've never seen lower back muscles so massive!

most gym goers dont do olympic weightlifting. bodybuilders, Olympic weightlifters, powerlifters, etc. They all have their own trainings and forms to optimise their performance. There is no one size fits all things in these arenas.

I hosted Coach Ma here in Melbourne just a few weeks back. You should have joined us! Also Venus Weightlifting explains this "bounce bounce" method.

I learned one thing from your video is to do whatever and however you want eventually you will build strength and muscle.

As a physio i agree with you 💯 there is a many physios who make Patient horror stories

I appreciate your approach. Philosophical Commentary, Based In Science, With An Adaptive Real World Perspective.

He's like Ronnie Coleman...Legendary champion but at a huge cost.

He's a 3x Olympic champion and a 5x world champion. Good or bad form it works for him. Congrats to the athlete.

I also believe, that the Chinese use momentum because Olympic lifting is about using all of your muscles in coordination, and using momentum with their accessories makes them better at coordinating their body.

When people talk in term of bad and good they enter a grey zone that become subjective. Is it efficient? Fun? Confortable?.... Great video by the way.

The comments in this video are something else man. Thank god I'm not a youtuber so I don't have to deal with these idiots

Great video great advice, if a Exercise is performed to max capability and doesnt cause discomfort its okay even if its not perfect because every single one of us is built differently and what works for me doesnt have to work for you

I think the one thing that's missing in the notes about how Lu and other Olympic lifters are doing certain movements that is missing is that they're all sauced to the max. For most people who aren't into that, those movements, and the shoulder exercise movements in the later half will absolutely fuck you up. And just because a few are able to do it, doesn't mean everyone can. Looking at the few to exemplify an ideal for the many is just dumb honestly. Genetics will determine a lot, and the few at the top are always those who have the best genetics, so using them as examples to validate things that will harm regular guys doesn't work. Plus, they're all juiced up, so that helps them a lot

i think the backsquat at 0:30 is 280 kg. eleiko has green 20 kg plates to it looks like five 20 kg plates, and two 15 kg plates so 260 kg + bar. he wouldn't be struggling that much with a 200 kg backsquat

Olympic weightlifters have the shoulder flexibility to do olympic lifts as safe as possible. I think many people don't understand that weightlifters are the most well rounded in terms of strength, explosiveness, technique and flexibility compared to bodybuilding, powerlifting and strongmen.

The pinnacle of Olympic weightlifting training is not meant for 99.999% of the population. Their training is for one purpose, to clean and jerk 200kg which is absolutely ridiculous.

Zack Telander explains the reasons behind the way he does his accessory work well

Eugene. Your demonstrations in this video made me spit out my coffee. Thanks.

His power is crazy...one i have no interest in matching...lol. ill stick to my regular training regime, but that was a really interesting watch, very informative.

I fully cracked up when it flashed to Eugene’s pull downs at the beginning 😂😂😂😂😂

Very interesting video and some really interesting training techniques. Not that I'll ever use them. I also won't be getting any gold medals but still. 👏 Fair play to this particular olympian!

It's simple really. When I see Lu I press like.

I used to do this with close grip lat pulldowns. It felt so good. A personal trainer in the gym with a client actually criticized my technique, if I recall he said it was useless and dangerous. He did not have an inspiring physique or strength. Sorry mate I'll keep doing what works for me and feels good. Just like this Olympian will react to anyone watching from home who says his technique doesn't work haha. He's the world champ, we should all be humble enough to learn from him. I would still do slow and isolated as well on different days. Seeing someone do fast movements doesn't mean they only do fast movements with that exercise. Variation feels better. Of course, perhaps he was right, and perhaps he trains elite athelites, but there was no sign of this over all the times I saw him with clients at the gym.

Good form isolation of muscles is better... Doing all those other movements works not like farmer strength bring body in to meet the weight... Just a thought Like the stages techniques for training which could be broken down even more on clean and jerk. Changing the height of clean. Starting at different points. Or exact movements. Welcome Sha Sha

This is why I train at home and have become my own gym. I can be creative with my exercises and invent my own ways of lifting.

The explanation is The Lifts are dynamic so accessory work is also dynamic and I mean every single acc movement is performed in a dynamic fashion No use for slow isolation Do I get a Bruce Lee tee shirt? 👍😎 Great vid coach

1:44 Real Ninja Turtle

Also you can see that when the joint is in an a poor position (example when pulldown bar is behind head) there is no load, instead momentum is bringing it into and out of that range. The momentum was generated earlier in the movement, when the body was in a good position.

Upright rows with Shrugs as superset, is what worked best for me for traps.

The way they are looking jacked is close to natural limit of bodybuilding, while having imense power and mobility, for me this kind of training seems superior.

For every one of him there are 100s of people getting injured from that way of lifting. Just because one guy gets away with it doesn't mean you will

Pretty much what I’ve always said… any movement is beneficial.. it simply matters what your goals are. You want your nutrition and program aligned with your goals.

Very insightful, thank you!

he explained why he/ they do it before, its all about explosivity. they even acknowledge that this is "bad" technique if i remember correctly, its just specification which is the most fundamental principa in training alongside consistency

The legend Lu Xiaojun. 3 times olympic gold medalist

Doesn't relate to the video itself, but wasn't expecting you to wear a Plini t-shirt, I see you are a man of culture as well 😌

It's bad if you're a beginner or a first timer, but if you keep doing this kind of workout, your joints will adapt. Hence, his training is for specific sports, but I don't recommend this for longevity, for this will damage your joints even if you're used to this kind of workout.

Note : The moves doesn't concentrate on physical development.

Wild how fitness knowledge has proliferated in the past 5 years. Not too long ago people would bash at stuff like this and preach that knee's don't go over toes or you should ice injuries for recovery

What a great video. Truly informed content. Good stuff Eugene.

Can't I create the same tension by doing fast movements with more reps instead of fewer reps with slow movements? Talking about hypertrophy but trying to have more training economy so the workout can transfer for better athleticism overall.

I almost never question people's technique at the gym unless they are clearly a newbie. I find most people at my gym are there to supplement other exercise they do

when i started back lever, it really did a toll to my shoulder where it felt as any injured joint breaking point. but as weeks goes, my shoulder did adopt.

That fuckin lat pull down had me rolling

Brilliantly intelleigent video. NCSF Master Trainer here and I totally agree with you 100%. You are on point sir!

They’re not bodybuilders its understandable..they focus on speed and maximum strength.

I think muscles gained from fast reps are more dense and stronger. While those who makes a few heavy reps gained muscles quicker but they ain't of the same quality.

My first recommendation for your videos. Love it thanks

Excellent video mate, well balanced information.

In the book buildingthegymnasticbody their are behind the neck pull ups the. You can do these pull up safely as long as you meet the strength standards to do them. Thing is 99% of people in a normal gym do not have the strength to do them safely. Not that the movement is not safe it that people do not have the flexibility to do it right and strength.

Circus olympics at 0:12 😂😂

I think it's also very good for developing tendons, because high speed movements put a lot more strain on the joints. Obviously if your joints are not prepared this is horrible, but if you are high level athlete with tendons and ligaments of steel this is the type of training necessary to take you to the next level. Humans are connective-tissue dominant, not muscle dominant.

great video. back to training movements and not muscles.

Thank you for this explanation.

Awesome vid! Love the content!

This video was a bummer because I do like Eugene. Regardless of whether or not exercises like the upright row can result in injuries like impingement over time, it's pretty classless to use photos/videos from a significantly more popular channel that you disagree with to create controversy and get more views. For example, this is Eugene's 9th most viewed video out of the 260 on his channel, and is one of only two videos uploaded in the last four months that have over 900k views (as of 4/2023). Coincidence? I think not. Say what you want about Jeff Cavaliere, not once has he ever used photos or videos of another channel that he's disagreed with. Couple that with him being a former physical therapist and a simple Google search of "upright rows and shoulder impingement" yielding numerous results of upright row risks from other studies and orthopedic institutes, I'll let you judge whose analysis is more valid.

The key difference is, dude is training to lift heavier weights. We are training to get a better build. The way to achieve either is fundamentally different and on the opp spectrum

I am not sure whether this video's target was to teach us about exercises variation or just attack AthleanX.

Excellent excellent content. Can you please do more of Chinese or other lesser known styles?