When you're an olympic weightlifting coach, you're a leader, a guide, a teacher: You're the go-to person when people around you need answers. And while this is certainly a position of honor, it also comes with its difficulties, chief among them: Knowing who you can turn to with your questions. That's precisely why we invited Dr. Jason Miller, Ph.D., Renaissance Periodization coach, and founder and head coach of Oklahoma City University/Oklahoma City Barbell Club, onto our podcast. 

Not only does Jason hold a doctoral degree in exercise physiology, but he is a voracious reader who loves learning— he’s the kind of person who’d much rather pick up a textbook than a novel and whose free time is often spent pouring over studies. In addition, he has an impressive depth and breadth of experience as a strength and conditioning coach, olympic weightlifting coach, Renaissance Periodization coach, and exercise and sport science professor. He's coached youth athletes, masters athletes, recreational athletes, Olympic-level athletes and everyone in between. He's a treasure trove of knowledge, and we couldn't wait to pick his brain.

We spent over an hour asking Jason everything from, "How do you bridge the gap between sports performance literature and the practice of coaching?" to, "How do you take anthropometrics into account when writing an athlete's program?" and "How and when do you use variants of the snatch and clean & jerk to build athletes' confidence?" and much more.

He was an incredible sport about it all, and he gave us a LOT of food for thought, both from a technical, programming perspective and a philosophical coaching perspective. If you're looking to dive down the rabbit hole of programming design and coaching methodology for olympic weightlifting, if you've got nuts-and-bolts questions concerning the application of the latest scientific research on strength, power, technique development and more, then this podcast is a must-listen.

Got questions of your own? Contact Dr. Jason Miller on Instagram: @coach_drmiller.