I thought Telander's critic was very reasonable. I've followed Rip for a while, and I'm not sure he "lost it", more like he "never had it".
Many of his technique tips and setups on the basic lifts are good, a lot of the rest is lacking. He will critique the US team's Olympic weightlifting coaches for not focusing on strength, but has never trained a high level Oly competitor or programmed for one in his life. That alone is suspect, he speaks with an authority he does not have. He bullshits about his qualifications. I can see how that would bother a professional Oly coach.
Also, IMO his position is fallacious. Saying "well, you just need to be stronger" is too simplistic. A lifter with a 650lb DL who's able to snatch with impeccable technique and has worked more on power generation might snatch more than a lifter with a 700lb DL who hasn't spent time doing those things (made up numbers). He makes a strawman that "Weightlifters think they don't need to deadlift or be strong". They will have to manage their training time and recovery resources and give the DL a relative importance within their program compared to other stuff they need to improve. I haven't tested this stuff, but as an argument form the guy in the video, who actually trains weightlifters, it makes sense to me. Rip seems to think they should prioritize the main strength lifts and "just get stronger".
Rip also criticizes the low hips position in the clean and the snatch and preaches a high hips "Deadliftesque" starting position. He also recommends Oly W. do low bar squats in training and says high bar is pointless. His arguments seem to be purely theoretical, not empirical, and I've seen very few competitive lifters or coaches train like that (there are some, maybe). I don't know much about Oly W., but my perception is that he's kind of full of shit with that too, he speaks with a level of confidence that seems to be based on nothing but theory.
Aside from this vid, Rip's position on RPE training is total nonsense. He will dismiss empirical evidence from hundreds of lifters setting PRs at all levels and using RPE successfully (with its admitted flaws and limitations) in favor of some theoretical reason why anything except pure linear progression with %s is wrong. He says RPE is a trick to sell templates and save coaching time. That is simply bullshit and laughable.
His "Put on 5lbs and eat more" approach will work for a while, and I used it for a long time, but there's many other approaches that work well in the long run for a lot of people, because no one can progress linearly forever. As soon as anything except pure linear progression comes up, he will say "I don't program for PLs because they don't pay the bills, your grandma who comes to the gym does. I don't care about advanced programming." A total cop out imo, because his forums are filled to the brim with young guys looking to get stronger, and they are the main reason why he's popular on the internet, not grandmas, and he also published a long ass book about programming that he recommends all the time. He will participate in the strength programming discussion and make a ton of recommendations, and then cop out when his methods and results are criticized.
