Olympic weightlifting is a controversial subject in strength and conditioning. Some coaches love the lifts and base a large part of their programmes around them, some use derivatives like hang cleans and pulls in their programmes and other coaches are against them completely and don’t seem to use them at all.

For me like many questions in our industry, the answer is always it depends on a number of factors.

Here are 3 of them off the top of my head:

- Do your athletes possess the basic movement patterns such as squatting, lunging, pressing, pulling to a good level of competency?

If so you could consider putting olympic lifting into the programme in some form. When I think about the populations I work with I tend to go through a basic strength phase which emphasises movement competency in exercises such as front squats, deadlifts, jumping and landing efficiency and upper body pushing and pulling as well as general bodyweight efficiency. During this process I usually have one or two basic olympic lifting progressions in there such as pull to catch or stiff legged deadlifts to shrug often in the warm-ups purely to learn the movements.

Once competency has been achieved in these areas I may look to incorporate loaded  low and high pulls, some kind of loaded jumping movements such as hang cleans or jump squats in there and progress on towards power cleans. The key for me is earning the right and this comes with time.

- How much time do you have to work with the clients/athletes in question?

Is the goal to get a training effect NOW? Or do you have time to work with people for some time. My elite badminton players do power cleans and derivatives most weeks in their S&C programme. My pro MMA fighters may do some basic hang cleans if they’ve been with me for a while and have gone through the phases of development. Most of them will not though, and the reason for this is that they are paying me for instant results (rightly or wrongly) and I can get similar results using jump squats or other loaded jumping exercises. Or they are working through the development programme and towards the competencies I outlined above.

- Do you know how to coach the lifts to achieve the training effect you want form them?

This is by far the most important question of them all for me. Do you know how to get results from the lifts? What are you using them for? For me the lifts are great for developing total body explosive power/strength, eccentric strength through the catch and all round  motor control and co-ordination which are all valuable qualities for many athletes. However this can only be achieved with a solid understanding of the movements, quality coaching progressions, experience doing them yourself to pass on the info to your athletes, and the confidence to go out and put the progressions into your programmes.

These are just 3 of the questions that need to be considered in your S&C programmes. The main point for me is that it really is not a race to get your athletes doing cleans and snatches. They need to earn the right and go through the progressions. towards that goal. There are other factors to consider as well as the three above such as injury history, logistics of the gym session itself (large groups might be tough to supervise etc), chronological and training age of the client etc etc so bear these in mind too.

Are you a fan of the lifts? Do you use them with all populations? Are there athletes you don’t use them with? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

If you are looking to learn olympic weightlifting and want to learn from literally the VERY BEST THERE IS, you should get yourself to the workshop with GB WEIGHTLIFTING HEAD COACH TAMAS FEHER on the 28th January at Leeds Met.

Tamas is an excellent coach who has taught me a lot over the last couple of years of sharing the weights room with him and his athletes. I honestly couldn’t recommend him highly enough. I first met him long after i’d been through the UKSCA workshops and trained in the lifts for many years myself. I’ve picked up a hell of a lot of info and practical guidance to aid my personal training and my coaching as well.

He has an excellent text on the same subject which will be available on the day to workshop attendees. Tamas presents around the world alongside S&C greats like Charles Poliquin and many more.

The workshop is available at a discounted price of £99 for the next week only and then the price goes up to £129. I’m keeping the workshop limited to 15 people and there are only a few sports still available. I want the group to get top quality coaching from Tamas and keep the level really high.

You can read more about the workshop at the link below along with details on how to book etc.

Olympic Weightlifting Workshop with Tams Feher

Act quickly if you are interested as i think it will sell out in the next week or so.

See you there!

PS If you havent watched my two webinars on S&C for 2012 check them out NOW, their both FREE and well worth a look.

Here’s the link: 2012 webinars

BC

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