Olympic Lift Talk

Olympic lifts main objective is to develope explosiveness by working hip, knee and ankle extension extension...




A major topic that always comes up in the world of Strength and Conditioning is the use of Olympic Lifts in a program. Personally I do not use OLY lifts with any of my athletes for two major reasons. My job as a strength coach is to get athletes results as quickly and efficiently as possible. If I have an athlete for four months prior to the season I do not want to spend 1-2 months teaching the athlete how to snatch or clean correctly using a PVC pipe. The second major reason is because I feel there is many other ways to develop explosiveness just as good as Olympic lifts (try weighted box jumps). Joe Defranco said is perfectly, Olympic weight lifting is a sport in itself. Athletes reaching the elite level spend 10+ years mastering the movements. I am not going to spend all that time teaching an athlete another sport, while setting back there development. I do agree that OLY lifts improve power/explosiveness and athletes who are efficient at these lifts become better overall athletes, but, I also believe there is a time and place for them and that time and place is not in my gym!
The other day while drilling the Virginia Beach BEAST, Matt Wichlinski, we went in great detail discussing this very topic. Matt is an advanced OLY lifter and using many of these lifts with his athletes. The way he explained the progressions up to the OLY lifts to me was genius! Everyone agrees that OLY lifts are about explosiveness but if you do not have adequate STRENGTH there is no power and no explosiveness. Matt said it best, who cares if someone is explosive and has proper form snatching a PVC pipe, if they are not strong enough to snatch a 45lb bar what good will they be on the playing field?
Any good strength program has one thing in common, progressions. All athletes must progress through certain movements before graduating to more advanced ones. Think about it, how many people do you know that skipped Elementary/Junior High School and went straight to High school? Not many and that is exactly how you must look at weigh training. Matt and I have very similar believes when it comes to the world of Strength and Conditioning. We both feel that STRENGTH is crucial in the development of any athlete. This is why none of Matts athletes are doing cleans without proven they have the strength to front squat baseline weights with flawless form. Snatches? You better be practicing your overhead squats because the same rules apply here. By doing this, Matt is assuring himself that his athletes have not only the proper baseline strength but the movement pattern down so they can begin doing OLY lifts and maximize the results.
The one word I always come back to when speaking of my programming is PRODUCTIVITY! I want to be as product with my athletes in the little time I spend with them. Coming back to another great Defranco quote he once used the example of a trainer making a client perform jumping jacks for an hour straight. Ya the client is going to be gassed at the end of the session but how productive was the workout? This is exactly how I feel about making OLY lifts a staple in an athletes program. Will I ever use these lifts with my athletes? After the conversation I had with Matt it is definitely a possibility but only for athletes who have been in the program for awhile and prove to have developed enough strength to maximize the results!

























Dan Hardy performing weighted trap bar jumps, developing explosive power by working hip, knee and ankle extension extension... and it takes a tenth of the time to teach as OLY lifts!!