Next, there will be dynamic muscle action with the pull. There is concentric muscle action as the bar makes contact off the hips. Now the athlete goes to catch and has to absorb a ton of energy. Absorbing a ton of energy transfers very well to the athletic realm. The athlete learns how to absorb force and reuse it.

So the athlete is in an eccentric state for a brief period and they create a stretch-shortening cycle out of the bottom position, using absolute strength to stand up.

That is technical coordination. Technical muscular actions firing from all these different means of recruitment all at once. The body is learning skills that are very difficult to learn. The body struggles if it is not trained enough.

Technical coordination is paramount. Training mobility using the Olympic lifts is easy. For instance, when catching a clean in-the-hole, athletes have to have their knees travel past their toes.

It has to happen. It is okay for the knees to track over the toes. It improves ankle mobility. It improves hip mobility and thoracic spine mobility. It teaches positional explosiveness. We can train positional explosiveness based on sports. For instance, training a linebacker with a two-block clean is an excellent variation of the Olympic lifts to be utilized to train positional explosiveness.

A lot of athletes and coaches love to pick one-off situations. They see this one successful athlete doing a one-off movement. It is not effective to pick one-off situations.

What is more effective is to understand the development of the general population. So if we can take John or Jane, who is in 6th grade, and develop them to go play at the Division 1 level, that is a general population.

Being able to repeat that and do it over and over again, like how we here at Garage Strength have gotten over athletes to the NCAA, by taking a general population and developing people of various different degrees of athletic capability through Olympic weightlifting because we can maximize their potential.

Now as a coach, we can see how normal people can get developed through Olympic weightlifting. Coaches can see that if they can get a standard athlete to a certain level, they can get a superior athlete even further.

Coaches have to think about the key element to most sports. Most sports demand athletes recruit rapidly, absorb a ton of force, have a lot of mobility and positional explosiveness.

Educating athletes and their bodies on how to move by training difficult skills, their dynamic reactiveness, dynamic trunk control, absolute strength, and their mobility we can see a great amount of transfer of training. What happens is that the Olympic weightlifting movements set athletes up for a great transfer of training.

It creates rapid rates of coordination. Doing fast movements teaches the nervous system how to fire rapidly allowing the athlete to recruit high threshold motor units faster. The key concept here is that Olympic weightlifting is the foundation.

Coaches can pull from bodybuilding, powerlifting, plyometric work, the mobility realm, and trunk training. The core, the basis, is all around the foundation of Olympic lifts in which coaches learn how athletes learn, train technical coordination, learning how to be uncomfortable to keep making improvements to the training system, improving mobility, understanding the development of all general athletes, and then considering the transfer of training based off of the time spent with the athletes.

Dane Miller is the owner and founder of Garage Strength Sports Performance. He works with a select handful of clients on building comprehensive programs for fitness and nutrition. Several times a year he leads a workshop for coaches, trainers, and fitness enthusiasts.

Thank you for reading, watching, commenting, sharing, and spreading all of our information around the web. Want more information like this? Become a part of the journey on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube! How To Do It: Bend at the hips and knees to lower yourself down, and grab a kettlebell in each hand.

Pull the kettlebells explosively up your body, palms facing you. When you reach full extension at the hips, knees, and ankles, drop underneath the weights and catch them in a clean position with the kettlebells on the outside of your forearms.

Stand up with the weights, and then press them overhead. Lower the kettlebells back down to your shoulders, let them fall to the floor, and then repeat.

We're always looking for new ways to make deadlift gains. Here's three more moves. Fix your form and be on your way to carrying greater loads and building greater strength. Close Ad ×. I want content for: Both Men Women. Facebook Twitter Youtube Pinterest.

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Click to share on Facebook Opens in new window Click to share on Twitter Opens in new window Click to share on Pinterest Opens in new window. Sets x Reps: 3—4 x 4—6. Sets x Reps: 3 x 6—8. Sets x Reps: 3 x 4 per arm. Sets x Reps: 3 x 6.

Sets x Reps: 3 x 5 per side. Sets x Reps: 3 x 5. Topics: Build Muscle Full Body Power Strength Training Training tips. Written by Joe Wuebben. Also by Joe Wuebben. Pro Tips Superstar Bowler Kyle Troup Went From Alley Rat to Gym Rat.

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Keeping your back flat and elbows up high, perform a front squat to stand up with the bar. Let it fall down to the platform, and repeat. From there, drive your hips forward and pull the weight up your body to clean it up to your shoulder.

Be sure that your abs are braced tightly. Your other leg should be fully extended. Keep your chest up the entire time. Now reverse the position to come back up. Perform all the reps on one side before moving on to the other side. How To Do It: Bend at the hips and knees to lower yourself down, and grab a kettlebell in each hand.

Pull the kettlebells explosively up your body, palms facing you. When you reach full extension at the hips, knees, and ankles, drop underneath the weights and catch them in a clean position with the kettlebells on the outside of your forearms. Stand up with the weights, and then press them overhead.

Lower the kettlebells back down to your shoulders, let them fall to the floor, and then repeat. We're always looking for new ways to make deadlift gains.

Here's three more moves. Fix your form and be on your way to carrying greater loads and building greater strength. Close Ad ×. I want content for: Both Men Women. Facebook Twitter Youtube Pinterest. Open menu button. Open search bar button. Featured Articles. Healthy Eating Days-to-Lean Meal Plan With the right plan and the right discipline, you can get seriously shredded in just 28 days.

Read article. Women The 20 Hottest Female Celebrities Talented stars, killer physiques. Girls The 50 Best Fitness Influencers on Instagram Follow these fit women we're crushing on for inspiration, workout ideas, and motivation. Click to share on Facebook Opens in new window Click to share on Twitter Opens in new window Click to share on Pinterest Opens in new window.

Sets x Reps: 3—4 x 4—6. Sets x Reps: 3 x 6—8. Sets x Reps: 3 x 4 per arm. Sets x Reps: 3 x 6. Sets x Reps: 3 x 5 per side. Sets x Reps: 3 x 5. Off the bat, we want to say that the Olympic weightlifting movements are incredibly valuable for sports performance. In addition, any variation of those movements fall into that realm as well: no brush snatch, 2 box snatch, power clean, hang clean, behind the neck jerk, push press, power jerk, and a slew of other movements.

Reflexive work such as a power snatch to a box to try to train a specific reflex, such as the stumble reflex or cross extensor reflex, are all movements and aspects we consider part of the Olympic weightlifting realm. It is the competitive movements, but the variations and reflexive movements are included under this umbrella.

Coaches are able to rapidly understand how athletes learn by teaching and watching them coordinate the Olympic weightlifting movements. Coaches hate to repeat cues because it creates an uncomfortable state; it becomes mundane.

It is hard. A key behind developing champions is saying the same things over and over again. Being persistent with technical advice is a key component. If we are teaching an athlete how to perform a snatch or clean, whatever it is, coaches can rapidly understand how they learn.

Notice the mobility issues the athlete is demonstrating. Notice the means of coordination the athlete is struggling with. Notice if the athlete learns through an auditory, visual, or through a manner of feeling.

Now, within one or two sessions, the coach can learn how the athlete learns. This is a key component behind developing athletes long-term. As a coach, devise a program with personal cues based on individual athletes.

The Olympic lifts are technical lifts and are hard. But, using it as a teaching tool to help with learning as a strength coach, it can expedite the process of all of the training.

In essence, coaches who say the Olympic lifting movements are too hard are admitting they are not good enough. Realize that rapid technical coordination is paramount. With the Olympic lifts, there is a static muscle action, an isometric muscle action right off the floor--the athlete will get tension into the bar.

Next, there will be dynamic muscle action with the pull. There is concentric muscle action as the bar makes contact off the hips. Now the athlete goes to catch and has to absorb a ton of energy. Absorbing a ton of energy transfers very well to the athletic realm. The athlete learns how to absorb force and reuse it.

So the athlete is in an eccentric state for a brief period and they create a stretch-shortening cycle out of the bottom position, using absolute strength to stand up. That is technical coordination. Technical muscular actions firing from all these different means of recruitment all at once.

The body is learning skills that are very difficult to learn. The body struggles if it is not trained enough. Technical coordination is paramount. Training mobility using the Olympic lifts is easy.

For instance, when catching a clean in-the-hole, athletes have to have their knees travel past their toes. It has to happen. It is okay for the knees to track over the toes. It improves ankle mobility.

It improves hip mobility and thoracic spine mobility. It teaches positional explosiveness. We can train positional explosiveness based on sports. For instance, training a linebacker with a two-block clean is an excellent variation of the Olympic lifts to be utilized to train positional explosiveness.

A lot of athletes and coaches love to pick one-off situations. They see this one successful athlete doing a one-off movement.

Training volume can simply be described as the total amount of loading across the entire session, week, and cycle. Many weightlifting manuals have given recommendations on how to use this value. Therefore, I find it best to follow general guidelines in the beginning phases similar to most progressive overloading models that increase volume at constant intensities, then drop volume to allow for increased intensities over time, followed by a short-term drop in volume and intensity to allow for supercompensation prior to a new cycle.

The key to remember is that most athletes in the beginning stages will not have too many issues recovering compared to the more advanced athlete. Due to the total training loads and weights lifted by more advanced athletes, the neurological and physiological stimuli even though they are more trained can make fatigue much longer, making proper balancing of volume and intensity critical as a lifter progresses.

Depending on the school of thought, coaches often opt to teach the lift from the top down blocks, hangs, powers, the full lifts, etc. or from the bottom up pulls, high pulls, muscles, powers, fulls, etc. Regardless, coaches must find what method works best for their philosophy and athletes and stick to a key set of movements that are the foundation for more advanced training.

Generally speaking, more skill- and power-based movements are placed earlier in a training session to allow an athlete to recruit muscle units in the least fatigued start as possible. After skill and power work including plyometrics , strength and accessory can then be performed.

This will help to ensure proper form, technique, and neurological function since peak power output is the key. With that said, in more advanced athletes CMS and above you will often see squats and heavy strength work done prior to the Olympic lifts, those helping the nerves improve stimulation of individual motor units.

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Best Olympic Weightlifting Program For Beginners. Written By. Mike Dewar Mike holds a Masters in Applied Physiology from Columbia University and a Bachelors in Exercise Science from Bowling Green State University.

How To Build An Olympic Weightlifting Program One of the great things about being a coach is the ability to impact the lives of your athletes and clients. After the initial meet and greet with a new athlete, you are often bombarded with questions like: — How does your system work?

Who Are Beginners In Weightlifting? This may include individuals who transition from sports training or CrossFit. As athletes train more you will be able to quickly progress lifters based on performance. CLASS I Candidate for Master of Sport Training CMS Master of Sport Training MS International Master of Sport Training IMS.

The 8 Goals Of An Olympic Weightlifting Program In this section we will discuss the primary goals of the beginner Olympic weightlifting program, which should help coaches understand the long-term approach that should occur when working with a beginner lifter.

TECHNIQUE AND TIMING OF THE LIFTS The need for proper timing and technique is paramount during this stage. BUILD A BROAD EXERCISE AND SKILL TOOLBOX While you do not want to overwhelm the lifter with a million exercise variations, you do want to expose them to a good amount of exercises so they can build out their movement patterning, coordination, and understanding of the lifts.

Example 4 Week Olympic Weightlifting Program The easiest way to start this conversation is to first lay out a sample program for beginners that focuses on the most important training outcomes discussed above.

Like most strength and conditioning programs, there are a few key variables coaches must pay attention to as they set forth in developing a training cycle.

FREQUENCY Frequency simply refers to the amount of training sessions in a given week. VOLUME Training volume can simply be described as the total amount of loading across the entire session, week, and cycle.

EXERCISE ORDER Generally speaking, more skill- and power-based movements are placed earlier in a training session to allow an athlete to recruit muscle units in the least fatigued start as possible.

Below is a list of the main movements that should be included into most beginner Olympic weightlifting programs. Find Your Perfect Training Plan. Browse Training Programs. Get the App. Related Articles You May Also Like Want more training content?

For Athletes. For Coaches. Training Lab. The training and lift instruction motivates each session while keeping the athlete on a long journey of mastery. Athletes may not get stronger every day, but they can get better in other ways with the lift, such as improving technique or learning different drills and warm-up exercises.

The back is a nebulous region, as coaches may consider some muscles like the trap as part of the neck, and only include the lumbar muscles and muscles that surround the spine as the back. Muscles like the lats and traps are also parts of the back, and Olympic-style lifts provide strain on these groups and help develop them in a way that is beneficial to athletes.

While hypertrophy and general physical development exist, I do see posture changes that encourage performance from a sum of the parts doing separate exercise like weight lifts. Janda and other proponents of posture as a solution to function may have been overzealous, but in elite sport, changes in joint positions may be viable for improved function.

A few studies have shown little correlation between upper body and pelvic positioning and injury, but one variable in isolation is never enough to bring a conclusion to injury pathomechanics. Olympic lifting reinforces spinal postures that are advantageous for training, such as racking the front squat easier and pressing above the head.

Frans Bosch, while evocative and provocative, has over-thought the idea of reflexes and training. I like Frans seeing the value of Olympic lifts, but since the specific demands of sprinting are unilateral, single-leg Olympic lifts are redundant and not new.

What are the general qualities that can help build a better brain and keep the body healthy and prepared? Sprinting and movement training are requirements due to their specificity, but Olympic-style weightlifting has some very interesting possibilities for the nervous system.

The goal of weightlifting is not just to get more strength and power, but to build a bigger brain battery without being redundant or overlapping too much. There is very limited, if any, scientific evidence on how the neuroendocrine system adapts, specifically to exercise modes.

While the research has been primitive, usually showing a change in androgens or neurotransmitters during training, nobody can come up with an airtight explanation for how this can be enough to excite coaches in regard to adaptations.

Instead of thinking about raising the serum levels of excitation biochemicals, it might make sense to know how to use them naturally by ensuring that we challenge athletes to build a defense, versus burning the house down. Many coaches preach the value of sleep, then either overtrain athletes with too much volume or fail to prepare by not exposing athletes to intense and repeated bursts of power.

Incremental loading of the Olympic lifts can distribute stress on the body without the impact of sprinting, and still improve the capacity of the nervous system without the baggage of structural lifts like squats and deadlifts.

High set volumes are not for everyone, but when athletes need to build work capacity and learn, the use of lower loads with multiple reps per set does do something beyond helping them get better at the exercise.

In , while at the USATF Level 3 school, Dan Pfaff shared his observations of work capacity from putting time on the platform and I was skeptical.

Eleven years and four investigations later, I realize he was right. Anecdotally, the athletes who spent the time on the platform got leaner, more durable, and more alert and focused for practices.

Earlier, I wrote a training density article to help guide coaches in a less-explored territory of sport science. I believe, as do other coaches, that work capacity with Olympic lifting is less draining than high set powerlifting, even if the loading is similar.

From a sport psychology standpoint, while controversial and debatable, training hard may not create toughness, but being prepared certainly can give an athlete confidence. The eccentric benefits of Olympic lifting are not as valuable as coaches believe, but eccentric loading is not a pass or fail quality.

This debate, to catch or not, is worth an article itself, but a few sentences can easily explain the value. The catch is very harmonious and natural if well-coached, and athletes know if they hit achievement.

The pulls are great options for athletes that can catch well, but some simply find the exercise either a mongrel hybrid of deadlifting and upright rows or an ugly, slow Olympic lift. Moving a weight above or close to the head is a great exercise for coordinating the body to handle loads without over-recruiting.

The ability to be stiff and relaxed quickly in a cyclical pattern is part of human locomotion and general movement abilities. Many athletes love to do the Olympic-style weight lifts, derivatives, combinations, and even sub-family of drills.

I love what athletes love to do, and I know that many of them simply enjoy the lifts because they provide excitement. Learning from powerlifting, other exercises may provide ways to address needed development, but a mental break is necessary when things become a little dry. While the development of a world-class weightlifter might not need drills and specific alternate exercises, some sport athletes who are not as enamored with training tend to find a break in just doing other movements.

I do have more and more athletes jerk as part of their warmup though, because athletes that watch videos or other athletes want to do them. While the training effect of lighter loads is not huge or perhaps even there at all, having an athlete eager to step on a platform and train is priceless.

The muscle snatch has a few different flavors or styles, and while it may not have the physiological benefits of a power snatch, it has teaching benefits that coaches may want to employ.

Athletes can manipulate the start of the lift, the type of lift, the part of the lift, and the combination of the succession movements. Drills and supportive exercises are great contributions to improve the lifting technique and output, but they are also intrinsically valuable to help total body development as well.

Having different exercise options is great for those that might have to work around an injury or find a way to challenge athletes and improve when they hit plateaus and ceilings. Grip training is different than learning grips and placing your hands on a bar, but working with the Olympic lifts is a journey of technique exploration, not just a time period of training.

As fans, the swing of a bat, a vaulter clearing the standard, and a slap shot at insane speeds all amaze us, but the barbell seems disrespected. Sure, the motion is not as complex as a golf swing, but it should be valued and respected as an athletic action.

The connection from the feet pushing through the ground and manipulating the bar in time and space is an athletic action, though talented lifters may make it look deceptively simple.

Effortless displays of any art take effort, and daily work with a bar is a constant refinement of the way the gripped bar interacts with the force through the ground. Many athletes, even if they use weight vests and machines, need to be exposed to a barbell.

While a dumbbell has a grip area, the bar is the most symbolic representation of improvement, where the space on either side can be incrementally loaded.

Barbell training is a literal handshake with the iron and a reminder that a fee for results is due. My point is that you might swap out some of the benefits listed above for other modalities.

Olympic lifts are not the Holy Land, but they are also not Sin City. If you are undecided about using them, my suggestion is not to bother. Half-hearted interest is a bad idea with anything demanding, especially loaded barbells that require focus and expertise to train them.

I changed my mind years ago after seeing a few horror stories. However, as I learned, I realized that everything has risk, and the way to reduce it is to improve education and experience. But it is always about the art, and not just the science.

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Carl Valle has coached for twenty years and has expertise in the speed and power events, along with experience in endurance monitoring.

He is a freelance consultant for human performance companies interested in innovation and design. In addition to sport, he is a supporter of environmental protection as well as the arts.

After coaching a wide variety of athletes, in their strength training, using mainly Weightlifting, and some Powerlifting exercises, for 57 years, I highly agree with this article.

I also develop Weightlifting athletes and find they do very well when trying other sports, with very fast sprint speeds and exceptional vertical jumps. I have never had serious problems with injuries, as I try to watch most movements, and back off intensity if I notice too much struggle, and suggest you not try to be too much of a hero — there is still tomorrow and, as technique improves, the weights go up.

At age 85, I am still coaching and I compete in Masters Weightlifting, so moderation in training seems to help you last longer with fewer injuries. The weights I lifted a on March 7, at the BC Masters are not heavy, but they are Canadian records for Men Your email address will not be published.