Olympic Lifts Questions

Some Olympic lifters do some deadlifting, but many (most?) don't (although many/most use Romanian DL as an assistance exercise).  Almost all Olympic lifters do squats (both front and back).  Many Olympic lifters do some benching just to promote shoulder stability (bring back the press!).  If an Oly lifter were to include a period of powerlifting training for basic strength development, it would probably be in the general preparatory phase, which is after the competition season and before moving on to the specific preparatory phase.

Add weight when you can routinely maintain excellent form at your previous weights.  Keep the bar close to your body.

The quick lifts require a lot of neural coordination, so they should be done when you're freshest.  As you get tired, you tend to get sloppy, and you don't want to clean sloppily.  If your deadlift suffers from your cleans, try ditching DL and seeing what happens to it after a few weeks of cleans.  My DL went from about 425 to 500 (hey, I'm a shrimp) over the course of a HG season with no deadlifting.  I no longer bother deadlifting.

-Wayne

I agree, "Bring back the PRESS"  When they judged it correctly, it was an awesome lift and the Clean and Press is the ALL TIME BEST all around exercise, BAR NONE.  Romanian DL are done explosively, which is how oly lifters do the squat, too.  Everything it done with weights that allow for explosive movements and the hardest thing is NOT to put on too much weight.  I injured my shoulder one time because I stubbornly kept adding weight to the snatch to feed my ego only to be pressing them out and pressing a snatch out is not good for the shoulders.  That is also why they often operate on low reps, like lighting a fuse and exploding a bomb. 

O'Plaid-

Damn, 250lb snatch and 320lb jerk at 180lb bw.

Almost 150% bw snatch and 180% bw jerk! That beats me.  

Good luck in your training,

-AbraidedShins

GREAT Thread...I like what Sean had to say ( wink-
wink)

Here are some TRAINING PLAN...(Thumb nail
sketch) thoughts:

Much like Karl Marx is best to have a long term (5-
year) approach to training. The longest training
blocks should last 6-weeks followed by a week of
rest.

We even break this down into specialized blocks of
2-3 weeks with an emphasis on SPECIAL strength
emphasis to JACK up the system .(starting ---
eccentric---concentric---OVER-COMPENSATION---
Strength/Speed---Speed /
strength---PEAKING (no ...not the duck)

To make a good stew you have to have a lot of
variety...it would be really boring JUST having meat
and potatoes and the body (nevous /muscular
system) needs this VARIETY for the ADAPTDATION
process to occur ...PERIOD !!!

FIRST PHASE- getting some kind of evalutation in
terms of orthopedic and or muscle testing to find out
"if" you have a deficiencent area that you need to
bring up or injury that pre-cludes you fromreaching
your given potential..in other words you CAN'T fire a
cannon out of a canoe !!!

SECOND PHASE- field testing your level of strength/
fitness. The most common test for track and field -
Max Jones Test -30-m...BJ...OH-SP...3-hops. This is
somewhat slanted towards the speed end (javelin)
but the computerized results help determine
POWER to WEIGHT ratios ect. which is something
that has to be monitored.

THIRD PHASE-Testing your DYNAMIC
strength...(Snatch-Cleans-Jerks) This involves
multiple joints ( like throwing) and introduces weight
lifted through a Range of MOTION and TIME...we
have a machine from Czechoslavakia that measures
the SPEED of the bar and also the wattage produced
which de-mystifies a lot of what is REALLY going on
in the particular lifts and WHAT percentage is BEST
for the individual to marry the strength CURVES and
to convert that to INCREASE your POWER !!!

FOURTH PHASE-Static Strength testing...(bench
press-squat-dead lift ect)
Most world record attempts in POWER LIFTING have
taken about 3.75 seconds to lock out....so to
increase your POWER LIFTING totals...this time
FACTOR is criticial in your training...I would suggest
to you that IF you are taking 3.75 seconds to throw
ANYTHING (700-lb boulder comes to mind) you are
taking WAY to LONG ( )   In other words....don't
JUST power lift...don't just Olympic lift...don't just
throw.

FOOD for THOUGHT---World class shot putters are
on the ground
less than 200-miili seconds...this REVERSIBILITY
component has to be factored into the TRAINING
MENU...!

STRENGTH WEEK/SPEED WEEK (hard /easy
approach) with the training age of our freshman/
sophmores we 've found that this approach gives us
the best marrige. HEAVY STRENTH WEEK - 5 x 5 up
to 90% of max...we lighten the running and throwing
volumne outside.

Speed Week - 12 X 2 at 50% of max...increase the
volumne of adjunct training outside( short bare foot
hills runs...forwards and backwards)....Hungarian
Core circuits...higher reps throwing.   

Alternate this for 5-weeks and then a rest week and
a BIG MEET.

OFF SEASON-We only do a total of 9-lifts a week
over a 3-day
period . SPEED WEEK...1rst day-Quick Back
lifts....this allows quality throwing sessions as well.   
2nd Day...upper body (quick lift Push press-Jerk
Press....followed bye a Bench variant. 3rd
day...throwing adjunct CORE   4th Day Leg
day...alllows for the most RECOVERY TIME.   

This has produced up to a 37% increse in
strength levels in 14-weeks. This record was just
broken by a freshman that Power cleaned 352 -lbs.
and just missed at 382(got it to the chest) he tried a
1,000 lb. Safety Squat and the weight WON...grin

Got to go finish the Honey Do list...!

Edited by Coach Mac