So I had to re-write the beginning of this blog post after seeing Tony Gentilcore wrote a very similar piece just yesterday, proving that great minds indeed think alike and that we have a mind-meld ability similar to that pertained by creepy creepy twins.

Check out Tony article HERE.

Interestingly, there’s almost universal consensus among fitness professionals that olympic lifts are amazing exercises, capable of developing quadruple extension power (ankles, knees, hips, and thoracic spine), increasing hypertrophy (ie. jacked), and athleticism. It’s also capable of increasing your midichlorion count to near astronomical levels, while also burning fat and making women swoon over you all the way from the other side of the juice bar.

 

I spent a few years training the olympic lifts during and after university. I worked with a qualified coach for about 2 years in order to gain some additional benefits for various sports (never to compete in a meet, not that there’s anything wrong with that but just something I never did), and I managed to get some pretty good results from it. My best clean was 375 pounds, jerk from blocks was 315, hang clean of 275, and snatch of 285. These numbers may sound cool, but the fact of the matter is these wouldn’t even win me a regional provincial meet at my weight class, and probably not even in the masters division. If I was in the 80 kg category, maybe I could get a bronze or something.

Now before someone can become somewhat skilled at performing the olympic lifts, they have to have a pretty decent degree of mobility through the following joints:

ankles, hips, thoracic spine, scapulothoracic region, wrists

Most people tend to have very significant restrictions through the following joints:

ankles, hips, thoracic spine, scapulothoracic region, wrists

Do you see a problem here?

In order to benefit from the lifts in the way they are best suited, you have to be able to complete the movements in a way that is closely resemblant to technically sufficient. WHat this means is you have to have the right mobility to do the movements properly and also the timing necessary to move all the body segments through the range of motion to take advantage of the explosive nature of the lift as well as the instantaneous stabilization requirement of the catch.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QQ5U8vTZ1M’]

The guy bumped over 460 lbs up to his shoulders like it was just sand bag, and all at a body weight of 170. Yep, that’s almost 3 times his body weight going over his build LIKE A FREAKIN BOSS!!!

Even one of the best in the world can work on fine-tuning the specifics of the movement for years on end, grooving the pattern and making it almost unconscious.

Yeah, I was no where near that level. I can still move my hips pretty well though.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6id9ty2fes’]

To get the true benefit of the olympic lifts, there has to be an appreciable load used with a relatively high percentage of a max lift, and performed as explosively as possible. Other forms of the lift, such as the hang clean shown in the preceding video, are excellent accessory lifts used to teach or engrain various parts of the lift, but do not replicate the movement or loading used.

Using higher rep accessory lifts and claiming they provide the benefits of a max olympic lift is like going for a jog and saying it’s the same as a 100m sprint in terms of the benefits and challenge.

Many lifters will tell you that to get the right feel for the bar and the path of the movement, you have to use enough weight. An empty bar has a different movement to it than one loaded with a plate or two, where the bar has some bounce to it and some elasticity to the movement. As a result, most actual training for the lifts is with a significant weight, done for a single rep over dozens of sets. The amount of weight is variable, but it’s never performed for sets of 10-20 reps at a shot.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8q7GhHsjD0′]

Due to the incredible demands on the central nervous system and the intricate technical aspects of the execution of the movement, there’s no way to do it properly for high reps.

What they will do is work on the main lifts for multiple sets of singles, then follow up by working on individual segments or muscles as needed for higher volume in order to “bring up weak points.” This could mean wrist curls, core stability exercises, low back hyperextensions, or any other form of movement training.

Does that mean anything to the average Joe or possibly the athlete looking to get stronger for their sport? Yes, but with a couple of caveats.

First, the lifts are incredibly technical and very easy to do incorrectly, which increases the risks of injury and at the very least getting less of a benefit from the movement due to using too light a weight or incomplete technical execution. As a result, the training time would be best spent elsewhere, especially if time was very short and training was to be focused on areas that would get more benefit. Just figuring out the hook grip is enough of a challenge for most people that holds them back.

For instance, take a football player who has no experience for the lifts. As I mentioned earlier, it took me years to get sort of okay at the lifts, and that was under the watchful eye of a coach specifically for the olympic lifts. The average trainer or box owner will not have anywhere near the level of technical training that someone who coaches the sport of olympic lifting would, so their ability to coach the movements would be less effective. My own methods for coaching it are way less effective than a coach who specializes in them, which is pretty simple logic to agree with.

In order for that football player to get good at the lifts, he would have to spend a considerable time going through progressions and regressions. If he only had a couple weeks to get ready for a training camp, it may not be the best use of time.

In talking with Joe DeFranco this past spring, he said he doesn’t use a lot of olympic lifting with his pro football guys due to how much time it takes to train them properly. If the athletes know how to do them and like doing them, he’ll incorporate them and do some technical troubleshooting as needed, but it’s not a priority.

Let’s look at sprinters. The sprinting movement is essentially a cyclical repetition of a quadruple extension. The olympic lifts would truly have to be benficial here, right?

Maybe not.

The clean, for example, would involve the extension phase, combined with a catch and drop phase before recovering in a front squat. Three of the four phases of the movement aren’t involved in the sprinting movement. A better movement for sprinting would be to involve only the concentric movement of the clean, dropping the bar before it got to the point of a catch and eliminating the eccentric overload of the movement. This is commonly known as a high pull.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz7u8pAh7Wo’]

What about fat burning? If performed properly, they develop a massive growth hormone and thermogenic effect, but it comes with a price. The long recovery periods necessary to optimize CNS activity means you have a small volume of actual work in which to burn calories during your workouts.

How about gaining muscle? There’s no doubt Olympic weight lifters are pretty jacked individuals, but the style of their training is very intense, very heavy, and very fast. This is very different from those used by bodybuilders who tend to use more isolationary techniques, focusing on muscular time under tension. Are one group of lifters more correct than others? No, but they just approach it differently. I am confident to say that bodybuilders would see some very good gains in thickness and density of their traps, lats, biceps, delts, quads, and calves, but the caveat would be that they would have to train with the right intensity and not use higher volume sets where the development high velocity contractions could occur.

In closing, are olympic lifts a great tool to use to develop athleticism, speed and power? Yes, but they have to be done with enough technical precision to see the benefits occur properly. Are they appropriate for hypertrophy? Yes, but many bodybuilders would find a bodypart split routine more effective. Are they effective for fat loss? Yes, but there’s probably a better option out there, especially for those who may need to simply get moving more and doing more.

Should YOU do olympic weight lifting? The odds are that they’re not necessary for anyone to see their fitness goals, but they can be an effective tool to help you reach success. I wouldn’t go out of my way to include them in many programs that didn’t directly warrant their use (such as weightlifting, or if the person had the time to learn them and there was a specific benefit they would get from them). The keys are to learn how to do them properly, use an appropriate amount of weight to see some kind of benefits, and know how to get your head out of the way when you’re snatching the bar overhead.