Today I just finished my first O-lift workout. Started with the basics, snatch pull, above knee snatch, squat, good mornings. All of the reps were triples. At first I thought that the workout wasn’t that hard until my hamstrings started to tighten. Then later that night, my traps and forearms started to tighten too. All in all, this Olympic lifting thing is pretty darn good.
bmau
Right on! A new convert! My traps can remember my first workout with clean pulls!
Where can I find descriptions on how to do all those exercises? And no, I can’t find a coach because I don’t have any money.
This site has some good animations:
www.exrx.net/Lists/PowerExercises.html and I know T-mag has some articles on certain lifts … try the search engine.
Did you mean anywhere or just on the internet? I know lots of guys say Tommy Kono’s book is good for beginners, but I can’t say anything about it because I haven’t read it. Arthur Dreschler’s Encyclopedia is good too, but isn’t quite as good for beginners from what I’ve heard. It’s good though. There are T-Mag articles on olympic lifts (Coach Davies has some) and pulls & lifts from the hang are variations of them.
I found that after my first few practices at MSU, my middle back started to get sore, as well as my quads right around the knee. Of course, my coach came from the same group of Olympic lifters from Armento’s Gym in Detroit that taught Tom Platz to squat, so it was deep squat city… God, I spent the first two months getting flexible enough to front squat with an OL grip and my elbows high in the air. Ow! Good luck with your training!
GrowtH, thanks a ton that is just what I was looking for.
Thankyou for replying. I highly recommend O-lifting to everyone. My coach says that I should get lifting shoes so that I can perform the O-lifts correctly with a near vertical/ perpendicular torso. I thought that my Converse were great for Squats and Deadlifting. But I guess that the lifting shoes has an elevated heel. What do you think? Should I get them and if so where are the best deals? and what brand is good?
Bmau
Thanks to “Drax” for recommending the O-lifting
GrowtH, thanks for that site, lots of good stuff on there. Bmau, what sort of a program have you put together, I’m like Steve F (no coach) but would like to do some O/L type stuff as a change. Suggestions appreciated.
I wasn’t the only one who recommended o-lifting! 
The one thing that I think keeps people from doing it more is that you lift big weights quickly overhead & some get too scared to do it seriously enough to benefit from it. Stick with it, add weight whenever possible & 6 months from now you’ll be a new man.
hyphnz, first day I did snatch pulls from above the knee. Lots of sets starting with light weights to learn the form and then raising the weight each set. (don’t go too heavy, maybe a medium weight. practice exploding up onto your toes) Then back squats for five sets of three reps (high bar, close-grip, medium stance). Then good mornings (at least three sets of three reps). That was my first day example.
Second day was a clean pull workout. Did cleans with lots of sets and three reps. My coach wanted me to learn the first part of the C&J, but my shoes limited my ability to keep my torso vertical. Then clean pulls, then front squats.
I hope that this helps a little.
Thanks.
Where can I find a good O-lifting workout plan?
Try this link:
This contains links to nearly every olympic weightlifting related site on the web. They have a forum site much like this one where they discuss anything and everything related to Olympic Lifting. Here it is:
www.goheavy.com/forums/olympic/index.cgi
My suggestion would be to start with the following lifts:
Snatch, cleans, power snatches, powercleans, full arse-touching-calves back squats, back of the neck jerks from the rack, overhead press, front squats, clean pulls and snatch pulls. There are countless other great exercises, but the above are the basics. Stick to repetitions from 3 to 5 as a general rule. You can get great results training three days per week. Don’t get too excited about training six days per week- maybe four to five.
One thing above all…make sure you warm up your shoulders, back, kness and legs very well before every workout. Avoiding injury by being disciplined about warming up is critical in this sport due to the explosive nature of the lifts. Good luck- it’s a great sport that you can do for the rest of your life if you avoid injury.
YES someone is doing O-lifts!!! Good for you… Although I highly recommend you to find someone that excells in those execrises and ask him or her to correct form if need… And not all trainers know o-lifts I would recommend u to go the gym that you work out and obsever the people that do o-lifts and find the one that is usually older and is lifting a lot weight in a controlled fashion and ask him or her if you are doing it correctly. O-lift has a lot to do with technique you could spend hours just learning the cleans…
Ok, I am getting very eager to start trying this o-lifting thing out. But one thing, I read Mike Mahler’s “Weakest Link” article and I have always known that my left side is weaker than my right. Should I correct this before I jump into o-lifting, or will it fix itself if I just start w/ lighter weights?
You can do the olympic lifts with one or two dumbells like they were contested early in the 20th century. The five international lifts are the 2 hands press, one hand snatch, one hand clean & jerk, 2 hands clean & jerk & 2 hands snatch. You can do then all with dumbells or with a bar. I think your imbalance will fix itself once you start trraining with dumbells. See if you can work up to 75’s for 10-12 in the clean & press (that’s 10 cleans & 10 presses), that’s a good goal.