Master's Olympic Lifting Programming?

Training
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CT, I have a question I hope you can help me with. How successful can a Master lifter be in Olympic weightlifting with a Bulgarian approach to programming? I really like this style of programming, it’s easy to plan and I really like doing the lifts everyday.

I do not know how to program for myself, and I can’t afford a coach to write detailed programs for me. I’ve read a lot about this topic, and a lot of my lifting friends have told me I’m crazy. However, I just really like it.

The program I was looking at and have tried a couple times before is:

Day 1 - Snatch to heavy single and 1-2 back off sets; CJ to heavy single; BS to heavy single then 1-2 back off sets
Day 2 - Power Snatch to 1-2 heavy single; Power clean & power jerk to heavy’ish single; Front squat to heavy single then 1-2 back off sets
Day 3 - repeat day 1 but switch back off sets to CJ
Day 4 - repeat Day 2
Day 5 - rest or just Front squat or pulls and press (overhead or bench)
Day 6 - Same as Day 1 without back off sets on the Olympic lifts, finish with RDL’s

What do you think? Also, after 3 weeks I would do a deload week where all comp lifts are 70% and squats are 80% singles with no back off sets.

I would really appreciate your thoughts on this. I could also do the lifts to doubles or trips instead of singles.

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I know i’m not CT, but Catalyst Athletics is pretty good OL resource, and their book Olympic Weightlifting for Athletes & Coaches is an awesome resource. It has a lot of info in it on programming.

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[quote]olylifter106 wrote:
CT, I have a question I hope you can help me with. How successful can a Master lifter be in Olympic weightlifting with a Bulgarian approach to programming? I really like this style of programming, it’s easy to plan and I really like doing the lifts everyday.

I do not know how to program for myself, and I can’t afford a coach to write detailed programs for me. I’ve read a lot about this topic, and a lot of my lifting friends have told me I’m crazy. However, I just really like it.

The program I was looking at and have tried a couple times before is:

Day 1 - Snatch to heavy single and 1-2 back off sets; CJ to heavy single; BS to heavy single then 1-2 back off sets
Day 2 - Power Snatch to 1-2 heavy single; Power clean & power jerk to heavy’ish single; Front squat to heavy single then 1-2 back off sets
Day 3 - repeat day 1 but switch back off sets to CJ
Day 4 - repeat Day 2
Day 5 - rest or just Front squat or pulls and press (overhead or bench)
Day 6 - Same as Day 1 without back off sets on the Olympic lifts, finish with RDL’s

What do you think? Also, after 3 weeks I would do a deload week where all comp lifts are 70% and squats are 80% singles with no back off sets.

I would really appreciate your thoughts on this. I could also do the lifts to doubles or trips instead of singles.[/quote]

I stopped doing frequent max effort lift on the competition lifts (even power snatches). I found that I got rapid performance (not strength) increase over 3 weeks or so, then everything would crash. What happens is that when I always worked up to a 1RM for the day I gradually lost speed and timing. And I also did not do enough volume in the optimal training zone (75-85%).

That’s also what I did when I competed. I would always max out (or almost) and as a result my technique got worse and worse and my speed decreased. I would make fun of those using a Russian-type program where a most of the work was done with 75-85% for 2/3rd of the training cycle. But these are the guys who kept on progression and had crisp technique.

This year when I got back to the OL I started to fall in the same pattern and got into bad habits. I started working and sometimes training with a former Canadian champion and record holder… he still snatches 135-140 and clean & jerk above 170 at about 40 years of age, and he does most of his work in the the 75-85% range and goes heavy, but not max (90-95%) once a week.

In my Micro-PA log I am posting my training sessions.

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Thanks for the response, CT!! Greatly appreciate it!!

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