New to Olympic Lifting, in Need of a Program

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
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Warning: long post ahead! (there’s a tl;dr version at the bottom)

Hi everyone,

I’ve been a lurker around this forum since I started lifting around 15-16 months ago but never made an account to post until now. I’ve come to learn that this forum is a great resource for all that is strength sports, and I’ve finally come out of hiding in the hopes that you guys could help me figure out how to get started in olympic lifting.

First a little background about me and my training so far: When I first started lifting, I got a lot of bad advice as I’m sure most everyone did. As time passed I learned that squats reign supreme and got on a Rippetoe-like program, progressing to a 5x5 Texas method, building basic strength. I’m still on a similar program although lately I haven’t been faithful to it, but now that I have achieved some basic strength levels I’m getting tired of this powerlifting style of training and would like to try my hand at a pure olympic lifting program for 4 or so months.

Genetically, I’m neither strong nor weak. I’ve worked hard to achieve some reasonable strength levels, to give you an idea my current estimated 1RMs (been awhile since I did some 1RMs, but the numbers should be around these) in pounds would be:

Squat: ~315
Deadlift: ~350-375
Bench: ~225-240
Power Clean: ~200
Standing Military Press: ~170

I’ve power cleaned regularly for months on rippetoe’s program so I am reasonably familiar with the lift and my technique is good except for the fact that I don’t know how to squat down to do a full clean rather than just a power clean. I’ve only ever tried the snatch (power snatch) twice, and the best gauge for a “max” there is 135 with a slight press-out, again with my knees almost locked out. As for jerks, I have never really tried them but I have a feeling that I will prefer a “regular” stance like Pyrros Dimas rather than a split jerk but only time will tell.

I also think it will take some time to learn to front squat and overhead squat well with heavier weights. For the back squat (low-bar), I prefer a 1.25x shoulder-width stance with toes pointing outward. I will try to narrow this stance to shoulder width for the front squat and overhead squat, but I still feel a lot more comfortable with my toes pointing out quite a bit - anyone have any thoughts on this?

I’ve been searching around for a program that is to oly lifts what Rippetoe’s starting strength is to basic strength training - something simple that works well for novice/intermediate lifters like myself but I have not been able to find one, if there even is such a thing for the oly lifts. My goals are simply to learn to clean+jerk and snatch with good technique while hopefully getting the numbers up (I think a 250 C+J around April or May 2010 is too much to hope for but I can dream!) and getting stronger (I have a feeling all this oly lifting will make all my other lifts go up as well)

Can anyone experienced in the olympic lifts point me to a good program that would suit someone like me? Any advice? Any help is greatly appreciated.

tl;dr version: I’m an intermediate lifter (315 squat 225+ bench 350+ deadlift 200+ power clean) looking to get on an olympic lifting program to learn and work up to maxes in the clean+jerk and the snatch, learning to overhead/front squat well with heavier weights along the way.

May your lifts be heavy,
Mike

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Mike,
I’m in a pretty similar situation as you. Desiring a little variety in my workouts and curious about the O-Lifts, but still wanting to countinue strength gains. I’ve been pondering the issue a good deal lately and just discovered a recent post about this topic on another site I frequent. Check it out on 70sbig.com. The routine is:

Monday â?? Clean and jerk (heavy), Snatch (light)
Tuesday â?? Squat, Press, Chin-ups
Wednesday â?? OFF
Thursday â?? Snatch (heavy), Clean and Jerk (light)
Friday â?? Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift

Its written by Justin Lascek, who is somewhat of disciple of Mark Rippetoe, he trains people out of Rips gym in Texas.

Hope this helps,
Dan

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IMHO I think it might be best to work on getting the full lifts down before you pursue any loading paramaters. Doing power cleans and power snatches frequently before the full lifts actually tends to work against you in the beginning as you will have a tendency to catch the bar high no matter what.

First move would be to eliminate the power clean and snatch (for now) and focus on technique for the full clean and snatch. Also if you have been Rippetoe back squatting you might put those on the shelf as well.

Try a template like this: pdxweightlifting.com/2007/07/26/
beginner-olympic-weightlifting-routine-a-realistic-approach/

Then when you spend enough time with something like this you move on to a template similar to burgener’s 4 days a week program.

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Do you have access to a coach?

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Thanks for the replies guys. So far I’m leaning toward the program that rell816 posted or something similar to familiarize myself with the lifts. I want to give plenty of attention to technique and don’t want to underestimate just how long it will take to learn proper form.

In the meantime, if possible I would like to maintain my current level of strength (get stronger if possible even, but as long as I don’t lose much I’m happy). Do you guys think that some back squats (I could switch to high-bar “olympic” back squats)/deadlifts/RDL’s or something along those lines could be added to the program, or would you advise against it?

Invictica: I will most likely not have access to a coach.

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I’d leave out the extra strength work for at least the first few weeks anything that doesn’t reinforce good position for the lifts in the beginning takes away from your progress.

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Does anybody know why all the abdominal exercises in the beginners program linked to in this thread?
I try and avoid isolation work where possible… I can’t snatch yet and am just learning to hang-clean.

practice power clean / hang clean
Chin-ups
Military press
Push-ups
Pendlay rows

practice power clean / hang clean
Front squat
Back squat
deadlift / romanian deadlift

Alternate for 6 days a week.

I was thinking that I should add overhead squat (maybe replace the back squat with that since I’ve been doing box squats sitting back and think it is interfering with my front squat form). Maybe ditch the rows and push-ups? Maybe add some lunges and turn the military press into a push-press?

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If you want to get serious, I’d spend at least a month doing ONLY the full lifts until you get the form down. Look up the Joe Mills 20/20 program.

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Thankyou. I will take a look. I think the issue is that I’m too much of a beginner to even do the full lifts at this point so I’m looking more for a program based around progressions or parts of the full lifts.

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[quote]rell816 wrote:
IMHO I think it might be best to work on getting the full lifts down before you pursue any loading paramaters. Doing power cleans and power snatches frequently before the full lifts actually tends to work against you in the beginning as you will have a tendency to catch the bar high no matter what.

First move would be to eliminate the power clean and snatch (for now) and focus on technique for the full clean and snatch. Also if you have been Rippetoe back squatting you might put those on the shelf as well.

[/quote]

Fantastic advice. Forget anything that has “power” attached to it. High bar back squats and front squats can go with your practice. When I started O-Lifting, my coach had me do clean pulls, snatch pulls, and the two types of squats quite often in addition to the classic lifts (snatch and C&J). I didn’t do jerks until i learned properly how to do snatches and cleans. A good book to pickup: Weightlifting- Olympic Style by Tommy Kono. The man is a legend and he gives great information in his book. Just be careful and remember that bad habits are very tough to break in Olympic Lifting.

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Bad habits are not only hard to break, they will get you hurt - fast. In the original post, you said your technique was decent, but you went on to talk about some pretty big flaws. I think you really need to concentrate on technique, because that’s what this sport is all about. And, make no mistake, this is a SPORT now just a few fun exercises.

If you’re doing this because you want to compete - cool. If you’re doing it because you’re bored with other stuff, be careful because it’s easy to hurt yourself with these lifts.

If you’re going to compete, go full out. If not, I disagree that you need to stop doing everything else. There’s nothing wrong with only doing a few sets a couple of times a week for each lift. You may not reach your true potential, but who cares if you’re not competing?