I’m not sure this question makes sense but here goes.
A lot of athletes use oly lifting (or partial oly lifting) as a means to an end. Top flight sportsmen and women get that little bit better at what they do by dipping into the sport of Olympic lifting.
Now my question. Can the tables not be turned? Does it make sense for Oly lifter not to dip into other activities to improve their lifts?
I’m not referring to beginners but World Class lifters like Jon North (whose posts I have been reading recently here - impressive obsession!). He has technique down to perfection - one would presume. Is he only left with repetition of his lifts and parts of his lifts to eek out the next kilo. To give an example (not a great one) - is it possible that any exercise to strengthen say his lower trap may add a few grams to his Snatch?
I know the answer should be no of course - his coach thinks about these things 24/7 but I had to ask.
OK I see where you are coming from and have asked myself the same thing about my sport, High jump. Athletes are looking for what is going to improve them best, we only have a certain amount of energy in our bodies, so to make the most of that time we try to do the best exercises that there is to improve what needs improving.
like in my case I will have a gym session that lasts about 2hours because after working at max even with full recovery between exercises I am dead by the end, so you try to maximise my time I do certain exercises that are going to improve my high jump. I assume it would be the same for Oly lifters. I have heard/seen that the chinese lifters do things like dumbell rows. So why do they do them? from what I heard it reduces injury.
I personally have tried to do 3 weight sessions a week and my jumping performance dropped, so what would happen if they tried to do the same.
So the point i’m trying to make if there is one, It does make sense for them to try different exercises, but it has probibly been tried with bad results.
[quote]NeoSpringy wrote:
OK I see where you are coming from and have asked myself the same thing about my sport, High jump. Athletes are looking for what is going to improve them best, we only have a certain amount of energy in our bodies, so to make the most of that time we try to do the best exercises that there is to improve what needs improving.
like in my case I will have a gym session that lasts about 2hours because after working at max even with full recovery between exercises I am dead by the end, so you try to maximise my time I do certain exercises that are going to improve my high jump. I assume it would be the same for Oly lifters. I have heard/seen that the chinese lifters do things like dumbell rows. So why do they do them? from what I heard it reduces injury.
I personally have tried to do 3 weight sessions a week and my jumping performance dropped, so what would happen if they tried to do the same.
So the point i’m trying to make if there is one, It does make sense for them to try different exercises, but it has probibly been tried with bad results.
hope that makes sense, it’s like 3am here.
NeoSpringy[/quote]
Very interesting to hear about your jumping performance dropping with 3 weight sessions - would you mind briefly describing the types of lower/full body exercises that you did and the load range.
We both seem to agree that there are very few things to be discovered out there and if athletes aren’t doing it it’s because it doesn’t work, but my question to any serious athlete would be this. “What is the limiting factor on your performance - what’s the first thing that let’s you down?” (it need not necessarily be a muscle)
When you can’t lift, jump, run any heavier, higher or faster - something in particular fails first - your whole body doesn’t shut down at once. By simply repeating your chosen event over and over I believe that by definition the lagging aspect will always continue to lag in relative terms unless addressed monographically.
Elite olympic lifters have been doing what you are referring to for years under the heading GPP. If you check out some of the old translated Russian texts on weightlifting you will find plenty of info on activities that aid weightlifting indirectly such as sports games and components of athletics. The russians will have their athletes play some sort of game at least once a week as a form of active recovery, the Chinese do the same.
Having said all that, Bulgarian athletes never did GPP under Abadjiev and they were world class. If you have never played any other sport prior to weightlifting, or if you feel you lack athleticism then I would say you should include plenty of GPP.
[quote]supa power wrote:
Elite olympic lifters have been doing what you are referring to for years under the heading GPP. If you check out some of the old translated Russian texts on weightlifting you will find plenty of info on activities that aid weightlifting indirectly such as sports games and components of athletics. The russians will have their athletes play some sort of game at least once a week as a form of active recovery, the Chinese do the same.
Having said all that, Bulgarian athletes never did GPP under Abadjiev and they were world class. If you have never played any other sport prior to weightlifting, or if you feel you lack athleticism then I would say you should include plenty of GPP.[/quote]
Obviously you know a lot about the history of olympic lifting - very interesting the bit about the Bulgarians. The idea of GPP is actually the opposite of what I think I’m saying. Rather than doing added general activity say Louie Simmons style, I’m talking about specific non-oly-lifting activity designed to improve a diagnosed weakness in a particular oly lifters performance. Along the lines of the dumbbell rows that our Australian friend mentioned above - which I presume is for rhomboid recruitment.
I am currently watching the World Championships and the medals are split by 1kg - some inspiring stuff - I’d love to see a training log of these N.Koreans, Chinese etc.
[quote]Koing wrote:
There are pictures of Chinese lifters doing db rows on the net and other bb exercises.
Younger lifters will do more variety then a more experienced lifter (sinclair 300+).
I get my lifters to do jumping exercises.
Koing[/quote]
I’m watching the Oly lifting World Championsips at the moment - it seems that the rest of the world has caught up with China. They seriously kicked ass in Beijing but that isn’t happening in the World’s - Do you think other countries have learned from Chinese training methods and put them into practice - or is it just the motivational effect of getting destroyed at the Olympics that has made them train harder?
[quote]Koing wrote:
56 and 62 didn’t lift so well imo…the Beijing 62 guy did not compete, he retired.
69 smoked as I expected. It was immense!
The PRK did VERY well, very impressive stuff from them imo.
Koing[/quote]
77 for Armenia - China close 2nd though - I still don’t like the deep squat jerk - looks ugly. I really like the Split Snatch and Split Cleans the used to rack the 2nd pull in the early days - extremely elegant - less efficient though. I know it’s bad for the back but it’s a pity the clean+press was removed made for a better overall competition.
[quote]Koing wrote:
There are pictures of Chinese lifters doing db rows on the net and other bb exercises.
Younger lifters will do more variety then a more experienced lifter (sinclair 300+).
I get my lifters to do jumping exercises.
Koing[/quote]
I’m watching the Oly lifting World Championsips at the moment - it seems that the rest of the world has caught up with China. They seriously kicked ass in Beijing but that isn’t happening in the World’s - Do you think other countries have learned from Chinese training methods and put them into practice - or is it just the motivational effect of getting destroyed at the Olympics that has made them train harder?[/quote]
According to http://www.ristosports.com/blog/ China doesn’t seem to be peeking for this tourney. I believe the asian games are being held in China this year and maybe they are peeking for that.
[quote]Koing wrote:
There are pictures of Chinese lifters doing db rows on the net and other bb exercises.
Younger lifters will do more variety then a more experienced lifter (sinclair 300+).
I get my lifters to do jumping exercises.
Koing[/quote]
I’m watching the Oly lifting World Championsips at the moment - it seems that the rest of the world has caught up with China. They seriously kicked ass in Beijing but that isn’t happening in the World’s - Do you think other countries have learned from Chinese training methods and put them into practice - or is it just the motivational effect of getting destroyed at the Olympics that has made them train harder?[/quote]
According to http://www.ristosports.com/blog/ China doesn’t seem to be peeking for this tourney. I believe the asian games are being held in China this year and maybe they are peeking for that.[/quote]
Great link - Thanks!
Never seen this before - it goes quite a way to answering my original question - has anybody any idea of other links that show images of the Chinese training techniques.
[quote]Koing wrote:
56 and 62 didn’t lift so well imo…the Beijing 62 guy did not compete, he retired.
69 smoked as I expected. It was immense!
The PRK did VERY well, very impressive stuff from them imo.
Koing[/quote]
77 for Armenia - China close 2nd though - I still don’t like the deep squat jerk - looks ugly. I really like the Split Snatch and Split Cleans the used to rack the 2nd pull in the early days - extremely elegant - less efficient though. I know it’s bad for the back but it’s a pity the clean+press was removed made for a better overall competition.
The 62 PRK guy Kim Un Guk was awesome.[/quote]
Don’t post results man! I didn’t post results, just general feel for the class!
[quote]Koing wrote:
56 and 62 didn’t lift so well imo…the Beijing 62 guy did not compete, he retired.
69 smoked as I expected. It was immense!
The PRK did VERY well, very impressive stuff from them imo.
Koing[/quote]
77 for Armenia - China close 2nd though - I still don’t like the deep squat jerk - looks ugly. I really like the Split Snatch and Split Cleans the used to rack the 2nd pull in the early days - extremely elegant - less efficient though. I know it’s bad for the back but it’s a pity the clean+press was removed made for a better overall competition.
The 62 PRK guy Kim Un Guk was awesome.[/quote]
Don’t post results man! I didn’t post results, just general feel for the class!
Koing
[/quote]
Apologies if I ruined the suspense on anybody - still pretty new to this forum stuff.
