Olympic Lifting Beginner

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

Hi CT,

I have committed to training seriously for the Olympic lifts and would like to compete sometime next year. At 210 lbs my current snatch is 185 lbs and clean and jerk 245 lbs…so pretty weak.

Would doing the full lifts 3 days per week with 2 days focused on squat/front squat, low pulls and presses be adequate for a beginner? Your guidance in the right direction would be truly appreciated if I’m way off base.
Currently all lifts start at the floor.

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[quote]Beara33 wrote:
Hi CT,

I have committed to training seriously for the Olympic lifts and would like to compete sometime next year. At 210 lbs my current snatch is 185 lbs and clean and jerk 245 lbs…so pretty weak.

Would doing the full lifts 3 days per week with 2 days focused on squat/front squat, low pulls and presses be adequate for a beginner? Your guidance in the right direction would be truly appreciated if I’m way off base.
Currently all lifts start at the floor.[/quote]

I actually wouldn’t do low pulls or high pulls for that matter. Until your technique on the full lifts, these will make learning the proper timing of getting under the bar difficult.

First I would…

  1. AVOID THE POWER VARIATIONS OF THE LIFTS. So no power snatch or power clean until your technique in the full lifts is super efficient. Getting under the bar efficiently is super important at that point in your career. And doing too much “power” lifts when your full lift technique is not yet efficient will make it hard to become super efficient. Only introduce the power variations when your full lifts are solid, constant and stable. And even then if your full lifts are less than 112% of your “power” variation, don’t spend too much time on the “power” variations.

You can do lifts from blocks or paused lifts (pause below or above the knees then finish the lift for example) BUT catch them in a full squat.

  1. Building a strong back and front squat is important. But using a form specific to the Olympic lifts is even more important. Focus on maintaining an upright posture when you squat, not leaning forward and avoiding rounding the upper back when front squatting. Only go up in weight if you can maintain proper form.

  2. At the moment don’t do pulls, but do deadlifts. Snatch and clean deadlifts. Again, the goal is not to max out, but to use the exact same positions as you would in a clean/snatch.

  3. Do plenty of work to strengthen the shoulders and lats.

So basically your workouts should look like:

A. Snatch variation
B. Clean & jerk variation
C. Squat or front squat
D. Snatch of clean deadlift
E. Upper body pressing work
F. Lats/back bodybuilding work twice a week

3

Thank you very much, I will be starting this tomorrow. This set up has me excited, I’m ready to put in the work now that I can be confident in the movement selection.

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[quote]So basically your workouts should look like:

A. Snatch variation
B. Clean & jerk variation
C. Squat or front squat
D. Snatch of clean deadlift
E. Upper body pressing work
F. Lats/back bodybuilding work twice a week[/quote]

How would you break this down on a weekly scale? Have you written an article on Olympic lifting and programming? Couldn’t find one via the search.

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I looked at another thread and was able to connect your Bulgarian article was for Olympic lifting. I haven’t had success doing both snatch and c+j on the same day, is there a motivation for doing both?