Olympic Lifts for Athletes, Debate

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
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[quote]FightingScott wrote:
It’s your choice.

Yes, Olympic Lifts need to be fast. So do Box Jumps.

The Russians did the research. The Top 3 lifts with the best correlation for raising one’s Snatch and Clean & Jerk are…

The Power Snatch
The Power Clean
The Squat

So if your sport is Weightlifting, you better be busting your ass at raising your training weights in those lifts.

But that’s weightlifting. What’s YOUR sport?
If it’s Discus, maybe it’s the power curl. If it’s Shot-Put, maybe it’s the Push Jerk.

Even Loui Simmons, someone who doesn’t use any Olympic lifts to train his athletes, reccomends the Push-Jerk to Shot-Putters because in his observation “The Higher the Push-Jerk, the farther the throw.”

Whether you believe Lou’s opinion about the Push-Jerk’s carry-over to the Shot-Put or not, the point remains the same. YOU need to find the lifts that will give you the maximum carryover to your sport.

So what is the lift with the maximum carryover for your sport?

Don’t worry. I took the liberty of looking at your post history. You’re a sprinter. So let’s do some goddamn thinking out loud. I’m no sprinting expert, but let me have my fun and tell me what you think of my ideas.

There are at least two types of training you need to do in the gym. The first type is building raw, explosive power from a dead stop. Stuff like Hang Power Cleans, Hang Power Snatches, Deadlfits, Weighted Chins, Box Squats, Box Jumps, All sorts of Medicine Ball Throws, Broad Jumps, and Vertical Jumps.

Maximal Effort Training will be best for this stuff. The Higher your Max Hang Snatch or Max Box Squat, the more carryover to your start off the blocks. Think about it. Increasing your 1RM in the Hang Snatch would have more carry-over than increasing your 5RM, wouldn’t it?

Then there’s training your body to preserve and utilize the stretch-reflex in your muscles. Stuff like Free Squats, Bench Press, Depth Jumps, Romanian Deadlifts, Dumbbell Rows, and Lunges. Train exercises like these with higher reps than you would the first group of exercises.

And train them after you train any exercise that falls into the 1st category. Do challenging sets that last as long as a 100m or 200m race. This will train you to continue producing large amounts of force as you sprint, because most of the time the person who wins the sprint is the one who doesn’t slow down.

Example Workout:

Medicine Ball Throw OR Hang Power Snatch
Standing Broad Jump OR Hang Power Clean
Box Squat OR Free Squat
2-Board Press OR Push Press
Weighted Chin OR Dumbbell Row
45’ Back Raise OR Good-Morning

Go down the list and pick. You don’t have to pick just 1 column. Just lift some weight!

[/quote]

I appreciate this post, a lot. Thanks.

You raise a lot of good points- and unlike many people you can back up your thery with some valid points.

I’ve gotta say I like your thoughts.

It gives me a lot more ideas, and info than the usual, just do Westside for skinny bastards, or “haven’t we discussed this”- ye we maybe did and people didnt give any decent research.

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Very good, Scot.

This debate is most passionate between Ol & PL, but among most athletes there is a mix of both and lots of other stuff (med ball eg) thrown in.

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FightingScott, all of the jumping movements aren’t from a dead stop, and as with the stretch reflex exercises the faster you can do a controlled descent the better you will do.

While I agree that getting stronger on a lift you NEED to do quickly will make you faster, getting stronger in say a deadlift means nothing unless it increases your rate of force development. That’s the key to most “athletic” improvements.

I just feel that it is something that gets overlooked since most athletes will improve from simply getting stronger due to the fact that they are simply not strong enough for their sport.

But I’m sure you’ll agree that if you can generate more force in less time, you’ll be able to accelerate and hit harder, have a faster top speed, and change direction faster.

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[quote]smokotime wrote:
FightingScott, all of the jumping movements aren’t from a dead stop, and as with the stretch reflex exercises the faster you can do a controlled descent the better you will do.

While I agree that getting stronger on a lift you NEED to do quickly will make you faster, getting stronger in say a deadlift means nothing unless it increases your rate of force development. That’s the key to most “athletic” improvements.

I just feel that it is something that gets overlooked since most athletes will improve from simply getting stronger due to the fact that they are simply not strong enough for their sport.

But I’m sure you’ll agree that if you can generate more force in less time, you’ll be able to accelerate and hit harder, have a faster top speed, and change direction faster.[/quote]

Yes, not all jumping movements are done from a dead stop. That’s why I put plyometric depth jumps in the other category. I could have put hurdle hops, 20 yard dashes, bounding, and other stuff on that list too.

And having a big Deadlift is probably going to help you out with speed, especially if the athlete is weak.

We all know for a fact that increasing Maximal Strength is a brutally effective way to increase speed strength. And nothing increases maximal full body strength like the Deadlift.

A 200 pound barbell is going to feel a LOT different to someone with a 600 pound deadlift that it is to someone with a 350 pound deadlift. Jordan Did Deadlifts. All Elite Weightlifters do Deadlifts or very heavy clean pulls.

Guys at Westside are jumping on 60" Boxes and their training goals are exclusively geared towards maximal strength. Lets not get into how heavy squats make you fast.

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FightingScott, I agree with what you’re saying, I’m just coming at it from a different angle. The reasons getting maximum effort will make you more athletic are:

  1. It makes you strong enough to move “properly” while performing sports and most importantly;
  2. It generally has you producing more force in less time.

Naturally, if you take someone from squatting or deadlifting 300 and get them up to lifting 600 or 700, they’ll have a much better basis for athletic performance. But once you’re at an elite level for the lifts, what do you do?

If I’m more or less the bodyweight I want to be, I’m not being limited by my strength, and I want to get faster, what good is it going to do if I go from explosively lifting 600 to a 10 second, grinding 700?

You need to be producing more force in the same or less time. 99.99% of people need to get stronger to do this. Max effort is a great solution.

100% of people can do this if they get faster while staying the same strength. i.e. going from squatting 500 in 5 seconds to doing it in 2.
I simply feel that for an athlete, they should try to get both stronger and faster. For a weak athlete the majority of the time will be spent on getting stronger, and for and exceptionally strong, generally elite athlete most will be spent getting “faster” within their strength level.

Olympic lifts are great in this regard as you have to perform maximum effort at speed. So if you get stronger you are producing more force in that amount of time.
Standard lifts with contrast (preferably bands), sub-maximal, can have a similar effect as they help you to descend faster and encourage you to explode up.

They are also easier to progress on olympic lifts. You could end up with 100lbs more on the bar within a year or two, which isn’t likely to happen with the oly lifts.

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[quote]smokotime wrote:
FightingScott, I agree with what you’re saying, I’m just coming at it from a different angle. The reasons getting maximum effort will make you more athletic are:

  1. It makes you strong enough to move “properly” while performing sports and most importantly;
  2. It generally has you producing more force in less time.

Naturally, if you take someone from squatting or deadlifting 300 and get them up to lifting 600 or 700, they’ll have a much better basis for athletic performance. But once you’re at an elite level for the lifts, what do you do?

If I’m more or less the bodyweight I want to be, I’m not being limited by my strength, and I want to get faster, what good is it going to do if I go from explosively lifting 600 to a 10 second, grinding 700?

You need to be producing more force in the same or less time. 99.99% of people need to get stronger to do this. Max effort is a great solution.

100% of people can do this if they get faster while staying the same strength. i.e. going from squatting 500 in 5 seconds to doing it in 2.
I simply feel that for an athlete, they should try to get both stronger and faster. For a weak athlete the majority of the time will be spent on getting stronger, and for and exceptionally strong, generally elite athlete most will be spent getting “faster” within their strength level.

Olympic lifts are great in this regard as you have to perform maximum effort at speed. So if you get stronger you are producing more force in that amount of time.
Standard lifts with contrast (preferably bands), sub-maximal, can have a similar effect as they help you to descend faster and encourage you to explode up.

They are also easier to progress on olympic lifts. You could end up with 100lbs more on the bar within a year or two, which isn’t likely to happen with the oly lifts.[/quote]

Fair enough, but know that the Max Effort Method is perfect for adding strength without adding muscle mass.

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Oh, I know. I’m a powerlifter, and have always done M.E. work in the 4 years I’ve been training.

It’s all within limits though. You’ll never see someone put 400lbs on their squat and dead without getting bigger.

…Wow, this whole thing with FightingScott was remarkably civilised and to the point. This can’t be the real internet…

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[quote]smokotime wrote:
Oh, I know. I’m a powerlifter, and have always done M.E. work in the 4 years I’ve been training.

It’s all within limits though. You’ll never see someone put 400lbs on their squat and dead without getting bigger.

…Wow, this whole thing with FightingScott was remarkably civilised and to the point. This can’t be the real internet…[/quote]

You’re right. I like the points you’ve made.

There, how you like THAT one?

Have a nice night.

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I don’t have much to add to the discussion except for the general prescription to work on your weak points.

However, whenever this discussion comes up, the misconception that rate of force production and power input are the the same thing seems to arise. If you spend any time actually analyzing the lifts, take a snatch for example, you will notice that rate of force production has a large peak at the
beginning of the lift, a small peak at the beginning of the first pull, a peak at the catch, and a large peak at the bottom of the squat. 3 of these peaks come when the weight is not moving much at all. Because it is not moving much, the work being done is small, so the rate at which the work is being done (power input) is also small. Power input has one large peak near the end of the second pull when the weight is moving fastest.

From my (highly non professional) observations, rate of force production seems to be more related to maximal strength, whereas power input seems more related to the ability to apply moderate forces to an already moving bar.

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What is power input? Where is it going?

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OooahhhCANTONA

You first need to what your goal is?

how much time do you have to train?

Some people need a lot of time to develop a moderate technique , some other people don’t.

To be explosive or fast you don’t have to necessary do any kind of olympic lifting.

If you have a coach and time go ahead if not take the advice of FightingScott and do other exercises that are simpler to do. They will give faster results.

In most cases the squat is the king, but you have to work with 75- 85% range and do the concentric part as fast as possible, with low rep between 2 to 6 reps and moderate to high sets

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[quote]Jorge Garzafox wrote:
In most cases the squat is the king, but you have to work with 75- 85% range and do the concentric part as fast as possible, with low rep between 2 to 6 reps and moderate to high sets [/quote]

If you listen to the Olympic Lifters…

Just Teazin!

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[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
What is power input? Where is it going?[/quote]

Into the bar. Usually people just call it power, its the rate at which work is being done.

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If sprinting is your goal, I wouldn’t feel the need to do a whole lot of dynamic work with weights. Just increase your strength base and actually sprinting will take care of most of your dynamic stuff. Very little helps sprint performance as much as sprinting.