What are they?
I’m getting bored of the basic stuff like presses, rows, squats, curls, pullups, etc.
Can someone give me a brief intro into the olympic lifts and how to do them, and the terminology, what they are called etc. I’ve heard the words, jerk, clean, snatch tossed around alot of forums, but never really know what they were.
http://www.uwlax.edu/strengthcenter/videos/video_index.htm
stickies at the top of this forum.
These are very technical lifts. If at all possible, you should find someone to coach you in person. It’ll save you a lot of trouble.
Otherwise, here are some articles:
Snatch: http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1798268
Clean:
http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1014931
You could compare the jerk to a push press, but I don’t think that’s really the case at all. The object of the jerk is to drive the weight up with your lower body and immediately pull yourself under the bar into split squat. As far as the Oly lifts go, you’d traditionally perform this after a clean (hence the clean and jerk).
The clean and jerk is, if you ask me, the easier of the two. They’re both fantastic exercises, but if you’re teaching yourself I’d say start with hang cleans.
Here are some helpful links:
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/PowerExercises.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6529481301858251744
http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html#Oly
I’m sure that there are better links out there but these are a good place for a beginner to start.
Stu