Olympic Weightlifting

Hey folks,

I am thinking of doing some Olympic lifting, nothing competitive just for increasing general strength and athleticism. I hear it is excellent in this regard. Anyone got any tips or advice?

Hi incontinentia.

I try to incorporate a few Olympic lifts into my training, which is mainly focused towards rugby. Do lots of cleans, jerks, high pulls, deadlifts, things of that nature.

The best advice I can give you is do your background reading, and start light! Try to perfect your technique first, before adding any weight what so ever. If needs be, film yourself and analyse it afterwards. Or at the very least, get a spotter to watch your form and critique it. Don't be enticed into trying to go too heavy, too soon. People will be more impressed lifting a moderate weight with perfect form, than lifting a weight that's too heavy with a dodgy form.

I had a friend who struggled with the clean and jerk movement. To overcome it, he de-constructed the whole move and trained each part individually. He broke it down into a deadlift, a high pull, a front squat and a shoulder press (I think...he might have left out the squat). Strengthening each minor aspect of the overall movement benefited him greatly, and then it was just a case of slotting it all together.

Hope any of this helps, and best of luck.

Thanks bluestone, that is helpful. made a start yesterday- finding the snatch impossible even with no weight on th bar, possibly a shoulder flexibility issue. I even tried it backwards- doing a squat from a locked out standing position, no use, the bar wanted to move forward as i got lower. Very uncomfortable. The clean and jerk was no problem though.

That is strange...but then, it is quite an unnatural movement I guess. Maybe try single arm dumbbell snatches initially, then progress onto the full bar?

In anticipation for the Olympics I was just looking through the world records for various weight divisions. The weight these guys lift is beyond ridiculous. For example, Oleg Perpetchenov competed in the 77kg class and has the world record clean and jerk of 210 kg. He's 5'4'' but even so that's pretty crazy.

He also powerlifted, and at 98kg (5'4''!!!) his lifts were:

squat:320kg
bench:190kg
deadlift:290kg

I know he would have been juiced for the powerlifting but I still can't understand how someone that size can be so strong.

Impressive stats....

Its the smaller guys that i think are more impressive than the heavyweights

Well in Strongman in the log-lift, a fairly similar lift to the clean and jerk, the world record is around 210kg... for guys who weigh 170kg!!