SESSION NOTES: Olympic Lifting Drills (601)

This session breaks down some of the key elements of Olympic Weightlifting technique.

Although there are benefits to power (and strength to a degree), the real benefit of this drill session is an improvement in movement quality, and the development of skill.

There is a progression from ‘part’ to ‘whole’. Smaller, segmented movements are easier to learn (due to less moving parts), so we begin here. As the movement becomes more familiar, we add complexity by layering on more movements, while always ensuring the movement we’re building on is completed with good form.

This session covers elements of the snatch, clean, and jerk.

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Resistance training (using your muscles to lift heavy weights, either external weights or yourself) makes you stronger. Strength is one of the greatest predictors of both your lifespan (how long you live) and your healthspan (how long you live in a healthy state).

Resistance training like this will also improve your flexibility (by going through a full range of motion), posture and coordination. It will also build stability around your joints and spine to give you a healthy musculo-skeletal system and reduce joint and back pain.

Functionally, Olympic lifting will teach you the safest and most efficient ways to move objects in your everyday life.

The session will minimise losses in bone mineral density and will improve your balance. The dynamic positions you encounter in Olympic lifting will improve your agility.

Strength and balance are the two strongest predictors of falls later in life. Add agility to the mix, and Olympic Lifting becomes an effective way to train fall prevention, and insure your independence into old age.

The complex nature of these movements, and the need for high levels of learning, will improve and preserve your cognitive function with age, and encourage neuroplasticity.

As a result of this style of session, you will experience changes in blood chemistry, including favourable effects on cholesterol, blood glucose, triglyceride and lipid levels.

Some of the more advanced positions (and extremes of joint positions) in the Olympic lifts can be excellent diagnostic tools to identify areas of the musculo-skeletal system that need addressing.

This session increases your lean muscle mass and muscle fibre size. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, so increasing it will maximise how much energy your body burns at rest. This makes it an effective session to reach healthy levels of body fat, both visceral fat (around the organs) and subcutaneous fat (under your skin). After this session, your body will go through a prolonged state of ‘EPOC’ (excess post- exercise oxygen consumption), meaning you’ll continue burning energy long after you finish training – further aiding healthy body composition.

As more of a skill-based session, these drills will improve the quality of your movement, allowing you to lift heavier with more efficiency.

The heavy levels of resistance in this session are designed to increase your strength – increasing both your one rep max, and your ability to lift submaximal weights. By being stronger, you can lift more weight, and you will be able to lift submaximal weights faster and for higher reps because they’ll be at a lower percentage of your max.

The high movement velocities in this session will train your ability to move fast, increasing speed. These speed benefits will not only improve your Olympic lifting, but will increase your explosiveness and agility in a range of explosive athletic movements, and will allow you to generate force at a higher rate in the slower power lifts (increasing your absolute strength).

This session will also improve the efficiency of your fast-twitch muscle fibres (those responsible for lifting heavy and fast), and will improve your neuromuscular efficiency (your ability to turn on a very high percentage of your muscle fibres).

Focus on movement quality. As a skill development session, this is key.

This session should feel heavy, but fast. Although the heaviness should challenge your technique, your technique shouldn’t break down.

Modify this session by reducing the complexity of each drill to ensure correct technique is developed. It’s better to stay simple with good technique, than go too complex with poor technique.

The biggest mistake here is working to the point where technique breaks down. Go as heavy as possible with good technique.