When someone mentions “Olympic Weightlifting,” people usually have visions of large Eastern European men in tights, grunting and sweating while lifting an unimaginable weight. Well, you’re partially right, but there’s much more to Olympic Weightlifting than you may think. Performing Olympic Weightlifting movements can be beneficial for all athletes preparing for sports, as well as others looking to enhance general strength and fitness.
The two lifts performed in Olympic Weightlifting are the Clean & Jerk and the Snatch. In plain terms, the Clean & Jerk involves lifting a loaded barbell from the floor to your shoulders, and then over your head – essentially two movements. The Snatch, on the other hand, involves lifting the barbell from the floor directly over your head in one movement.
In order for you to lift a weight from the floor to a position over your head, you have to use a large number of muscles – pretty much every muscle in your body, unlike a bench press or a bicep curl so it makes for a great workout.
Olympic weightlifting will cut down on the exercise time, allowing you to get done in 45 minutes to 1 hour what you used to do in "traditional splits" for 1.5 hours or more! And because Olympic Weightlifting movements are typically high velocity, high load and cover extreme ranges of motion, significant coordination and muscle control are required the movements translate well to explosive sporting movements.
Olympic lifts also require significant core strength and stability which you can transfer into everyday activities. The technique required for Olympic lifts teach you to use proper posture, muscle firing patterns and leverage for optimal force application and safety and since there is a significant metabolic cost to doing these lifts because of the energy required to recruit a large amount of musculature very quickly it can also help to keep you very lean and reduce your body fat.
So why not give it a go?
Introductory Courses and personal tuition are all available through Dale Rattigan
See Rich for details.