Programming for weightlifting can seem to be a daunting task at first. I would assume because the fitness field has standardized leg days to x2-3 a week, anymore and you’re bound to overtrain…If you think about it weightlifters are not “sport athletes”, where there are other physical stressors outside of the weightroom i.e. on field work, sprint mechanics, hitting drills etc… So if you goto the heart of it, programming for Olympic weightlifters it’s actually much simpler than say, training a NFL combine athlete.
Here are a few tips that may help you develop your Olympic weightlifting programming skills:
Skill Transfer
My general philosophy for programming is to keep it as simple as possible. Most of our weightlifters have not been exposed to the sport of weightlifting for many years, because of this I like to stick to the classical lifts and only change the intensity/volume – at first. After a period of time we may have to start to add in specialized auxiliary exercises to develop skill sets that are not transferring over as well from just the classical lift- of course subjective to the lifters needs and development.
Any auxiliary lift that’s programmed for our Olympic weightlifters are programmed to develop a missing skill such as:
- Dead cleans: teach the weightlifter a fast pull under (3rd pull).
- Drop snatches: teach the weightlifter to push under, punch the elbows straight up, and overhead positioning during the drop.
- Contrast deadlifts + clean: overloads the pull and reinforces good pull positioning that will hopefully transfer to the clean.
If you decide to add in auxiliary movements, you should ask yourself:
Will the complex or strength movement help you transfer to a better classical lift?
Sometimes people get caught up in the numbers of your powers or pulls but what does that mean if it has minimal carry over to your classical lifts- snatch, clean and jerk.
Ex: Weightlifters power cleans 110k, front squats 150kg x2 with speed, but fails to squat clean 120k?
At this point the lifer should clearly put focus on the classical lifts or whatever skill set is lacking to lift the squat clean number up.
Time
A lot of new weightlifters focus on what the elite international lifters are doing but fail to remember that these weightlifters have the genetics and time for a high frequency of training throughout the week. It’s important to remember the years of physical preparation developed before to reach the level they are currently at. Sadly, most US weightlifters have other stresses of life such as school, work, bills, family duties, etc… and are not able to train at that sort of level. In fact, if USA weightlifters had more funding we’d be able to keep more competitive weightlifters in the sport, so please help fund your local club or USA-W.
When programming for this type of situation, the weightlifter needs to take into account the above mentioned transfer of training. If you only have x3 days to train and are a relatively amateur lifter, would it make much sense to add hangs, powers, and complexes? In my opinion, I would think not. Mainly because we want to expose the weightlifter to the classical lifts as much as possible = develop a feel for the bar and timing.
In short, the more concentrated the time, the more concentrated the weightlifting programming should be toward the classical lifts (snatch, clean and jerk). While weightlifter is different, I believe with these type of lifters the more variables you add in the more watered down the programming becomes = less translation to sport. With that stated, after a period of time you may find that adding “primers” during the warm up or a block period of time for complexes may work. BUT first the weightlifter will need a strong foundation with the classical lifts.
Stress
The ever popular max every workout can take a toll on any weightlifter. While it’s ok to push weightlifters to a certain limit, we must also take into consideration other stressors that’ll negatively effect the lifters progress. As we mentioned about most US weightlifters have regular lives, this means that they may have a very stressful boss, late nights studying or working, travelling etc… With extra stresses in everyday life your body may not be able to recover as quickly, therefore monitoring your stress levels will be imperative.
Typical for our lifters, I ask them how they are feeling and assess them throughout the warm up to decide whether we should stick to the program or drop down in weight or even push the weight up a bit. If you’re on your own, you’ll want to monitor how you’re feeling working up to your work sets. Keep in mind that if you’re feeling beat up, it’s okay to de-load a bit and focus on positioning drills.
De-Loading
This is a controversial debate, the “De-load”, some say it’s bull shit and you need to man up, other say you need to do it every 3-4 weeks. The problem I’ve found with constantly pushing through exhaustion is that you potentially created more injuries than if you would’ve taken a deload. Generally speaking sometimes these injuries generally take a bit longer time to heal = time off = weakness. For the programmed de-load, I never liked these as the deload timing was off or we took too much time and intensity off = weakness – the standard practice was to take 40-50% off your total volume and intensity.
What I’d suggest if you’re feeling beat up:
- First analyze your diet and rest: Are you eating calories and healthy nutrients to support your increased volume/intensity? Are you getting enough sleep? If not, clearly try to get more at night and/or try to take a short 15-20min nap. Hopefully the new found focus on your nutrition and rest will allow you to sustain the demands of the program.
- Drop intensity and/or volume: now this doesn’t mean to take a week off or or take 50% of your volume down. You can do something as simple as cutting down one workout’s total intensity and see you’re feeling from there ex: instead of maximal do 75-85%. If you’re still feeling beat up you can do light pulls or take one day out and focus on regeneration. The point being is to not be too drastic with your changes whether you’re de-loading or increasing the intensity. Ex: currently we have a lifter cut down from 4 day of Olympic lifting and 1 day of only strength to now 3 days of Olympic lifting and 2 days of strength (medium intensity/volume). So far this has helped the lifter recovery and eventually we will ramp back up to 4-5 days of the classical lifts.
- HRV: You can also monitor your HRV levels but you’ll need a strong baseline for this to work. This is a bit more advanced and it’ll take a lot of consistent data and programming notes to decipher when is the ideal time, at what volume/intensity you should drop down to and maintain at, etc… but if you’re interested you can check out: http://www.bioforcehrv.com/ or https://www.omegawave.com/
Keep mind that while not all of this is completely applicable to every weightlifter, it does encompass a signifiant amount of amateur and novice Olympic weightlifters. In either case, I hope that this was helpful with your development and programming for this great sport.
Best,