RE: PM 57 learning the olympic lifts - necessary?

[Torsten Hauptmann]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

Like it's been stated before.. do what you enjoy.

i enjoy improvement most

Originally Posted by Steven Low

I still disagree with your assessment though. You're saying that for those time limited, they maybe should focus on other things. If they want to be competitive with CF, then if they're time limited MOST of their time should go into Oly.

Most of the people who have had staying power (top 10 in CF games) like OPT/Jolie/etc. either workout with Greg Everett gym or have made trips there to train for months at a time to work on their Oly technique.

If your Oly is a weakness, then you better put that in your warmup and do TONS of skill work on it EVERYDAY. There is no question what you should be working on. You should be working on the highest skill moves which translate to everything else in CF -- aka Oly lifts.

i did not want to say that everyone should ignore the oly lifts but to train more for power than for big numbers on the competition lifts after a basic proficiency is achived gives probably more bang for the buck. take f.e. mikko salo or jason khalipa: both do not have very high competition numbers.

and i agree with you that training the lifts with a good coach does improve your athletic abilities but those lifts need all time quality coaching. my numbers went up fast when training at the weightlifting club. i now snatch about 80kg but my improvement went very very slow after training on my own.
my past weightlifting coach trains one guy who recently won the bronze medall at the european championchips at the c&j event. and he made him do so in just less than 3 years of training. that guy started at 13 years of age and is now 16 and has a 163kg c&j at 92 kg bodyweight. before weightlifting he did not do any competetive sport. and you have to take account of the fact that this guy at the age of 16 still has not a fixed technique and has to change it all time because his growth process has not ended yet - and for sure that guy has talent.

but if you do not have a coach available who is watching most of your lifts then a lot lifts are just wasted time. besides that the power variants do always train power but not skill. i.e. you train and do not practise. and to practise with sub maximal weightes does not improve your technique above a certain level (at least due to the above mentioned coach). so i think that training the power variants and assistance lifts more/heavier would not affect the development of your competition lifts as those do improve very very slow if working on your own/without a good coach. then power will improve but not competition numbers but that power should translate to other things but that power will not improve the competition numbers faster than with a good oly training. there is a PM article taking account of that fact when dealing with PL converting to OLY esp. shane hammon i think.

do you think that in regards of this (the problem to improve in absence of lots of time and a very good coach) it is still better to train oly lifts on your own (as those are considered highest skill movements) after a basic understanding of them? i think that after being able to peform with resonable weight everything else is skill finetuning, i.e. specialization.

and how to measure that the competition lifts do acutally improve general athletic ability more than their power variants? a lot of the people who performed good at the CF games can do resonable competition lifts but i think nobody besids josh everett has competetive numbers in the weightlifting community - and khalipa did beat everett at CF 2008 games at the c&j.

[Steven Low]

do you think that in regards of this (the problem to improve in absence of lots of time and a very good coach) it is still better to train oly lifts on your own (as those are considered highest skill movements) after a basic understanding of them? i think that after being able to peform with resonable weight everything else is skill finetuning, i.e. specialization.

You do what you can...

There's excellent resources on the web where you can upload vids and people critique including here/CF/etc.

There's Greg's Oly book.

If you want to be good, you can't just "settle." You have to be proactive about your training, and relentless in the pursuit of your technique.

and how to measure that the competition lifts do acutally improve general athletic ability more than their power variants? a lot of the people who performed good at the CF games can do resonable competition lifts but i think nobody besids josh everett has competetive numbers in the weightlifting community - and khalipa did beat everett at CF 2008 games at the c&j.

The power variants are really only primarily used by athletes who do not have solid background with technique, but still need to gain power generation capability. Biggest place you'll see this is with football players.

CF will evolve as Oly gets stronger.

Remember, Josh Everett does not train his weaknesses and only does what he likes. This is not mainpage or any significant metabolic work. Of course Khalipa will have a metabolic advantage if he has enough strength to perform the movements correctly. I also think he has a weight advantage over Everett too...

[Blair Lowe]

Khalipa had a significant weight advantage over Everett.

Like Caity Matter, he kept control of the bar minimizing his down time as much as possible. You can watch him literally bend over and clean the bar. It ain't pretty but it worked since he was able to cycle it fast. Thus efficient for every second that counted.

Quite a few of the CFGames competitors suffered from a lack of ability to perform the gymnastics maneuvers (which are basic, imo and thus easy to train if you spend some time working them) while others suffered during the snatch event. Pretty much everybody could clean, but they could do it far more efficiently I bet, thus faster, if they worked it more.

However, the snatch, HSPU, and MU significantly crushed some competitors. DU to some I heard in the qualifiers. Well, I guess the hammer did as well.

However, the gymnastics HeSPU and MU are far easier to train than the Olympic lifts.

[Torsten Hauptmann]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

You do what you can...

There's excellent resources on the web where you can upload vids and people critique including here/CF/etc.

i do. but i figured out that it is hard to improve in weightlifting and still do other things like gymnastics. i myself try to figure out how to combine weightlifting and gymnastics (at least ring strength) but when i stepped back from a weightlifting dominant program than my gains became very small.
i was thinking about focusing just on one lift but both are complementing each other very well. but the C&J does interfere with gymnastics more than the Snatch but for GPP a powerfull Push is very important....which makes the decision very hard.

Originally Posted by Steven Low

The power variants are really only primarily used by athletes who do not have solid background with technique, but still need to gain power generation capability. Biggest place you'll see this is with football players.

Did i get you right, that you suppose that the competition lifts are superior to the power variants in producing power generation capability?

[Steven Low]

Did i get you right, that you suppose that the competition lifts are superior to the power variants in producing power generation capability?

Absolutely. The correct technique is superior in every aspect (because you can put up more weight).

It's just that for those without technical ability, power clean/snatch/muscle clean/snatch/etc. provide an alternative. Usually it's hang power cleans as those have the lowest skill to give good amounts of power.