Considering Olympic Weightlifting?
Why you should (or maybe shouldn't....) and how to get going
First of all, let me define a few terms:
Olympic Weightlifting - Also just called ‘weightlifting’ by those in the know - is an olympic sport, and involves two lifts - the Snatch, where you take a barbell from the ground to overhead in one motion, and the Clean & Jerk, where you take a barbell from the ground to overhead, via a pit-stop on the shoulders. It is sometimes referred to as Olympic Weightlifting, Oly, or Oly lifting, to distinguish it from simply the act of lifting weights, which is what most people do at the gym in some capacity, but now we are all in the know, I will refer to Olympic Weightlifting as simply Weightlifting from now on.
Powerlifting - Not an Olympic sport. Lot’s of people think it is the same as weightlifting, but that is incorrect. Powerlifting is a competitive sport that involves three lifts - the back squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. It is easier to learn and can be done at most gyms by most people without too much specialist training.
I started my gym life training for aesthetics, like almost everyone else, but I preferred the heavy strength movements to the resistance machines and dumbbells, so I gave the powerlifting thing a go.
After three years of doing the same three lifts over and over, I got bored, so I decided to learn weightlifting. I figured being strong, fairly mobile, and comfortable with a heavy barbell, this would be an easy transition.
Friends,
It was not an easy transition.
Thinking this would be easy was a complete delusion! I massively underestimated how hard those two lifts are. However, another five years later, I am now a level 2 British Weightlifting coach, and the majority of my clients perform these two lifts on the regular, most of them having come to me with no Olympic lifting experience at all.
So, if you are experienced in the gym, think you’re pretty strong, and are looking for a new challenge, this blog is for you. I am going to share all things weightlifting. Should you do it? Why should you? How on earth do you even get started, and what does training for weightlifting look like? Does it have to become your whole training program or can you fit it in to what you’re already doing?
So first things first, why should you do it?
It’s fun. Throwing barbells around is cool as heck and will make you look like a badass in the gym. Most people can’t do these movements, so being proficient in them will set you apart.
It’s a challenge. Much more than back squats and deadlifts, the snatch and clean and jerk are highly technical. Consider this - in powerlifting, the strength and conditioning aspect is the sport, but in triple jump, you learn the skill and technique of the triple jump, and the strength and conditioning aspect is separate. Olympic weightlifting is more like the triple jump. You are going to spend a lot more time doing technical drills, and a lot less time doing heavy lifts. There is a whole learning process - a curriculum, if you will. You have to break the movement down into constituent parts to learn it before you can put it back together again. This means you get to learn and conquer something hard. Way to build a physically and mentally resilient human, eh?
It will make you a better all-round athlete. Learning weightlifting will improve your power, mobility, agility, and balance, as well as your strength, whereas normal gym lifting will mostly focus on the latter only, unless you specifically work on the other components of fitness.
It can fit in really well as part of other programs, especially general strength programs and crossfit.
Sounds great, right? So what is the problem? Well….
It is a challenge. Yes this is also a positive, but it can be a negative, depending on what motivates you and what type of athlete you are. If you want to lift heavy right away, be good at what you’re doing, progress linearly, and rarely fail lifts, this sport won’t be the one for you.
The learning curve is very steep. You will be absolutely hopeless for the first few months (or even years). It will humble you. It requires a significant mindset shift from normal lifting. You are going to fail more lifts than you make.
If you aren’t already strong and mobile enough to get into the required positions, you will have to take a lot of time to work on those things before you can perform the full snatch and clean and jerk movements.
It is boring to begin with - the first few weeks will be drilling positions with a stick or a PVC pipe, and you will wonder why this is called ‘weightlifting’ and is done in a gym.
Your other training may take a hit as you learn - we can’t all be experts in everything. Whenever you are taking up a new discipline, you must manage expectations that other areas may suffer slightly.
So if you’re someone who loves a challenge, wants to be powerful, strong, and mobile, and you’re ready to learn a complex new skill… how on EARTH do you get started? Can you just start throwing a barbell around at Fitness First?
Well, not exactly, no. Here are my four key pointers for getting going with weightlifting:
Find a suitable gym that supports the sport. You will need Olympic bars - 15kg ones if you’re a lady - and bumper plates down to 5kg ideally, a set of fractional plates, PVC pipes, platforms or somewhere to drop the bar from overhead, as well as squat racks, jerk boxes, drop pads. Start by googling ‘Olympic weightlifting, your location’ and see what comes up, or for UK based readers, take a look on the British Weightlifting Website for your nearest local affiliate gym.
Hire a coach. With the gym found, the next step would be to get yourself some help. It is going to be very difficult to learn these lifts on your own. Look for a coach with either an Olympic weightlifting accreditation (British weightlifting in the UK) or a strength and conditioning specialist (UKSCA/CSCS). Your gen-pop level 3 personal trainer is not qualified or insured to coach weightlifting. Also, beware crossfit coaches masquerading as weightlifting coaches. Although some crossfit coaches will have excellent knowledge of the olympic lifts, the crossfit coaching qualification itself is not adequate, unless backed up by an additional weightlifting accreditation. If you cannot find an in-person weightlifting coach in your area, you may consider remote coaching, although if you are a total beginner I would advise against it to begin with. The lifts are very technical and you will need someone to look over your positions and correct you in real time, to avoid injury or bad habits creeping in.
If a one-on-one coach is outside of your budget, attend a class or join a barbell club. The British Weightlifting Website is a good place to start if you are UK based, and will contain information on affiliated clubs in your area. But as well as these, many local strength gyms and crossfit gyms run specific weightlifting classes, and this is much cheaper than a one-on-one coach, but you still get the benefit of a pair of experienced eyes on you, breaking down the movements in real time. Be wary of crossfit classes that contain olympic lifts as part of a general WOD - if you are a beginner and are looking to learn the snatch and clean & jerk, a crossfit WOD is not the place. Only go to a crossfit gym class to learn these lifts if it is specifically for Olympic weightlifting and run by a weightlifting coach - they do exist! In fact, this is exactly how I first learned.
In the meantime, there are things you can do to make getting started in weightlifting a lot easier:
A: Work on your strength, in particular your squatting strength (back squats and front squats), pulling strength (clean/snatch pulls/deadlifts), and overhead strength (overhead press, push press)
B: Work on your power, incorporate some explosive movements into what you are currently doing, such as box jumps, kettlebell swings, ball slams….
C: Work on your mobility, paying particular attention to your shoulders, thoracic spine, hips, knees, and ankles
Working on these four things in advance will give you a significant advantage and will lessen the learning curve somewhat, as you must be able to get into and hold the positions required with no weight before you can learn the full lifts with a barbell.
So you’ve made a start in weightlifting, and have some help with the basics. What will your training look like from now on? Well, you can either pursue one of two main paths; it can become your primary training modality, an end in itself - this could mean you’re looking to compete in the sport, or the enjoyment and challenge of it eclipses all your other training so you want to make this your main gig. The second path is that you could simply try to incorporate it into what you are currently doing. This may mean you’re don’t get as good at the Olympic lifts as quickly, but you can feasibly keep doing the stuff you’re already doing, and become a well-rounded athlete overall. This is what a lot of good crossfit programs try and do.
If you pick the first path, a typical training session might look something like this:
A: Technical Drill/Primer - some light work, focusing on a technical area you want to work on. For example, you’re working on your speed and stability in the receive position of the snatch, so you do some snatch balances. You may also sometimes see plyometric work, such as box jumps, in here.
B: Main Lift/Variation - the main work on the main movement of the day. This may be the competition snatch, or some heavy power snatches, or some hang snatches.
C: Strength Work - What it says on the tin. Work on bringing up your weaknesses. Could be heavy pulls, squats, press.
D: Other accessory work - Core work, mobility, bodybuilding - something specifically designed to bring up lagging areas.
If you pick the hybrid path, and you want to carry on what you’re doing but maybe add in some weightlifting work, I would recommend the following:
Pick the exercises that give you the most ‘bang for your buck’ in terms of building proficiency with the movement, so the competition snatch, clean, or jerk, or power and hang variations will be better for you than just snatch balances or push press, as they have higher specificity
Put the Olympic lifting at the start of your session, before any really heavy work, and use it as the power development aspect of a well-rounded strength program. Where you might have done some box jumps, for example, you could now do a few sets of power cleans instead.
Another option may be to have a weightlifting day as part of your program, so if you train three days a week, maybe you do two full body strength sessions, and one weightlifting session. I like this less than doing a little bit every session, as frequency is key principle for learning a complex skill, but it can work well if you are focusing on other areas and just like to do snatches and cleans for the fun of it.
Manage your expectations - if you’re pursuing a hybrid approach, you are not going to see the same gains on the specific movements as you would if you were focusing merely on those two lifts, and if you are having to do less of other things to incorporate the Olympic lifts, your performance on those things may lag too. But don’t see this as a negative - aim to progress incrementally across the board, and accept it might be a bit slower than the more specific approach.
Use training blocks or ‘seasons’ to prioritise different things. This is a strategy I make ample use of myself. I cannot bring up my squat, bench, deadlift, pull ups, handstands, snatches, cleans, jerks all at the same time, so I will have weeks, months, or even years where I focus in on just one or two of these things and go hard with them. If you’re three months out from a weightlifting competition, for example, this might be the time to abandon the hybrid life for a bit and go full-on weightlifting. The other stuff will be waiting for you when you get back!
If you have made it to this point, you should now have a good understanding of what weightlifting is, whether it is a right for you, and how to get started, as well as some approaches to how it can be incorporated into your training.
I am a certified British Weightlifting coach and offer both in-person and remote coaching in specifically weightlifting, but I also ‘specialise’ in a more hybrid approach (if you can tolerate the contradiction in terms there…!) and I love to support people in pursuing new avenues and reaching new heights with their strength and athleticism. If you wish to contact me to discuss anything I have written about here, or for any more information, please head over to my website or instagram. I am always happy to hear from people and to discuss lifting weights!
Sincerely in Strength,
Coach Claire