Important Oly Lift Lesson

[dmaipa]

Mike Burgener is a well known Olympic Weight Lifting coach, and one who I've followed during my time as a strength coach. He points out an important aspect of the olympic lifts, especially the power clean and snatch. A big mistake many lifters have when performing these exercises are when they use way to much arm and try to muscle up the weight. These lifts are about being explosive through your whole body.

[rippednmichigan]

Great post D!

[dmaipa]

If you incoporate Oly Lifts into your workout, I would recommend performing the exercise first after a complete warm-up. The reason behind this is that since Olympic Exercises are very complex and involves the wholebody it is important that you do these exercises first in your workout, especially if you are working with heavy loads.

It is not smart to go from say a squat to doing power cleans. Reason being, your legs will be fatigued and the technique of the power clean with be off cause there to be more room for injury.

If you want to incorporate oly lifts but choose not to perform them at the beginning. I would highly recommend you focus on performing with a lighter weight. There is no reason to try and go ahead and break records while your body is already fatigued after part of your workout.

Personally when I do Oly Lifts, I start to feel a sense of excitement and it activates the rest of my body for the remainder of my workout. Since Oly lifts are highly neural, it really wakes up your body and gets your mind and body amped up which is why I would recommend performing these exercises first.

[BendtheBar]

Great video. Thanks for posting this.

[big_swede]

Originally Posted by dmaipa

Personally when I do Oly Lifts, I start to feel a sense of excitement and it activates the rest of my body for the remainder of my workout. Since Oly lifts are highly neural, it really wakes up your body and gets your mind and body amped up which is why I would recommend performing these exercises first.

I couldnt agree moore. Great post D!

[dmaipa]

Good video for some pointers on the hang clean. Especially making sure your elbows are pointed out at the hang so that you have more of a pull, and the bar stays close to your body. Too many lifts don't pay attention to the angle of the elbows and have their elbows facing towards the back which will give the lifter the tendency to perform more of a reverse barbell curl rather than a pull.

[dmaipa]

OVERHEAD SQUATS

During Overhead Squats something to focus on while performing the lift is your arms. You arms should be full extended. If you arms begin to bend focus on punching up towards the ceiling. Keep back tight, shoulders flexed, and arms extended. Sometimes you may need to widen your grip a little more in order to make it easier to lock out the arms. If you cannot keep your arms locked throughout the whole movement. Go lighter and work on it more.

[dmaipa]

FLIP THE SHIRT

We use the term "flip the shirt" when we are coaching up olympic lifts like cleans, and snatches. What I mean by this is that when your shirt is untucked and you perform a clean or snatch the bar should stay close to your body that it will flip the bottom of your shirt. Now, I'm not saying to try to make sure your shirt flip up everytime. But just having that cue in your mind will make sure you keep the bar close to your body keeping the center of gravity close to you.

When the bar travels away from your body the center of gravity moves which will make your upper body lean forward. If you ever perform a clean and when you come to the rack position, with bar on your shoulders, and you are a slightly falling forward that is a good sign that the bar travelled away from your body. Remember "flip the shirt".