Rippetoe on Olympic Lifting

[BendtheBar]

The problem is demographic: we don't have the strongest athletes in Olympic weightlifting in this country, for various reasons. Since this is the case, if we want to improve our performances we have to stop pretending that strength can be acquired by simply doing the snatch and the C&J, since this obviously does not occur post-novice.

Now, if you're already strong, you can train anyway you like, and countries with bigger teams have these athletes. They may be more willing to use "other methods" to get strong than we are (and in fact, their coaches may not be any better at making their athletes strong than ours are, but it is irrelevant if you have strong athletes that have been recruited for that reason).

Since that is not the case here, until we stop pretending that a 700 lb. deadlift slows down a 400 lb. clean, and we start training for strength to make up for our demographics, our athletes will continue to suffer from the stagnation that passes for coaching expertise.

[Carl1174]

I think training for both strength and explosive power is prudent. I have progressed faster than for a long time with training both.

Carl.

[Aurik]

Well, face it.. at least in this country, the snatch and clean and jerk are almost NEVER done. In the good old US of A, the bench press and bicep curl are all anyone wants to work on, for better or for worse.

[BendtheBar]

All I know is that training for strength increased my explosive power.

[big_swede]

One gives the other, both ways in my experience.

[dmaipa]

Does training for absoulte strength increase power/explosiveness?

[MikeM]

I was fascinated by Tommy Kono's book, and in it he talked about the "golden age" of US weightlifting with him and Paul Anderson, John Davis, the George brothers, Schemansky, etc. The interesting thing he said was that all those guys trained by themselves, no coaches really at all, only getting together for a month training, if that, before a big meet. And they all beat pretty much any foreign "amateur" weightlifter that they faced.

He makes it clear that technique is king, and mental strength on top of smart training on top of that is all that's required for Olympic lifting success. So, if the US is lagging now, it could of course be from the lack of our strongest athletes becoming Olympic lifters, or bad coaching possibly, but it also must be from poor athletes who aren't inherently learning their craft as well as they can.

It's easy to blame a coach when you fail, but how much research did you do on your own to see if your coach knew what he was talking about?

It is interesting that the US has plenty of record setting powerlifters and Strongmen, but doesn't really have any seriously good Olympic lifters. SOme of that is interest in the sport and how much it's on TV, for sure. But, some of it is simply a lack of the athlete themselves putting themselves up to that level.

It's kind of like the same argument about soccer players, our best athletes go into other sports, as Rippitoe is alluding to I think, but by the same token, we do have a few World Class players. Just not a World Class team, not quite. Is that coaching? or athletes not taking that next step?