Olympic Weightlifting: A Novice's Endeavor

Mobility and more power by cultivating movement efficiency and work capacity.

Arguably, the snatch is the most powerful and athletic movement of all time; taking a barbell from the ground to overhead in single explosive movement. It is competitively performed in conjunction with the 2-stage clean-and-jerk.

These are known as the Olympic lifts. My original 12-week plan was interrupted by a rib injury in late summer, so I was left with 8-weeks and some change to see what I could accomplish never having done a dedicated Olympic program before.

Why (Olympic) Weightlifting?

Olympic weightlifting has many obvious benefits to grappling sports:

• compound, multi-joint movement

• explosive power

• kinesthetic awareness

• mobility / range of strength

In contrast to powerlifting (bench press, back squat, and deadlift), the Olympic movements (snatch and clean-and-jerk) require dynamic force application through a wide range of motion (mobility).

My initial interest was precisely this. “Movement” can be a significant limiting factor in capacity training. If you’re much less efficient at …