Topic: fitness, kg, and technique

[Steve Black]

I'm a 46 year old 160 lb. male beginning to learn the snatch and C&J. I'm reasonably fit, but no athlete. My purpose is to gain the fitness benefits of the O lifts. So going heavy is not a major goal, but I do want to learn good technique.

Is there a minimum weight needed on the bar to perform proper technique?

Once I learn decent technique, is there an ideal percentage of bodyweight one should lift with to maximize the fitness benefits while minimizing risk of injury?

[Gabriel Grinstead]

I'm a 46 year old 160 lb. male beginning to learn the snatch and C&J. I'm reasonably fit, but no athlete. My purpose is to gain the fitness benefits of the O lifts. So going heavy is not a major goal, but I do want to learn good technique.

Is there a minimum weight needed on the bar to perform proper technique?

Once I learn decent technique, is there an ideal percentage of bodyweight one should lift with to maximize the fitness benefits while minimizing risk of injury?

Hi Steve,

If you are doing the olifts for general fitness, I would personally stick to the "power" forms of both of the lifts.

There is a minimum weight, but it depends on the level of strength you have, therefore, it is difficult to really give you any accurate answer on that.  For instance, using the bar in my case would be too light to learn proper technique.  However, give that same bar to another person and it may just be enough resistance to really work on the lift.

Both lifts are difficult to learn on your own, mostly because you cannot see your form.  My suggestion is that you find a lifter who knows those lifts, or perhaps a coach to see if he can show you the basics.  If that isn't possible, then there are a few resources to learn them, and you can use a video camera and report your form here on this forum.  That way, at least you know if you are doing them right or not.

As far as injury goes... This is rather generic, but just don't bite off more than you can chew and try not to go anywhere near your maximum weight.

One more thing I wanted to mention... I recomend the "power" versions of the lifts because It doesn't require bumber weights and there is less chance that you will "dump" the weight.

Good luck Steve, the Olympic Lifts are a lot of fun.

[Matt Denslinger]

If you are doing the olifts for general fitness, I would personally stick to the "power" forms of both of the lifts.

Nah, if he can't find I coach I wouldn't bother learning the power movements over the full movements.

In my experience and from what I have witnessed from others doing the power movements before the full lifts is that they develop bad habits. For instance a lot of people I see tend to split their feet out too wide for a power clean. Now if you were learning the squat clean you wouldn't be able to do that.

If you can find a coach or experienced lifter that can properly show you the technique it will make learning easier.

As far as reducing the chance of injuries in lifting, I would suggest warming up before a lifting session and stretching daily.

[Gabriel Grinstead]

If you are doing the olifts for general fitness, I would personally stick to the "power" forms of both of the lifts.

Nah, if he can't find I coach I wouldn't bother learning the power movements over the full movements.

In my experience and from what I have witnessed from others doing the power movements before the full lifts is that they develop bad habits. For instance a lot of people I see tend to split their feet out too wide for a power clean. Now if you were learning the squat clean you wouldn't be able to do that.

If you can find a coach or experienced lifter that can properly show you the technique it will make learning easier.

As far as reducing the chance of injuries in lifting, I would suggest warming up before a lifting session and stretching daily.

So, your argueing it based on the fact that some people do them incorrectly? The same can be said for the full movements, just different technique flaws.

For instance, I have found that when some people do the full movements, they decide not to extend all the way, since the weight doesn't need to go up as far. Now you have a technique flaw... Basically, I can argue the same points on technique flaws, just in different areas.

The reason I recomended the power forms is due to most people lifting for casual reasons not having access to bumper weights. So do you mean to tell me, that someone should do a full snatch with standard iron plates? If that is the case, I feel sorry for your gym owner, reglardless of the level of your experience.

Keep in mind, it is easy to pick apart another users post. No one seemed to wanted to answer this guy, since I seen you and several others logged in for the past day posted under different threads of this category, but neglected this post until now? Therefore, sometimes, I simply feel some of you just post to try and prove others wrong.  Am I wrong on that?

Edit - Just want you to know that I am not attempting to be abrasive here.  Just sharing with you my thoughts on how it seems.  It makes people not want to post or give advice, because some people come on in, tear it down and feel they have done their work.  Not acusing you of that, I want to make sure you know that I have no problems and am quite light hearted here. :D

[Steve Black]

Fortunately my gym does have bumper plates. There's a pair of 10lb and 6 15lb. But we don't have a proper platform, just a padded floor. So far I've just been using the 10lb plates on a standard bar, plus I do one-handed lifts with 40lb dumbbells. But I've quickly realized I probably need to focus for now on front squats with the bar and on OHS with just a broomstick to resolve my flexibility issues. Right now I have trouble keeping my elbows up on the front squat, and I can't yet do a full squat in snatch position and keep the bar overhead. I'll work on that.

The one-handed power snatches I'm doing are a super exercise for fitness, but I see the risk of learning some bad form. I'm doing my best to do them as described at the UC Riverside Strength & Conditioning site http://www.athletics.ucr.edu/strengthconditioning/exercisemenu.html .

I'm also fortunate to have a friend who's a certified coach, but we're having trouble scheduling a time to lift together. I can see how having someone qualified watch and critique is really important.

FWIW, last year I took up running just to be more fit and ended up running my first ever marathon two weeks ago. There's a lot of specific running information in books and on the web along the lines of "if your goal is to run X distance in Y speed, you need to do A, B, and C". I guess what my question really is, is there similar information for the O lifts?

[Paul LaDuke]

Steve,

I would work on learning the snatch from the top down.  This means teach your body the movements from the catch and then work on the throw.  (If you really simplify the O-Lifts, you are throwing the weight into the air and catching it on the way down.  The clean and jerk would be 2 throws and 2 catches.)

Snatch Progression
Overhead squats - personally I would use the bar as the weight of it actually helps with gently stretching the muscles plus your center of gravity changes as the bar gets heavier.  Broom sticks just don't seem to cut it because they are too light.

Snatch Balance (you can find video of this exercise on this site) also known as the Drop snatch.  This is working on dropping and catching the bar.

Hang Snatch - perform the snatch with the bar starting at mid thigh.  Throw the bar overhead and catch it in the snatch balance exercise that you just mastered.

Full snatch - add the first pull to the hang snatch.  

Other exercise - Snatch Pulls and Snatch deadlifts.


Clean and Jerk
Front Squat - keep the bar above the clavicles and resting on your front deltoids, this should aid in keeping your elbows up.  It should feel like the weight is resting on your shoulders not being held up by your hands and wrists.

Hang Clean - start with the bar just above the knees, clean it to your shoulders as you drop into your front squat.

Full Clean - add the first pull to the hang clean

Clean and jerk - put it all together.

Other exercises - push press, clean/front squat combo, front squat/jerk combo, clean pulls, clean deadlift.



Since you don't really know your maxes for the snatch and the clean and jerk, you can estimate what you can do from your squat.  Of course this is all relative to effeciency in form.

Your clean and jerk can be up to 80% of your squat.  Your snatch will be about 75% of your clean and jerk.  For a beginner, I would estimate low (because of form issues) and start with a clean and jerk that is 65% of your squat and a snatch that is 70% of your clean and jerk.  Your work out weights for O-lifting should be in the 65% to 85% of your estimated max for that exercise no matter what experience level you are at.

[Steve Black]

Thank you, Paul, that's very helpful. I appreciate you taking the time to help out a beginner.