Topic: flexibility exercises for olympic lifts?

[Patrick Bateman]

Hey guys,

I have just started doing olympic lifts, and i have a couple of flexibilty problems:

(i)i cannot drop into a full overhead squat with some weight. With a dowel i can, because my torso can lean forward, and let my shoulder flexibilty compensate. With a weight thic becomes hard. I can get my thighs parralel but not calves to hamstrings.

(ii)when i clean, if i drop low into a front squat to catch the bar, my torso leans forward, which often means the bar slips off my shoulders. I can can front squat fine. But i do notice that when i am front squatting the forward lean causes a lot of stress on my wrists.

I think i have a flexability issue. I think my torso should be more vertical for front and overhead squats.

What should i do?

What are the basic flexability evercises that olympic weightlifters do? how long do they hold them for? sets and reps for stretches??

many thanks!

[Justin Ott]

I read that you should continue doing O lifts and the flexibility will come, just keep working at it. It has taken me a while but I am just starting to get flexability in my wrists so they dont hurt after every work out.

[Chuck Lopez]

it depends IMO, just doing snatches and front squats made my shoulders and wrists more flexible; however just doing the lifts and squats didn't really do anything for my hip, quad, ankle, and hamstring flexibility so I've had to work hard on those on the side, I do alot of static stretching, alot of straddles nowadays also holding my leg straight up at 90 degrees with a band, also lying on my stomach then arching my back hard while my hands push on the floor - these are for inner thighs, hamstrings, on mid back respectively; slowly I've become more upright but tensing certain muscles like your core and upper back can help with the leaning forward thing though some people will lean forward some regardless of what they do.

[Michael Øvrebø]

I have terrible flexibility in the bottom position as well, but I've been doing a LOT of hip/ankle/hamstrings stretching and I'm slowly getting better. You should try that as well, but it takes time.

[Jim Hooper]

Patrick,

Once you can execute overhead squats and front squats to low positions in reasonably good form, the squats themselves become the most effective mobility exercises for developing solid receiving positions.  (And solid receiving positions, in turn, are a prerequisite to performing and training the lifts effectively.)  You are right to recognize and emphasize this early.

To get you to the point where your FS and OHS are sound enough to provide that training benefit, you need to understand that the inability to maintain a (mostly) upright torso in the bottom position with the barbell racked or locked out overhead is almost certainly a problem with your lower body joint mobility -- ankle, knee, and hip joints.  To prove that to yourself, confirm that you can stand upright with the bar properly racked or locked out overhead with a snatch grip.  If you can, that means the problem is mostly in the lower body, not the upper body.  (If you cannot support the barbell properly in the racked or snatch lockout position even when you are standing, that tells you that you have to work on shoulder, elbow, and wrist mobility as well).

For the lower body joints, try the following -- being careful, working into it slowly, and using good common sense.  I recommend these every workout (and more).  You can still work the OHS and FS as well, doing them as correctly as you are currently capable of doing, but do the stretches before, and the reps on the squats themselves should be appreciably better -- probably noticeable even the very first time you go through the progression.

1.  For your ankle joint, get in a seated calf machine, load it up with a couple of large plates, and sit there, letting the load flex your ankles (your shinbone should incline closer and closer toward the top of your foot).  Doing standing, runner type ankle/Achilles stretches is okay as well, but with your knee straight, most of the stretch will be in the gastroc, instead of the soleus and achilles tendon, which are the structures that are really holding you back.  When you get in the seated calf machine, the knee is bent, as it is when you squat, and the stretch will be more useful.  If you don't have access to a seated calf machine, you can squat with your back to a wall and have a training partner push down on your knees.  If you don't have a seated calf machine or a willing partner, improvise the stretch by putting your foot on a bench, fold your torso over it, grab the sides of the bench, and pull with your arms to "row" your torso down against the thigh on the stretching leg -- the pressure should force your ankle to flex -- relax your calf and ankle and push it into flexion with your upper body.  (You will feel connective tissues and tendons that you did not know you had.)   In the bottom positions, you want your ankle flexed forward, knee over your foot, with a bent knee above it all, right?  That's the position these stretches work.  In my experience, several 30-60 second stretches are about right.  Try for a little more ankle flexion on every round.

2.  For your knee joint, sit on your heels, support your upper body with your hands, and gradually lower your torso backward.    Use your supporting hands to control the intensity of the stretch.  You should feel the stretch in the lower half of your quads, and as you get deeper, into your hip flexors.   In the bottom positions, you want your thighs relaxed and "sitting on" your calves, right?  That's exactly the position this stretch puts them in.   Again, several stretches of 30-60 seconds duration should be about right.  Try for a little more knee/quad range of motion every round.

3.  For your hip joints, the goal is to get your rear end as low as possible and as far forward as possible (the closer your butt is to your ankle joints, the better).   This is absolutely critical in order to get your torso more upright in the bottom position -- when your butt is high or too far to the rear, your upper body will have no choice but to tilt forward, otherwise, you would topple over backward.   Squat -- always flatfooted in your lifting shoes, with your chest up and forward, upright torse -- with your back to a wall.   Put an empty bar across the top of your knees and push them down.     Squat in front of a pole or the upright of a power rack, using your hands on the upright to assist with position.   Best of all, squat holding a heavy kettlebell or dumbbell against your chest, letting the weight "sink through" your hips -- relax and let your hips go lower and forward.  Roll onto one foot and back to the other. Duck walk around the platform in the low squat position.  Put your feet on blocks with a gap in the center, and squat there, hanging or holding a weight to pull your hips lower.  Anything that opens up your hips and helps you get them closer to your ankles, with a (mostly) upright torso.  I recommend working these deep squat position stretches for a good 5-10 minutes.  Try for a little deeper hip level on each successive stretch.  Don't cheat and slump over -- that's worthless -- keep your spine upright and feel the stretch in your hips.

Once those stretches develop enough mobility for you to do good front and overhead squats with at least an empty bar (20 kgs), then use the stretches only for warmups, and work the bejeezus out of those two movements -- when you can do perfect, rock bottom reps any day of the week, start adding weight, and the pause and sit in the bottom positions for a few seconds on each rep, learning to support the bar in the hole with a solid rack (your core and torso isometrically do the work) or a tight snatch lockout (your core, upper back, traps, and triceps isometrically do the work) -- with your hips and legs pretty much able to relax and just sit there, meat on meat, bone on bone.  In the pauses, focus on sinking the hips lower (relax tension in your legs and let the load above push your hips forward and down), and getting that torso upright (tight spine, chest up, eyes straight ahead).  Eventually you should be able to "sit" in the rock bottom position with a barbell locked out overhead or racked for several minutes and pretty much carry on a conversation.

With all the above, experiment with the width and angle of "turnout" of your feet.  Find the stance where your rear goes lowest, with your femur, knee, lower leg, and foot all in the same plane, "tracking" in line.  If you feel weird, painful joint stress in any position, back off a few degrees.  Find the best angles for your unique anatomy.

Also, for all the stretches above, in addition to simply willing the stretched muscles and tendons to relax and applying reasonable pressure to assist, it may be helpful to contract the opposing muscle.  I think it adds a degree or two of mobility that you cannot otherwise get.  For the ankle flexion stretches, get into the stretch, then consciously contract the muscle on the front of your calf -- the one that pulls your toes up.  For the quad stretches, get into tension, then contract your hamstrings for few seconds -- you should sink another millimeter or two.  For the squat stretches, sink down as low as your hips will go, then contract the hip flexors, as if you wanted to pull your thigh onto your ribs.  (The theory is that by contracting the opposing muscle, you "trick" the automatic feedback loops in your nervous system that tell opposing groups to alternately contract and relax -- and I think it works pretty well.)

The bottom line is that, once your hips, knees, and ankles develop greater sport-specific range of motion, what the upper body is doing in the receiving positions won't be so much different from what you can now do with the bar racked or locked out in a standing position -- your hips will be very close to being in the same vertical plane as your ankles.  That reduces the moment arm between your feet (the fulcrum) and your center of gravity (acting as a downward force that wants to topple you over), and consequently, every thing above the hip joint can be in vertical, or close to it, and you still remain in balance.  Look at photos from the side of any good weightlifter and you will see how low and close to the ankles their hips are.  The exact angles of the joints are unique to each lifter, depending on their lever lengths.  The common denominator, and the thing to strive for to get that upright torso, is to get your hips as close as possible to being in the same plane as the ankle joints.  The angles in your ankles, knees, hips, and torso are operating as part of an interconnected lever system -- what you give up in one angle has to come out of another.  The more mobility you get in the hips, knees, and ankles, the less "angulating" your torso and upper body will have to do in order to balance the system over your feet.

If you have upper body issues as well, work on them too.  The effective stretches are simple and generally work faster than the lower body ones do.  For the snatch lockout position, stand with a stick locked out, with your heels, hips, shoulders, back of the head, and back of the hands against a wall.  Keep your hands and hips against the wall, and gently push your head, shoulders, and chest forward, off the wall.  Basically you want to be able to support the bar solidly directly over your shoulder joints (the bar will be aligned somewhere between your ears and an inch or two behind the the back of your head).  In addition to that movement, which replicates the joint angles of the lockout itself, you can do "dislocates" with a stick -- keep your arms straight, snatch grip, and rotate the stick all the way around backward until it hits your hips -- that will develop the shoulder flexibility you need to safely miss a snatch to the rear.   

For the clean rack position, rack the barbell from a squat rack or jerk blocks and just work the position:  let your arms relax, have a partner gently push up on your elbows,  let your shoulders come forward so the barbell is supported by the torso, resting on the "shelf" formed by the front delts and upper chest (not held in place by the arms and hands).  Experiment with little changes in grip width and arm angles to find the positions that fit your skeleton best.  Keep working at it until the bar is solidly racked on your shoulders with zero tension in your wrists and arms.   When the rack "shelf" is right, you should be able to take your hands completely off the bar itself and it should continue sitting there solidly.   Once it feels solid, just start doing "inch squats," i.e., front squatting just slightly at first, then a little lower each successive set or rep, maintaining that solid rack on the shoulders and comfortable arms, elbows up at a 45 degree or slightly higher angle relative to your torso.  Study a bunch of lifters and you'll see that the height of their elbows and the arm angles vary quite a bit -- what does not vary is that the bar is supported on the upper torso, not held up with hand and arm tension, which is impossible with anything beyond middling weights.

When and how often?  As often as you can, as long as you can -- daily at least, and several times each day if you can.  Stretch before and after workouts, and also on your recovery days.  Do that, and progress comes steadily.  But if you only stretch a couple or three times per week, it may take a long, long time to ever get the requisite mobility in place -- if it ever comes.   These are not "natural" or "normal" positions -- they are contrived positions that suit snatching, cleaning, and jerking, something we never really do other than in the sport.  It takes a while to "ingrain" the positions, but it does happen after a few weeks or a couple of months, and once you get there, the positions will feel normal and warming up with the empty bar is about all the mobility work you'll need to maintain.

[Philip Middleton]

Other than shoulder flexibility-

For all squat movements the best thing I found to increase my flexibility (I'm told it's very good now)

Was to put 20 or 30kg on my shoulders, in any squat position, olly style back squat prob works best to start, then just go down and sit in the squat position, do that for a total of a minute with whatever time ranges you want, I used to do 1sec 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, total of 10sets, or the reverse, or just sets of 10* 5

From that deep squat position you really start to loosen things up down there, you can also arch your back and which pushes your hips forward more and stretches different areas again.

Do this in overhead position with just the bar too, same idea.

This was the exercise that helped me the most.

After I was done I'd just do some leg stretches to remove any tightness I'd created.

[Patrick Bateman]

Thanks for all replies guys, much love,

Jim Hooper, AWESOME post, helps so much!

[Kevin Stafford]

 A couple of stretches you can try for the snatch and clean & jerk are to get yourself in a rock bottom squat near a wall and put your upper back flat against the wall. Your butt should be off the wall. Every day or so try to get your heels as close to the wall as possible inching your way until the only points of contact are the upper back and heels. Try it without shoes for greater flexibility.
 Do tiger push ups, reverse shrugs, and over head squats. For the over head squats, use the bar only at first,  start with a snatch width grip and do a couple of reps. Narrow your grip and do another set. Do this until your at a shoulder width ( over head press) grip. For me this is closer in than my Jerk grip. Later try some weight on the bar. I have seen lifters use a medicine ball for this also.
 Once your flexibility is better, make sure to be quick under the bar. When doing the snatch try to think of pushing your hands out to the collars to get under faster. For the clean try think of pushing your elbows forward and in. Hope this helps.