I remember reading somewhere that you starting doing Olympic lifting and wanted to ask you some stuff about it. Did you hire a coach right from the start or did you attempt to learn the movements on your own? I practice MMA, mostly juijitsu and wrestling, and would like to gain more functional size and strength that would carry over to this. Did olympic lifting help you put on muscle or did you mostly get alot stronger? I am mostly interesting the power versions of the lifts. I’m not looking to compete or anything, it just seems to me that O-lifting will have the most carry over to MMA.
Anton, I started Olympic lifting in Sept. 1997 with two friends of mine that train in the same gym. One is a friend from high school, and the other is the one that got him involved (and both are named Chris!). Chris had been competing in Olympic lifting for a number of years (after doing Powerlifting during high school and college). He is a strong mofo! He set a Junior American record in the bench press while in college. He pressed 391 lbs. and 409 lbs. at a bodyweight of 148lb.
Anyway, I learned from him how to do the Olympic lifts. He taught me how to properly execute a variety of movements (snatch, snatch pull, hang snatch, drop snatch, power snatch, clean, clean pull, jerks, etc.). I competed until May 1998 and then again at the SunShine State Games in 2000. During that time, I actually lost weight (I competed at 59kg and 62kg), but I did get much stronger. Since we did very little training for the “showy” muscles, I didn’t make any gains in muscle size (other than my legs and back due to all the squatting and Olympic lifts). Even after I stopped competing and training with my friends, I still used the Olympic lift variations in my training at different times during the year. And now that I’m back on Renegade Training, I’m using many of the Olympic movements once again. If you’re interested in MMA, I would highly encourage you to check out Coach Davies program for MMA athletes. Jason Braswell is using that program and has made great progress. And yes, Olympic lifting will help with a carryover effect to MMA, but I think the whole Renegade program is even better than just doing the O-lifts!