Olympic Lifts and Hypertrophy

Hey CT!

I’m a coach for a local weight lifting team. I used to compete myself a few years ago.

Now I’m on a mission to look just as athletic as I feel. Before, I’ve never put the required work into my diet, but now I’m on a solid meal- and supplement plan.

My question for you is: is it possible to effectively incorporate the olympic lifts into a hypertrophy program?

I dedicate four days a week, two snatch days and two clean and jerk days, to keep my technique from deteriorating. On these days I typically do 12 singles using around 80% to 90% of my 1RM.

If possible, what kind of training would complement the primary lifts for added hypertrophy? Big compounds? Isolation with focus on muscle contraction? High or low volume?

Thanks!

[quote]Drenmi wrote:
Hey CT!

I’m a coach for a local weight lifting team. I used to compete myself a few years ago.

Now I’m on a mission to look just as athletic as I feel. Before, I’ve never put the required work into my diet, but now I’m on a solid meal- and supplement plan.

My question for you is: is it possible to effectively incorporate the olympic lifts into a hypertrophy program?

I dedicate four days a week, two snatch days and two clean and jerk days, to keep my technique from deteriorating. On these days I typically do 12 singles using around 80% to 90% of my 1RM.

If possible, what kind of training would complement the primary lifts for added hypertrophy? Big compounds? Isolation with focus on muscle contraction? High or low volume?

Thanks![/quote]

The first Mr. Americas were olympic lifters… John Grimek, Steve Stanko, John Davies, Tommy Kono, etc.

Other high level american olympic lifters from that era also looked great… Bill Starr comes to mind.

So it certainly is possible to combine both. I do not believe that you can reach an optimal level in both objectives, but you can certainly attain a high level.

I actually started to reintroduce more olympic lifts in my own training. I actually power snatch 3 times per week.

What you could do is separate your workouts into training units…

30 minutes of olympic lifting, 20 minutes of ‘‘bodybuilding’’ and 10 minutes of metabolic work.

A workout could look like this:

UNIT A - OLYMPIC LIFTING
Snatch variation 2 x 3-2-1 waves (1 x 3, 1 x 2, 1 x 1, 1 x 3, 1 x 2, 1 x 1) up to roughly 90% of your max for that day

Clean & jerk variation (same as snatch but only perform the clean portion once per set, so if you have to do 3 reps it’s 1 clean and 3 jerks)

Clean or snatch pull 5 x 3

UNIT B - BODYBUILDING

  • Depending on the day… I’d train chest & back on day 1, legs (quads dominant) on day 2, biceps & triceps on day 3, legs (hamstrings dominant) on day 4 and repeat.

Pick 2 exercises per muscle group (so 4 total for that section) 2 ‘‘core lifts’’ (one per muscle) and 2 ‘‘assistance or isolation lifts’’ (one per muscle) and train them as pairs.

For example:

A1. Incline bench press
alternated with
A2. Chin-ups

B1. Flat DB press
alternated with
B2. Seated rowing

Roughly 3-6 sets of 3-5 reps for the main lifts and 3-6 sets of 5-7 reps for the other two lifts.

UNIT C - METABOLIC WORK
Anything that jack up your metabolic rate up… I personally like to do a power circuit of 3-5 exercises utilizing either explosive movements, bodyweight exercises or GPP stuff.

An example could be:

A1. Power clean from the hang 3 reps
15 sec. rest
A2. Vertical jumps 5 reps
15 sec. rest
A3. Sprint 40 yards
15 sec. rest
A4. Plyo push ups 5 reps

  • Perform as many circuits as you can in 10 minutes.

Then diet is key. You probably have way more muscle then you think you do. Shedding the body fat will be what will drastically change your physique.

2 Likes

Thib, this is exactly what I was looking for since I’m trying to become a better OLifter without sacrificing too much in size. If I am already front squatting/back squatting about 4x a week, is there a need for a quad-dominant day? How would a hip-dominant day look like, essentially just RDLs and leg curls?

Also, do you have an example for an arms day? Instead of picking 4 different exercises for the arms, I just used 2 since the arms are not as complex as, say, the chest and back. E.g. today I just did this:

A1. Incline Close-Grip Bench - 5 rep ramp
A2. Ez-Bar Preacher Curl - 5 rep ramp
B1. 70% of A1 for max reps (ended up being 11 reps)
B2. 70% of A2 for max reps (ended up being 10 reps)

Thanks in advance!! (BTW your metabolic circuit f***ing killed me… if you have other examples I would love it)

pretty interesting program Coach…