Hi,
I’m trying to get bigger, stronger, and faster for basketball over the summer. I have a good idea of what excersises to do already. But what about olympic lifts? I am 14 years old, 125 pounds, and 5 foot 5.
I am a beginner to strength training. As a beginner should I do olympic lifts? Are olympic lifts for people a little more experianced?
I also am working out at home by myself with no spotter. I have no one to teach me how to do olympic lifts. Should I try to learn them on my own?
Please help me with my olympic lift dillema. Thanks.
Check out Dan John’s website, and his newsletters. Also check out crossfit for video of some of the basic olympic lifts.
Dumbbell versions are easier to learn.
If you are lifting at home, I recommend investing in some 10 lb or 15 lb bumper plates and practice with those. With the oly lifts, speed and form are critical. The weight can come later.
Bro, there is a wealth of information on this site, yet you keep asking a lot of questions and not actually getting started with a program.
I suggest that you worry about eating plenty of good, wholesome food and stick with some good, simple training programs that focus on the compound lifts so you can get bigger and stronger.
If you play and practice for bball, then you will have the skills for your sport. The lifting will complement that. Don’t worry about adding more stuff to your current plan yet (Olympic lifts). Sure, they are great and can do great things for you, but you don’t need to add them to your program.
Get a good base of strength and size going to complement your game. As you get older, bigger and stronger, start implementing the Olympic lifts. It’s enough to learn all the basic lifts and such, no need to make things more complicated by learning the O-lifts right now. Besides, you only need variations of the O-lifts (power clean and snatch, hang clean or hang snatch, pulls, etc.) for your training later on. If you’re not competing in Olympic lifting, you don’t need to learn the full movements.