Olympic Lifts?

does anyone do them or do them ever now and again ? I read an article on the power/ speed- strength they develop and was wondering if anyone has tried and to what success or fail? also if you have done them when do you put them in? upper body or lower body day?

I do clean & press and snatches on what used to be my OHP day. Kinda for fun and kinda because my shoulders can’t yet tolerate 2 bench days per week.

Haven’t noticed any carryover to SQ/DL or bench.

I also do the power versions (light weight on snatches, i.e. easy 3 rep sets), one with squat and one with DL. But I don’t do ME/DE.

I’ll caution: they’re very addictive, but if you want to do the full versions correctly, you need coaching. My left knee is in bad shape right now because of poor form on ATG full cleans. It’s also difficult to make linear strength gains when you’re a beginner, as most gains come from improving technique. So I don’t think the full versions will help improve, say, squat/DL until you’ve reached “good technique” status…which can take years.

i love hang cleans , becaus they built big traps, and huge traps are awesome

I like power snatches as a replacement for speed pulls from time to time. It lets me spend a little more time pulling without frying my back and works the upper back.

I haven’t noticed any benefits to power cleans that I can’t get with a power snatch.

Olympic lifts are great when programmed properly. I personally use the power snatch instead of the power clean because the ROM is longer and you need to explode more, but if they hurt your shoulder then do cleans.

  1. They can be used as activation exercises first thing in the workout like CT recommends. This is how i personally do them. Ramp up to a set of 3 with 60%-70% of your max to wake yourself up without causing any fatigue. Trust me, it really does work.

  2. Use them on your DE day to supplement your speed pulls and speed squats.

  3. They build big traps once you get strong on them, and big traps help in all 3 powerlifts.(You should still do shrugs though.)

  4. They teach you to explode with everything you’ve got, which is crucial for the squat and deadlift. In a snatch or clean, you either make the lift or you don’t, you can’t grind it out slowly.

*Don’t do them after ME or RE work though, or your form will go to shit.
Personally i say do the power snatch if you want to do an olympic lift because most people, unless they’re coached on the lifts, use to much arms with the power clean.

alright sounds like everything is just tech tech tech. so ill spend some time just doing it with a barbell or broomstick until form gets good and then try. I know what you mean by the arms part, i use arms way too much. So DE in replacement for speed pulls or speed squats sounds like the go.

Can’t say that I see the point of doing the full olympic lifts. I’d stick to hang and power variations. I know power snatches are really good for my vertical.

Personally, I love the lifts but if you are trying to get good at powerlifting, just do speed squats and pulls.

There may be a time early in a training cycle when you can throw them in, but if you are preparing for a meet drilling technique while pulling fast is important and stick to the spp lifts.

They are worth learning if you are a lifter. I suck at snatches, but I’ve power snatched over bodyweight and after that said forget this, but I still love power cleans. Nothing feels better to me than pulling a heavier weight off the floor, especially if you can get it to your shoulders then overhead. I need to do more of them.

They certainly won’t make you weaker, but after a certain point, if you want to be a powerlifter you need to specialize in the squat, bench, deadlift.

I’ve noticed that power snatches are a nice back off to heavy pulling, but there is smaller carry over, mostly due to the snatch grip and greater technique required. Power cleans there is more carry over, but if you can power clean a speed deadlift weight (60-70%) you need to get your deadlift up or start competing in oly lifting.

Possibly one of the greatest exercises for developing power, strength and hypertrophy in the posterior chain,quads, mid and upper back is the snatch pull from the hang at below knee level (just held above the ground). It requires very little coaching and massive weight can be used. It annihilates all the muscles mentioned as the weight is never dropped to the floor throughout.
Just pick up the weight with a snatch grip, lower it so the bar is a few inches below your knees (keep the back arched as hard as possible, very important), then drive the legs into the ground and explode.

great for developing speed and explosiveness…i started doing them with light weight…but soon enough my gym got some rubber weights…i can now snatch and clean and jerk 185 lbs or 84 kg…

it helps with the big three too because it forces u to be explosive…

best to incorporte them into ur program if u wanna develop more power and envious traps;)

power snatch is more hip dominant and power cleans are more quad dominant so incorporate them how u see fit!!

best way to make improvements is to do max effort followed by deload as with any other lift i figure…

ive read it increases speed(explosivness) which is my biggest downfall, just need to learn how to do and then ill start encorperating them somewhere

Just make sure you get someone to teach you some form on them. Also, always do them first while you are still fresh. Vary the exercises as often as possible and don’t go so ungodly heavy that you slow down or miss weights. Remember, the goal is to increase your explosiveness on the powerlifts, not increase your two lifts olympic total.

I like powercleans w/push press when I have a shoulder/back (vertical) day in my routine. Like STB posted…it’s about speed. As for the full version of the lifts…No.