UIndy Athletics

Olympic Weightlifting in a College Strength & Conditioning Program:  Part I - Snatch
Performing Olympic weightlifting movements as a part of a strength and conditioning program is very common and coming more and more to the forefront.  The majority of programs we, as strength coaches at the college and high school levels, observe and see videos of online perform some variation of Olympic-style weightlifting.  We are all doing this for the same result – POWER!  We want our athletes to increase their rate of force production in order to move more efficiently, improve balance, timing, coordination, and be more explosive athletes that are less susceptible to injury.
 
Why Olympic Weightlifting?? 
Let’s be honest, there are a thousand ways to skin a cat in this field.  Other means of force production work.  Whether a coach is doing Olympic lifts, plyometrics, a combination of the two, or some other form of jump training, he or she is going to make their athletes more explosive. 

Utilizing Olympic weightlifting variations with our athletes is one of the main components to our philosophy.  Why??  Because that is what I know and what I have done for years.  I have had the priviledge of learning from many, many great coaches that train their athletes using the lifts and I decided I was going to put my nose to the grindstone and do my best to teach the lifts as they do.  Our weightroom was designed so that we can be on our feet for the majority of the time.  Platforms, racks, bars, bumpers, chalk (and the occasional kettelbell) make up the majority of our space.  This is what is needed to develop strong athletes that can move well and stay healthy.  We keep it simple, but it is not easy.  Weightlifting movements (snatch, cleans, jerks, and all variations) are safe if taught well technically and progressively.
 
Time and Space
Many coaches do not or cannot effectively teach the lifts due to time and space issues.  I completely understand some programs issues with this.  There are sport coaches out there that put extremely tough time constraints on strength coaches in terms of progress and numbers.  For instance, by the end of a 6-week training cycle at least 80% of all the athletes must increase max numbers in the squat, bench press, and power clean.  This is just an example, of course.  If our staff were to take this group and progressively work on great technique, followed by increased speed of the lifts, and finally being able to put substantial weight on the bar due to increased speed, the max number would probably go down in only 6 weeks.  They may be able to move a heck of a lot better and not roll the bar up their bellies in extreme hyperextension with their feet darn near in the splits and yelling in pain as it takes FOREVER for them to finish the lift.  That is not an athletic movement.  By teaching proper technique, speed, and then adding weight as the bar moves faster these athletes will move efficiently and be able to handle a lot more weight in the future instead of being stuck at the same weight they did with poor technique and probably end up injured anyway.  In other words, take the time to teach athletes to do the lifts correctly.  Develop overall strength by squatting, pulling, pressing, and core work while teaching the lifts daily in a progressive manner.  For many athletes, the neurological benefits will be the biggest gain.  We are developing new movement patterns that will benefit them in overall movement in their sports. 

If space is the problem then you must be training in a closet.  Find space.  Put rubber mats down in the hallways and go to work.  I’ve seen some great lifters in some of the smallest, darkest, dingiest areas.  Nobody needs huge weightrooms with state-of-art platforms to do these lifts.  I’m not saying to do them on concrete surfaces or anything like that, but with enough creativity and a little money you can make it possible. 

Teaching the Olympic Lifts
There are many books, articles, videos that go into very extensive detail and length when it comes to teaching progressions.  For the sake of this article I am going to go through the basic approach that we take to teach athletes. 

One of the biggest aspects that I educate my assistant coaches and interns on is to NOT ASSUME ANYTHING!  Joey All-Star comes in claiming that he can squat 500 lbs, bench press 350, and power clean 300……maybe, but maybe not.  Everyone is at a training age of 0 when they step onto our campus.  As they prove to us that they can squat correctly with good depth and perform all the basic strength training movements with proficiency, then they can progress into doing lifts with increased intensity and volume. 

We take our athletes through what we call Developmental I Training protocol.  This consists of basic lifts such as squat variations, pulling (hinging) movements, vertical and horizontal pressing and pulling movements, single-leg movements, etc….  Once they meet the standards set forth by our staff, they can then move on to Developmental II Training which includes Olympic weightlifting teaching progressions.  I must also add that during our Developmental I protocol this is when we will evaluate the athlete and look for strengths, weaknesses, imbalances, etc. 
 
Snatch
Personally, I approach teaching the Olympic lifts in a manner in which I teach the snatch first.  Why?  Because when I first got started doing this, Mike Burgener and many other coaches told me too.  That is why.  And I’ve done it that way since.  If you want to coach the clean first, no problem, to each his own.  We will start with a general warm-up to warm the body and prepare it to workout.  During this general warm-up we like to work on mobility, dynamic flexibility, and some static flexibility.  Our specific warm-up will also be our teaching/practice of whatever lift we are going to do that day.  We do a snatch warm-up (created by Coach Burgener) that uses drills to teach the snatch and helps us improve the technique daily.  In this warm-up we learn to jump, land, elevate the bar, keep it close to the body, and where the bar is placed overhead.  The first few times we do this it will be done slowly with a PVC pipe.  Then we will go to a light training bar and speed it up, until eventually we use a bar on a daily basis.  Many errors in the snatch can be fixed using the drills that make up this warm-up.

Athletes must be proficient at the overhead squat before they can progress in the snatch.  Along with different mobility work for the hips and shoulders they will do light overhead squats to work on keeping the chest tall, opening the knees, keeping the weight distributed mid-foot through the heel while keeping the foot flat, and getting appropriate depth.  We will pause these squats at the bottom at times in order to enhance core strength and maintain body and bar position.  Snatch push presses and snatch balances will follow once the squat is proficient.

When the athletes are performing these movements with great technique and quickly we will then begin to teach the lift from different positions starting from the top and working down.

The first position that we will work from is the high hang position.  Beginning with proper stance, bar grip, and positioning we will then have the athlete bend the knees a couple of inches keeping the bar in the crease of the hip and snatch only to pull the body down as far as where we started.  This allows us to see hip extension and bar elevation while progressively getting more aggressive pulling their bodies down and locking the bar out overhead properly.  Anytime there is an error in the high hang snatch we will refer back to a drill done in our snatch warm-up and the error is corrected fairly quick. 

From the high hang the athlete will then progress to the mid-thigh.  Now we hinge at the hip taking the bar to the middle of the thigh.  It is very important that the athlete drills the transition from the mid-thigh to the high hang in order to get full triple extension and put force into the ground.  Once the athlete is able to consistently transition the bar from mid-thigh to high hang he/she will be able to progress to below the knee.  This is assuming that the technique is already proficient from the high hang.  If ever there are breakdowns in technique from one position to the other don’t be afraid to go back and drill the previous position worked.  Technique is the first priority when doing the lifts and making them carry over to athletic performance.

Because our athletes have been performing RDLs in their training and strengthening the posterior chains well we can now progress to snatching from below the knee.  The shin angle must be vertical and the back must be flat, as always.  The key to transitioning well from the below knee position to the high hang position is patience and staying over the bar.  Often times we will do this transition slowly and be cautious of the positions (Grant Gardis drilled this technical precision into my head).  Keep the chest and shoulders over the bar up to the point of hitting the high hang position (brush point) and jumping.  The chest and shoulders must be behind the bar in order to get vertical and extend properly when doing the snatch.  A slight hyperextension of the back will happen in the most vertical position contracting the glutes.   

As our athletes are progressing from the top down with the snatch, we will also program in snatch pulls from the floor to knee level.  This will reinforce pushing the feet through the floor, sweeping the bar into the body (using the lats), and getting the knees back creating a vertical shin angle.  The key is to coach the athletes to have the hips and shoulders rise at the same rate while keeping a tight core, tight upper back, and loose arms.  The athletes will pause right below the knee caps and slowly bring the bar back to the floor.  Once this drill is proficient, the athletes will do a snatch pull from the floor.

Once everything that we have just discussed has been practiced over and over and over again with precision and increased speed we can now begin to do power or full snatches from the floor.  For the sake of the article, the descriptions have been kept very basic.  There are many technical teaching cues that our coaching staff uses to correct errors and drills done to assist with the overall lift.  We are constantly making changes to the ways that we progress athletes in the lifts.  It is completely understood that there will be coaches who read this and determine that they are not able to spend so much time progressing one lift.  That is fine.  In my opinion, the Olympic lifts should be taught in a methodical, progressive manner that focusses on technique, speed, and then weight in that order.  Otherwise, they are being set up to fail and even worse, injury.  In our situation the coaches that we work with allow us as a strength staff to progress at a slower rate in order to see bigger payoff in the long run.

I can’t take much credit for the content in which was discussed in the article.  Many credits and thank yous go out to the extraordinary coaches that have taught me and coached me up.  Mike Burgener, Grant Gardis, Marty Mills, Mark Garrett, Tommy Moffitt, Leo Totten, Greg Everett, Tommy Kono, Paul Jackson, and many other coaches have directly or indirectly helped me to develop a philosophy and system in which my staff and I can teach to athletes in order to increase sports performance.  For that I am extremely blessed and thankful. 

Part II of this article will cover the clean progression and jerk progression used for our athletes.