Charlie, I know that you are not necessarily an “advocate” of the olympic lifts, especially for the sprints. But do you see any reason for their use in strength training for football and other sports that tend to use a more comprehensive weight training program in the off-season?
im not Cf but i think ols are a must: read below gayle hatch
The truly remarkable abilities of Olympic style weightlifters are certainly due in part to genetic qualities of these athletes and to their outstanding physical condition. However, they are also due in no small measure to the kind of training that weightlifters do: performing the snatch and the clean and jerk (C&J).
Almost any form of resistance training can improve an athlete’s strength, but the snatch and C&J are unique in their ability to develop strength and explosive power at the same time. And the benefits of practicing the Olympic lifts are hardly limited to developing strength and power. Here is a partial list of other added benefits:
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The mere practice of the Olympic lifts teaches an athlete how to explode (to activate a maximum number of muscle units rapidly and simultaneously). Part of the extraordinary abilities of the Olympic lifters arises out of their having learned how to effectively activate more of their muscle fibers more rapidly than others who are not so trained (in addition to having developed stronger muscles).
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The practice of proper technique in the Olympic lifts teaches an athlete to apply force with his or her muscle groups in the proper sequences (i.e., from the center of the body to its extremities). This is a valuable technical lesson which can be of benefit to any athlete who needs to impart force to another person or object (a necessity in virtually every sport).
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In mastering the Olympic lifts, the athlete learns how to accelerate objects under varying degrees of resistance. This is because the body experiences differing degrees of perceived resistance as it attempts to move a bar with maximum speed through a full range of motion. These kinds of changes in resistance are much more likely to resemble those encountered in athletic events than similar exercises performed on an isokinetic machine (which has a fixed level of resistance or speed of resistance throughout the range of motion).
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The athlete learns to receive force from another moving body effectively and becomes conditioned to accept such forces.
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The athlete learns to move effectively from an eccentric contraction to a concentric one (through the stretch-shortening cycle, the cycle that is activated and trained through exercises that are often referred to as plyometrics).
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The actual movements performed while executing the Olympic lifts are among the most common and fundamental in sports. Therefore, training the specific muscle groups in motor patterns that resemble those used in an athlete’s events is often a byproduct of practicing the snatch and C&J.
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Practicing the Olympic lifts trains an athlete’s explosive capabilities, and the lifts themselves measure the effectiveness of the athlete in generating explosive power to a greater degree than most other exercises they can practice.
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Finally, the Olympic lifts are simply fun to do. I have yet to meet an athlete who has mastered them who does not enjoy doing the Olympic lifts. While making workouts enjoyable may not be the primary objective of a strength coach, it is not an unimportant consideration in workout planning. Athletes who enjoy what they are doing are likely to practice more consistently and to be more highly motivated than athletes who do not enjoy their workouts as much.
Other than the abilities of Olympic style weightlifters, is there any proof that practicing the Olympic lifts actually helps athletes? There is an enormous number of examples of athletes who have benefited dramatically from practicing the Olympic lifts. Presenting these cases would require a very large book. I will provide just three examples to make the point. I have chosen those particular examples because they come from athletes who participate in sports which would not normally be expected to benefit very much from ordinary weight training.
Steve Bedrosian recently retired at the age of thirty-nine after a very successful career as a professional baseball pitcher, most recently as relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves. His career had very nearly ended five years earlier. When he was thirty-four, Steve lost some of the feeling in two of the fingers of his pitching hand. As a result he had lost the ability to pitch effectively and was forced to take a year off in an effort to rehabilitate his hand. Many baseball experts felt that after this kind of setback his career was over. It was at this point that he met Ben Green, athletic director at the White Oak Athletic Center in Newnan, Georgia (Ben’s accomplishments as a weightlifter and coach were discussed earlier in this book). Ben put Bedrosian on a program of Olympic lift training during his year off . After six months of such training, Bedrosian added eight miles per hour to his fast ball and was able to dunk a basketball (something he had often tried but had never in his life been able to do). Steve made a triumphant return to the mound during the 1993 season.
A second example is professional golfer Cindy Schreyer. She was introduced to the Olympic lifts by Ben Green in 1993. After approximately eight months of training, Cindy increased her drive by a full forty yards, a staggering improvement for a person already highly skilled at golf. Cindy won her first PGA tournament shortly after this dramatic improvement in her drive occurred…
Derrick Adkins was a sophomore at Georgia Tech when he began to work with Lynne Stoessel-Ross, then the school’s strength coach. Lynne has been a national champion and a national record holder in weightlifting and has represented the United States in the Women’s World Weightlifting Championships. She has a strong academic background in physical education, having earned a Masters degree in that field. She currently works as and educator and strength and conditioning coach in Lubbock, Texas. Derek had already reached the international level as a 400 meter hurdler when he began training with Lynne in 1990, having won the Atlantic Coast Conference championships and placed sixth at the World University Games. His best time was 49.53 seconds. In less than a year of training on the Olympic lifts, he shaved nearly a second off his already outstanding time (reducing it to 48.6 seconds). An injury sustained during an unfortunate running accident hampered his training for more than a year after that. However, after recovering from his injury and resuming training on the Olympic lifts, he reduced his time by another .9 seconds and went on to win the U.S. Nationals and the Goodwill Games. More recently Derek won the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Needless to say, if a baseball player, a golfer and a hurdler have benefited so much from practicing the Olympic lifts, football players and other athletes who participate in sports in which power is acknowledged to play a more critical role can enjoy and have enjoyed even more direct benefits.
In order to enjoy the myriad benefits that arise from training on the Olympic lifts, there is a significant price that every athlete must pay. He or she must commit to learning the requisite skills. Most weight training exercises can be learned in one session, and the athlete’s technique can be refined to the point where the athlete can train with little supervision (with regard to technique) in a few practice sessions. In contrast, mastering the Olympic lifts requires a deeper understanding of the mechanics of the movements (which are somewhat complex). Moreover, considerable practice under supervised conditions must take place before competency is attained. People who say that the Olympic lifts are dangerous are very wrong in most of their arguments, but they are correct in one very important sense. The Olympic lifts can be dangerous if an athlete does not learn how to perform them properly. An athlete who is not willing to learn proper technique is better off not practicing the Olympic lifts at all.
I think the Olympic lifts are over-rated for track athletes.
I think they are good for leapers and throwers.
Many exercises are good for Football (gridiron) players including Oly lifts.
As for track athletes…
If Olympic lifts were so good, why were the olympic lifts not giving a significent advantage to those who did them over those who didn’t?
I bet someone comes up with the boring statement “Olympic lifts are just part of a training program, they are not a singular component, but have a place.” (please, kill me now.) Well, THAT’s not a great argument for Olympic lifts. The same thing could be said for any other type of training. The way people go on about OLy lifts,as if they are better than most other training methods, only to present a mediocre argument for their place in a training program.
The most genetically gifted fast twitch olympic lifters, with incredible technique and co-ordination and kinesthetic awareness, would get left for dust in a sprint by your top sprinters. Regadless of weather your sprinter did Oly lifts or not.
I believe it is worth noting that the fastest 200m time, 400m time, 4 x 100m relay split, peak velocity attained, & fastest first 80m are held by men who did not do Olympic lifts.
Michael Johnson.
Michael Johnson.
Bob Hayes.
Carl Lewis & Ben Johnson.
Ben Johnson.
In fairness, the 100m world record and indoor 60m record is held by athletes that included Oly lifting.
Asafa Powell
Mo Green.
Still, they would drop their lifts from the program in the summer months I have read.
My opinion is that if a lifting exercise is not worth doing in the competition season, it is probably not worth doing at any point of the year.
I expect many will disagree with my bold (arrogant?) statement, but I personally have yet to see great evidence of Olympic lifts being as great as they are cracked up to be.
sorry bud mj did do ols in college.
yes, but he continued to improve after college.
The same principles apply as in the sprints. Do what suits the athlete best.
That may or may not include Oly lifts. I do believe that life is easier if you can have the Oly lifts in the program as it’s easier to concentrate the workload in fewer lifts when, in the course of the phase, it is beneficial to do so.
slj= standing long jump?
if so i did 10’7" last year when we measured it. i believe we only had 1 guy on the team go over 11.
he wasnt the fastest guy on the team and definitely not the most explosive but he was one of the strongest.
what exactly does that measure? it looks easy but is definitely pretty tough to get far.
It measures how far you can explode in the first movement, which is extremely important for throwers and linemen but less so for others
do u think the vj is a better test/easier for first movement explosion bc many athletes dont know the proper tech for the slj?
I never used either test but I personally found the SLJ easier. Maybe that’s just me. I went a little over 10ft but never tried it when I was in my best sprint shape.
always felt the vj was easier bc you are just exploding vertical, i think to have a good slj theres some tech to it. i also think taller athlete have the advantage in the slj.
…and after he finished the jump, it was only 3 inches tall 
Either that or it must have been a very strong table!
Sorry bud but for 10 years of his career he didn’t do them.
mj stopped doing ols soon after he left collage then, and it didn’t hurt him when he stopped them. I hardly think doing them in collage a couple of years is going to carry-over into the next 10 years.
sorry bud ols are tested and proven to increase overall athletic perfromance. there was times during his pro career where he did lite ol.
I will have to respectfully disagree on a few points here.
Firstly I don’t doubt Oly lifts help increase vertical jump. But MANY research tests have shown improved vertical jumps in many groups of which few simultaniously increased their 40 yard dash times. There are so many examples of this. As I said in my frirst post, I think they are good for leapers, throwers, footballers, but not for track sprinters.
MJ’s coach said MJ didn’t use OLY lifts whilst under him. (not talking about collage years.)
You have stated he occasionally used light Oly lifts in his pro career, I don’t need to doubt you, but tha still doesn’t speak well of Oly lifts as they clearly were not the mainstay of his program.
Besides, what ever he did in his seldom Oly lifts would have been more effected by his other work than visa versa.
There was a hammer thrower from Canada who powercleaned more than the super heavyweight Olympic lifter whom he accompanied to the games. Even though the hammer thrower only did the powerclean for 3 weaks of the year, the 3 weaks before competition.
Besides…
What about Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and Bob Hayes, they didn’t do the Oly lifts. It is evened up by Asafa Powell and Mo Green etc… who did do them. But that to me doesn’t make strong points for Oly lifts. If they were so good, Ben, Carl, and Bob wouldn’t even be in the top 20.
As I said, I will have to respectfuly disagree on the Oly lifts being a good exercise for track sprinters.
I could be wrong about this but I honestly feel like you can get the same, if not better, results from using med balls extensively in your training. They don’t involve nearly as much technique and I feel like they are much more explosive than OL’s. I tend to agree with those who say that the OL’s are more of an expression of power rather than the primary or optimal way to build it.
On the subject of standing long jumps-Calvin Johnson of Georgia Tech did a slj of 11-7 in his pro day(nfl) workout(I believe this is where he did this very recently) at 233-235 lbs. along with 4.33/4.35 and a 42- 1/2 vj.
I was impressed, obviously, by all the numbers but the slj was really stood out for me.
im not surprise one bit he vj 45+ last year before spring ball, hes a beast at 239.
MJ did he or not, does it prove a thing?
NO
Al vermeil was big on OLs though…
Where did you find the info on the pro day for CJ?