Do You Have to Be Olympic to Lift Olympic?
The Clean & Jerk and Snatch, or the Olympic Lifts, are prized movements in the Strength & Conditioning world. They are the most complex lifts an athlete can learn and the hardest to master, so much so that being able to heave weight well utilizing these techniques is a sport in and of itself.
How do these complex movement patterns apply to the “every day” athlete then? At the Sweat Lab we are big believers in our adult and sport athletes learning and performing these lifts on a weekly basis, and here’s why.
These Complex Movement Patterns Ignite Motor Pathways
We don’t often think about the impact of movement on our Central Nervous System, but like our skeletal, fascial, and muscular systems, your CNS gains strength and durability with exercise, especially that of complex movement patterns.
Our neural pathways are what allow us to perform movement of any kind, from the most basic and automatic like brushing your teeth or stirring soup, to more involved activities like hitting a baseball or unloading the dishwasher.
When we challenge ourselves to build the coordination to perform an Olympic Lift, we improve those same pathways that exist in all other real world situations.
Sports are an excellent example of complex motor patterns at play, pun intended.
When you watch a 6th grade athlete shoot a basketball for example, and then watch a collegiate player perform the same skill, you are watching the same thing done with completely different levels of myelination in the neural pathway, or in other words, the older athlete with more practice and experience has stronger nerves which makes their jump shot look smooth and synchronistic.
A real world example is the healthcare worker managing a variety of different tasks, sometimes simultaneously, will function better in their job with stronger neural pathways.
Ultimately, due to the complexity of the Olympic Lifts, our coordination and cognitive function benefit tremendously.
Development of Power, Speed, Stability, and Bulletproofing of the Core
Olympic lifts are a multi-joint exercise which drive neuromuscular adaptation more than single joint exercises like a bicep curl or knee extension. They are explosive movements by nature which helps an athlete become more powerful thereby improving speed as well.
With how many joint systems are involved, and the distance the bar travels in these movements, stabilizing muscles are recruited at a higher level than most typical weight lifting movements.
Finally, an athletes core is quite literally a central piece to performing these lifts correctly. Simply holding the bar overhead at the top of a jerk or snatch is challenging your deep stabilizing core muscles in a way sit ups cannot achieve, and of course to get the bar from the ground to overhead the core must be braced the entire time.
They Reveal Mobility Limitations
What deters many athletes, particularly athletes past their 20’s, from embracing the benefits of the Oly Lifts are the reality that you must have healthy mobility in all of your joints! If a joint is too restricted (tight) or injured, and you try to Squat Snatch, you are going to know about it right away.
Even younger athletes will experience this because sports is a large driving factor in muscular imbalances and injury to joints, which leads to mobility limitations in those areas.
You Do Not Have to Be An Olympic Athlete
In summary, you do not have to be an Olympic athlete to do the Olympic lifts, or even pursuing a big fitness goal.
They will benefit you because they drive neuromuscular adaptation unlike any other movement at the gym. Your coordination, strength, power, ability to stabilize, core endurance and strength, and neurological threshold all improve with these complex movements.
The translation to sports and real life are both an excellent reason to incorporate these into your training.
Click the image for our go to progression on warming up and improving technique for the Squat Clean!