Olympic Weightlifting for Sports
When it comes to power expression and development, Olympic weightlifting is second to none. The requisite force applied through a dynamic range of motion should be a staple in all athletic training.
My first foray into Olympic weightlifting was at the end of 2023 (read review). At that time I liked the idea of Olympic lifting as an exercise in mobility. Though, admittedly I had things a bit backwards. I thought that working the lifts — and their components — and motivation alone would help address my lacking mobility.
While I was able to repeat my clean and jerk PR, and beat my previous (power) snatch PR, I feel like I made many of the same mistakes again.
Program Results:
- Clean and Jerk: 225#
- Power Snatch: 135#
Much of the process get’s lost by simply looking at the end results. I will say that I do feel like my mobility has improved, though it’s clearly still the limiting factor in being able to apply strength dynamically (i.e. power).
One significant difference was that I didn’t enter this 6-week block with the intention of putting up competitive numbers. Rather, I wanted to develop power output and let the movements be a relative instead of absolute measure of power.
In that regard, the program was a success.
The fact that I was able to match previous PRs, without training these movements for 6-8 months, and tore my MCL in the meantime is a testament all on it’s own. Trust me, that can’t be attributed to talent alone — because I surely don’t have it with Olympic lifts.
Let’s zoom out to a 10,000 foot level before taking a week by week analysis of the program.
In terms of energy systems “strength” is certainly not my problem. For most intents and purposes, neither is “recoverability’” (think intervals). Oxygen mobilization (aerobic capacity) is sometimes a limiting factor for me, but usually because of low underlying aerobic (endurance) development.
The difference between Olympic lifting (“power” energy system) and endurance — for me — is that while I’m not good at either, I like one a helluva lot more than the other.
All of this is underlined by mobility (or the lack thereof). As mentioned above, the range that you’re able to dynamically apply strength through is a major limiting factor in output. Similarly, if an unfamiliar or inefficient movement is pushed to high volumes, it will be much more taxing on the aerobic system than more efficient and familiar movement patterns.
Now, let’s get on to processing my notes throughout the program!
Week 1:
I got excited and jumped the planned micro-cycle order. As a result I was pretty sore most of the week, having gone heavier and longer than I’d planned. Notably, this dampened my ability to get another hard training day in the same week.
For this training block I also wore my Morpheus HRM while I was teaching classes / private lessons. Typically this isn’t a ton of movement for me, but I’d felt over the past couple weeks that it was still adding up on top of my regular training.
Week 2:
I wanted to put a time limit on training sessions to temper the desire to “ego lift” and stoke the flame of “trusting the process.” More of this gets revealed in Week 6, but in general it seemed like ~60 min of working time (plus warm up and cool down) was about right.
Week 3:
Intuition is fickle. Last Sunday my Morpheus recovery score was 91%, but I “wasn’t feeling it.” Monday, the weather flip-flopped, my sinuses were smashed, I slept like shit, and my recovery score was 68%.
Nevertheless, I felt like getting after it and put up pretty good numbers.
After an extremely rare 4 AM party (Halloween) Saturday night, Sunday I was running on 3 hours of sleep, but my recovery score was 89% and training was productive. However, the following day was the real blowback.
Even though I slept almost 12 hours to try to make up for the night before, my recovery score was an abysmal 39%.
The point was well taken. Consistent, not just average, sleep matters. Binge drinking tanks recovery… and sleep quality.
Week 4:
Once again, session PWR-07, I got overly ambitious and went long again. I tried to go a little too heavy, and missed a few reps. While I, of course, made them up, this is the kind of overwork that doesn’t get reflected in training logs.
Missed reps still take effort and still require energy for recovery. Do you take the misses, or finish the session as written?
Week 5:
I had been proud of my attention to detail for rebound (RBND) / active recovery sessions and making sure they actually improving my Morpheus recovery score. This is somewhat of a mini-test of how well you know your engine.
I’ve discussed before how “active recovery” session for me have just ended up being endurance build sessions; which aren’t the same.
Session RBND-07 was different and highlighted the importance of movement efficiency. The session was a simple 20-minute bike + burpee descending ladder.
Cardiovascularly, and on Morpheus, the session went as planned. However, I could tell that I wasn’t used to doing a lot of horizontal pressing, as my shoulders and elbows were wrecked when I had to roll (BJJ) hard the next day.
Week 6:
I knew that I had paced things about right, because I was hitting a peak and simultaneously wanting the program to be over around Week 5. That’s a good sign that with one or two weeks to go I was pushing enough to be over it, but probably wasn’t going to break.
As it turns out, Week 6’s snatch session was a repeat max of Week 5, though the clean-and-jerk session showed improvement all the way through the program.
What’s maybe more important though is that I probably should have been resting the way I did in Week 6 all the way through the program. That is, I knew I wanted to perform well on an arbitrary “test day.” I knew that that rest had to come at the expense of other training (intensity).
Joel Jamieson has recommended training intensity splits of:
- Recovery: 33% - 50% of sessions
- Conditioning: 33% of sessions
- Overload: 16% - 33% of sessions
The breakdown of this particular program for me came out to:
- Recovery: 10/40 sessions (25%)
- Conditioning: 20/40 sessions (50%)
- Overload: 10/40 sessions (25%)
This also closely mirrors what I experienced with the NonProphet Escape Velocity program:
- Level 1: 34%
- Level 2: 47%
- Level 3: 19%
You can see that when left to my own devices (this program) I still have a tendency to “regress towards the mean.” What that means, is that “easy sessions” usually aren’t easy enough to promote skill / recovery; and “hard sessions” inevitably get ground down to mediocre performances (even though they still “feel” hard).
This is something I’m really going to try and dial in at the end of this year to have solid foundation and starting place for 2025. With the logistical oddities of the holiday season, and some weekend work trainings I have on the docket, I can’t get a fully organized program in to the end of the year.
What I can do is make sure my foundation is super secure (*cough* mobility and endurance).
Nevertheless, it’s hard to not see this program as a success as I was still able to match or exceed my lifetime PRs with the Olympic lifts after not having specifically focused on them for around 8 months.
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