1. sports
2. weightlifting

The
7 Deadly Sins
Of
Olympic Weightlifting
… and How to Avoid
Them
written by:
Nick Horton
THE IRON SAMURAI
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Forward to the 2nd edition
The biggest problem with writing down your opinions
about certain topics is that those opinions might change
later. Sometimes dramatically! If Emerson said,
"consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," then an
avoidance of rewriting is the ogre of arrogant writers.
I wrote The 7 Deadly Sins of Olympic Weightlifting a
number of years ago, put it up onto The Iron Samurai site
and then promptly forgot about it. This happens, you
know. You write something that takes a lot of focus and
effort at the time, but as soon as it's left your sight,
you're so focussed on the next project that you
sometimes forget (for far too long) to go back and make
sure that what you wrote previously is still in line with
how you are thinking today.
Just like you, every reader who joins my newsletter list
has been getting a copy of this eBook for a good number
of years now. I've even got a fair amount of positive
feedback on it. So, the combination of positive response
with "out of sight, out of mind" embedded my own
predilection to just let it stand on its own and not bother
to go back and ... gasp, actually reread it!
The other day, in testing out some new software to run
my newsletter, I signed up for my OWN list. There is
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nothing like getting an email from yourself congratulating
you on deciding to get email from yourself.
I went through the process of downloading the eBook (to
make sure the process is working correctly - due diligence
and all that) and then, on a whim, decided to actually
open the file and READ what I'd written over two years
ago.
The first thing I noticed was that I didn't like the cluttered
formatting. I've gotten rather minimalistic as of late (if
you've read my beginners guide to Olympic weightlifting,
Samurai Strength, then you'll notice some similarities
here).
The second thing I noticed was that I still agreed with a
little bit of what was in there - especially the psychological
stuff. In this rewrite, a few of the "Sins" haven't changed
much. Unfortunately, there was a third thing I noticed. There were a number of the Sins that I not only felt
weren't expressing my current views particularly well, but
were almost the OPPOSITE of how I think about these
topics today. Some of them were simple technical issues.
As I've become a better - and far more experienced coach, my ideas have altered to fit reality. (It's always a
problem to go the other direction!) THE IRON SAMURAI
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Other concerns were more pedagogical. The theory of teaching is a big deal to me. It IS my job. A
coach is a teacher. It's as simple as that. So the methods
of HOW we teach are as important as WHAT we teach. The way I was teaching the Olympic lifts to beginners a
number of years ago has changed dramatically. I'm now
using a much faster, leaner, and more robust method, one
I've been able to test on hundreds of lifters. I don't want
to make the idiotic claim that I have THE answer to the
"how" questions. But I CAN say that I have a better
answer than the one I had over two years ago. This rewrite represents my current views about the Top 7
Sins beginning weightlifters make.
We're just scratching the surface of what my thoughts are
on this subject. Thankfully for you, there's an entire blog
www.TheIronSamurai.com, a book
www.SamuraiStrength.com, a video series, and even an
upcoming podcast that you can go through to learn all
you can about how to be the best weightlifter you can be. Read this book first, then keep on reading and learning. I
promise I'll do the same. And if I decide in the future I
need to update this thing (I will), then I'll just email you
out the new copy. THE IRON SAMURAI
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Introduction to the 1st Edition
The Olympic weightlifting movements – the snatch, the
clean, and the jerk – are the closest things that we have
in the strength training community to a panacea.
They cure almost everything.
If you have mobility and flexibility problems, learning how
to overhead squat (the bottom of a snatch) will fix most
of them. If you are weak (most athletes are weak), then
doing heavy clean and jerks will make you strong. If you
need explosive power and to increase your vertical jump,
both the lifts will dramatically improve that. Want to be
more agile? Reactive? Do the lifts.
The list just keeps going on and on.
And yet, it is extremely rare that strength and
conditioning programs incorporate these lifts into their
routines. Why? Because they are hard. Even among the few programs that do have people doing
some Olympic lifting, it's usually just a simplified version
of a power snatch or power clean – and usually from the
hang. THE IRON SAMURAI
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While I would agree that doing something is better than
doing nothing, it is sadly rare to see the full Olympic
weightlifting movements done in a sports-related context
– and done properly.
This book is designed to help you to correct a few of what
I see are the major issues stopping you from getting the
most out of using these lifts in your own training. There's
more to it, of course, but these key things should get you
going in the right direction.
After you read this, make sure to check out my blog
www.TheIronSamurai.com I keep it updated with lots of information that will aid you
in your quest to be a stronger and faster athlete – with a
clear emphasis on the Olympic weightlifting movements
and their assistance work. THE IRON SAMURAI
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Sin #1 Believing The Olympic Lifts
Are Too Hard to Learn
No Athlete has ever gotten anywhere in life with a “can't
do” attitude. Sadly, many in the weightlifting community have
cultivated that exact response in athletes by way of
perpetrating a series of myths about the Olympic
weightlifting movements (the Snatch, the Clean, and the
Jerk). The most important of which is the idea that these
lifts are just too hard to learn - at least for most athletes.
And the other is that even for those athletes that could
learn how to do them correctly, it isn't worth the time and
effort because it will just take far too long.
This is just flat-out BS. Period. It is a crock of sh$t that it takes 10,000 reps to learn how
to properly do a snatch in a way that will be beneficial to
you.
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It is false that the snatch is the hardest thing to do in all
of sports.
It is not at all true that most athletes can't afford the time
to learn to do these things.
Now … it IS true that to get to the level of ELITE-level
competitive Olympic weightlifters that it will take on the
order of 10,000 reps (or more! And with heavy weights,
all done correctly). It is also true, that the way that Elite lifters perform the
snatch makes it one of the most technically difficult
movements in all of sports. But, it is also true that most athletes don't need to learn
them to THAT level. And … Let's be honest. Everything is like that. The way Usain Bolt runs is more technically perfect than
the way that most of us do. Does that mean we should
stop sprinting?
Of course not. Sprinting is an amazing form of exercise,
even if you are not a sprinter. THE IRON SAMURAI
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Should we stop doing chin ups because we'll never be
great gymnasts? Come on ...
Your goal is to do the Olympic lifting movements in a safe,
and performance-enhancing way; to do them in a way
that is as close to perfect as you can, so that you can
reap the most benefit from them. This is a reasonable goal. And I'm here to tell you that
ANY athlete can do it in a relatively short period of time.
(12 weeks flat if you follow the program in my book,
Samurai Strength)
Sure, you will need to work hard, be patient, and not
wimp out. But, that's true of most things that are worth it – like
marriage or beating your favorite video game (I'm a Mario
Kart guy, myself). So, why has this myth of the Olympic-lifts-as-impossible
gotten around and become so persistent?
The first reason is that most strength coaches have never
figured out how to do these lifts themselves. If they don't
even know how to do them correctly how can they teach
them correctly?
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The other reason is that Olympic lifters as a group tend to
be a rather elitist group, by nature. It helps ensure their
status if they can perpetuate the myth that the snatch
and clean and jerk are just sooooo hard to do that you
shouldn't even bother trying.
I'm not saying that Olympic lifters are mean or rude. In
fact, it's quite the opposite. As a community, they are
some of the nicest people around. The sport is so darned
small that they are super excited every time a new person
enters it.
That said, they ARE elitist. They think of what they do as the most important of
strength sports. For instance, they call Powerlifters dump
trucks, and themselves sports cars – it has a ring of truth,
but it's condescending. They nitpick on form and technique as a way of reminding
people just how hard it is to get it “just right”. They pat themselves on the back for having the patience
and the wherewithal to stick with these lifts long enough
to get good at them. And they are right. THE IRON SAMURAI
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They are elitists for a reason. This stuff is hard, it takes a
while to get even decent at them, and when you do start
to “get it” then amazing things start to happen to you. But, they aren't THAT hard to learn. For most people, getting to an “intermediate” level of
proficiency is plenty and will do wonders for your body.
It'll take some time, it'll take hard work, but it's more
than doable.
Don't ever let yourself get psyched out by this posturing.
They don't mean it to be mean, but it ends up being
exactly that because it causes so many to give up before
they even begin.
You CAN and you WILL learn to do the Olympic lifts
correctly if you put in the time and the effort and have a
positive attitude about the process. And once you get good, make sure you don't discourage
others from getting good at them too!
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Sin #2
Not Getting the Bar into the
Hip
Sin number two is the first of the technical sins. And,
along with sin number three, deals specifically with
maximizing your vertical jump. If you can't finish the pull
on your Olympic lifts correctly, then you are forgoing the
point of doing them.
The trouble is the a proper Olympic lift isn't really like a
jump (more on this later). Simply putting a bar in your
hands and jumping upward, then catching it on your
shoulders isn't a very good way to learn how to do the
pull correctly. Yet, that is exactly how it is taught in most
high schools, colleges, etc.
Check out the two pictures below. The first is of my lifter,
Peter, at what we'll call, "The Hip Position". The second is
of my other lifter, Brandon, at full extension.
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I like to break the pull from the floor-up into three distinct
positions that I call:
- The Start (or Floor) position
- The Knee Position
- The Hip Position
(By the way, I didn't make this stuff up. I've adapted it and nearly everything else I do - from the stuff I've
learned from other coaches like Tom Hirtz, Glenn Pendlay,
Don McCauley, Sean Waxman, John Broz, and Greg
Everett, just to name a few. Be smart, don't try to
reinvent the wheel all the time. Find what's worked for
others and find a way to adapted to your needs and your
situation.)
The most important of these three is the Hip Position.
If you did everything else wrong, but you got this right,
then you'd be 80% of your way to being a good
weightlifter. However, if you got everything else right, but
got this wrong, you're only at about 20%. Seriously. I'm not saying that hyperbolically. It is THAT
important!
OK ... so, what do I mean by "hip" position. For a
thorough explanation, see my video "How to Snatch, Part
1" where I explain how to move from the Hip position, up;
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and the second "How to Snatch, Part 2" where I explain
how to move from the Knee to the Hip.
But, for now, let's go over the basics. The bar starts at the hip - literally. It should be touching
you! Your shoulders are behind the bar (or at the most,
right on TOP of the bar). They are not forward over the
bar, here. Your heels are planted firmly on the ground.
The legs should be in about a quarter-squat position:
knees forward a touch. Recap:
- Bar touching Hips (on Snatch, high up the thigh on
cleans)
- Shoulders behind the bar
- Legs in a (roughly) quarter-squat position
What about all that talk about extending, triple-extension,
shrugging, etc?
You aren't there yet!
The Hip Position is the spot you hit the moment BEFORE
you "finish your pull". Finishing hard and extending is
great ... but worthless if you don't hit this spot first.
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Here's the rub. If you were to take a video of a
weightlfter, slow it down, and check out each frame, the
Hip Position would take up maybe ONE of those frames. It happens FAST.
Over time, a good weightlifter makes hitting this spot so
ingrained that they never need think about it. How could
they at that speed?! But, the DO hit it.
I strongly suggest that you spend a solid amount of time
in the begining just standing in this position using a
broom stick. THE IRON SAMURAI
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Sin #3 Not Working Hard Enough, OR,
Not Facing Your Fear
One of my coaching mentors, Tom Hirtz, taught me one of
the most important lessons I've ever learned as a coach:
Hard work trumps everything else.
If you mess up everything, but you still work your tail off,
you'll go far. If you are lazy, if you don't push yourself
beyond your own comfort levels and boundaries, if you
don't stay with it no matter how tough it gets, then it
doesn't matter how much you know or how smart the
program is that you're on ... you'll fail.
When I tell you to work hard, however, I don't just mean
the physical stuff. You DO need to push yourself on the
big lifts. But just as importantly you need to push yourself
to be a stronger person psychologically.
The problem is that Olympic weightlifting just isn't like
other sporting activities. It's combining two things that a
smart person wouldn't have combined: Heavy weights
with massively complex technique. Crazy!
Most sports are one or the other.
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Golf is technical ... Powerlifting has heavy weights.
The Pole Vault is about finesse ... Strong Man is mostly
about "bruting" it out.
Olympic weightlifting (especially the Snatch) is just as
complex as the Pole Vault, but with weights that are
heavy enough for a Powerlifter. What this means for YOU is that you'll always be
struggling to keep your great technique - the technique
you worked SO hard to drill in at light weights - when the
weights get heavy. It's something that happens in my gym everyday. A lifter
came to me a month or so back, they spend a lot of time
drilling with light weights, an empty bar, even just a PVC
pipe. They built up confidence in their ability to perform
the movements correctly all the while building up their
squatting strength.
The day comes to start adding weight to the bar, and
guess what happens? They freak out.
You see, lifting light weights correctly is about technique.
Can you do it? Do you know what to do? Are you able to
move the bar correctly without having to THINK?
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Lifting heavy weights correctly is about not getting in your
own way. When fear sets in, it turns you into a moron.
Your brain gets over-active, you start thinking about every
little thing that can go wrong, and you psyche yourself
out. The form that you worked SO hard on disappears ...
and you miss.
What is obvious is that you have to work hard on big lifts
like squats to get strong. What is less obvious, and takes
time to learn and make intuitive, is that you have to work
hard to overcome your own fears that WILL hold you
back. Mediocre weightlifters NEVER learn this. They spend their
entire careers stuck at a low plateau, progress halted long
ago, because they never put in the (very) hard work of
overcoming their fears and learning how to lift HEAVY
weights with great form. Great lifters did.
Work HARD. Not just at the strength stuff, or the technical
stuff, but at the mental stuff.
THE IRON SAMURAI
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Sin #4
Believing that Weightlifting is
Jumping with a Bar In Your
Hands
The way most people are taught how to do the Olympic
lifts is sometimes referred to as the “Jump and Catch”
method. You start people at roughly the knee position,
then simply tell them to drag the bar up, and jump as
hard as they can, then catch it.
This is exactly how I used to teach the lifts … I was
wrong. This is a horrible method of instruction. And I'm
embarrassed that I used it for so long.
The problem with this method is that it sets people up for
a myriad of disgusting bad habits that are then extremely
difficult to break them of. Weightlifting is NOT jumping with a bar in your hands. It
is distinct from jumping.
Yes, sometimes we'll use words like "jump" to force
people to use their legs rather than their arms to move
the bar. But as helpful as this tool is for people who are
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RANK beginners - who still haven't learned that lifting
heavy weight off the floor is a lower body activity, not a
variant of the biceps curl - it doesn't change the fact that
it is wrong.
There are a few key differences between jumping and
snatching/cleaning. The primary one is that jumping is a
quad-dominant activity and the Olympic lifts are glutedominant activity. The quads play a role. And, like in a
jump, you end up extending forcefully at the hip and
knees. But the way you do them is quite different.
The confusing bit is that getting very good at the Olympic
lifts makes people much better at jumping! But ONLY if
you do it correctly.
How can that be? How is it that learning how to do an
exercise that I just said wasn't like jumping can be so
helpful in getting people to jump higher?
Because doing the Olympic lifts correctly will build MORE
strength and power in the muscles that are used most for
jumping. Doing the lifts in a vain effort to mimic the jump
causes you to use far less weight than you normally could
(with proper technique), minimizes the explosive power
that could have been generated, and therefore puts less
stress on the muscles and nervous system.
It is the same reason why sprinters learn to squat and
deadlift on their heels - correctly - rather than on their
toes. Yes, when you sprint, you are on the balls of your
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feet. That doesn't NOT mean that you'll be a better
sprinter if you learn to deadlift while on the balls of your
feet!
There are many similarities between jumps and Olympic
lifts. They are complimentary. Getting great at one will
certainly bleed into the other. But make sure you go out
of your way to learn how to do the lifts correctly, as they'd
be done by a weightlifter, if you want to see the greatest
carryover to your vertical.
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Sin #5
Pulling Rather Than Driving
the Bar
I'm about to backtrack, here. I said I don't want you to
"jump", but that doesn't mean I don't want you to
maximally use your legs!
It is a sad thing that the pull in weightlifting is called "the
pull". It should be called "The Drive". The reason is that
there is this horrible psychological thing that happens
when you tell someone to pull on a bar - they overuse
their arms and back, and underuse their legs and hips. Make no mistake, the Olympic lifts may not be exactly like
jumping, but they are a hell of a lot more like jumping
than they are like curling! What I prefer is to tell someone to Drive the heels into the
ground as forcefully as you can, for as long as you can. At
the top of the "pull" (going from the Hip Position to full
extension) you're legs and hips should be driving at full
force and max speed. Drive your heels DOWN!
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I don't want you thinking about shrugging, either. That's
an upper body thing that is for later when you are more
advanced. All you need to be focussing on for now is
learning how to properly use your hips and legs.
An Olympic lift is basically an odd combination of a
Romanian Deadlift (Hamstrings), a Hip Thrust (Hips/
Glutes), and a Jump (Quads). All of the rest is minor
stuff. If you can combine a powerful and full Hip extension with
a powerful and full knee extension, and time it all just
right, you've got yourself one kick-butt lift. The rest is
icing on the cake.
Learn to drive the heels into the ground, don't pull the bar
up.
THE IRON SAMURAI
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Sin #6
Infrequent Practice
Unlike so many of my colleagues in the Strength Coaching
community, I don't have it out for CrossFit. In fact, I actively try and cultivate a relationship with
people who do CrossFit because these folks have a
healthy respect and love of Olympic weightlifting. And
because these are some HARD working people. I've
never had a CrossFit athlete come in and whine and cry
about the workouts being too hard … ever. They hit the
gym and they work their tails off. I respect that.
However, with that said, CrossFit's style of training is a
classic example of the type of training that is designed to
cause people to not get very good at the Olympic lifts. The problem? They don't do the lifts enough. CrossFit is
very random, it's that way by design, and that's totally
cool. It's a great conditioning system if you're into that
kind of thing. But, that randomness makes learning hard. No system of
learning can thrive on randomness. Instead, learning
thrives on consistency and repetitiveness.
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Practice, practice, practice …
You're goal is to LEARN something new, not just to
workout.
Now, I don't want to pick on CrossFit. The fact is, most
strength and conditioning programs don't attack the
Olympic lifts nearly enough. (If at all!!)
When you are learning the snatch and the clean, you need
to do them at the beginning of EVERY workout. And you
need to do these workouts a good 3 to 5 days a week.
(I've gotten results with people doing as little as 2 days a
week, but it's rare, and the progress is slower.)
Again, learning the Olympic lifts is like learning a
language. If you don't practice Spanish but 1 or 2 days a
week (if that) then you will never learn how to speak
Spanish. You might learn how to ask where the bathroom
is, and how to order some extra hot sauce, but that's
about it.
If you want to be better than mediocre at this stuff, then
for a while, be serious about practice. I tell people the Olympic lifts are more like Tai Chi or Kung
Fu than they are like Weight lifting (2 words). When
people think about weightlifting they think about getting
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stronger. It's true, of course, that you'll get stronger. But
the Olympic lifts are more than that.
They are NOT like riding a bike. You can't just get into it
for a week and learn how to do it, and then remember
how to do it for the rest of your life. It's going to take a lot of time and effort and persistence
on your part to get this stuff down. Now, like I said before, they aren't the hardest things in
the world to learn. You can and will learn how to do these
lifts if you put your mind to it. But, it won't happen by magic. You have to put the work
in. And you have to put that work in OFTEN. THE IRON SAMURAI
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Sin #7
Being Too Serious About It All
The reason we're all doing this in the first place is because
we find it so darned fun. Never forget that. You'll go through periods where you'll be extremely
frustrated. You'll fail a lot. (I like to say that if you aren't
failing, you aren't trying.) You'll suffer, trust me. But that
doesn't mean that you can't laugh and have a great time
through it all. Most of us will never be great national champions, let
alone world champions. We have to have other reasons
for doing this. To quote myself in my book, Samurai
Strength:
"Learning How to Snatch Makes You a Better Person"
Sound crazy? Well ... I'm serious!
The work you put into learning how to do the Olympic lifts
will improve your body AND your mind. We know what it
does for the body. But you may not yet be aware of what
it can do for your mind.
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- You'll get better at dealing with stress. - You'll learn how to control your fear response. - You'll learn how to quite your mind.
Imagine what life would be like if you could tell your brain
to stop over thinking - and it actually listened to you?
That's what happens in a successful snatch or clean with
heavy weight. You MUST be able to turn your mind off,
make it quiet, calm, so that you can allow the body to do
what it was trained to do. These are skills you learn along the way to becoming a
better weightlifter. In fact, many lifters don't even realize
it's happening. But it is. At first, you'll learn to have great technique with an empty
bar, but not be able to keep it up when you put just a few
pounds on it. Then you'll get to a point where most of the
time you're lifts look good at 60%, but anything heavier
and the form gets ugly.
Eventually, you can make lifts look good at 80%, then
90%, then 95% ...
What's happened is the lifter became better able to
control their own mind. It no longer gets in the way.
If you can have perfect technique - without thinking about
it - with and empty bar. Then you should be able to have
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great technique with heavy weights ... but ONLY if you
don't get in your own way.
You will. For a very long time, you will get in your own
way. That's totally natural. Don't beat yourself up about it.
But slowly, you'll get better and better able to stay out of
your own way. You'll learn to trust your instincts and your
training. Believe me, that kind of personal growth extends out to
every area of your life.
Now go lift something heavy,
Nick Horton
Blog: www.TheIronSamurai.com
Weightlifting Team:
www.PDXWeightlifting.com Book: www.SamuraiStrength.com
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