Olympic lifting is a person of the most higher-level, talent-based mostly, athletic pursuits a person can accomplish. No other model of lifting needs the exact level of coordination, concentration, and depth than a major thoroughly clean and jerk or snatch.
Olympic lifts require coaching cues to develop appropriate motor patterns
I’ve been incredibly lucky in my coaching profession to have been introduced up by some genuine masters in the match. About two months into my coaching profession, I attended the NSCA’s Activity Precise Coaching Conference in Anaheim in January of 2000 and listened to Mike Burgener educate the lifts. I was mesmerized by him and fell in adore with every phrase coming out of his mouth (and his exclusive talent of killing all of us in two small several hours with a PVC pipe). I quickly sought him out, and he opened his dwelling and his infinite information to me. I invested the subsequent 3 several years spending visits and assisting him at USAW certs.
Not only does Mike have a long time of knowledge to share, but the cueing he makes use of can in some way get a room comprehensive of novices on the exact page. That is impressive. The adhering to are cues you could or could not have heard when training Olympic lifting. Many of them I have made out of requirement. They are my go-to cues for practically all people, and I’ve experienced great achievements with each and every of them.
Cue #1: Ice Drinking water in Your Veins
Olympic lifting is as significantly psychological as it is actual physical. Everyone who has designed proficiency at the Olympic lifts will concur that max attempts can be incredibly stress filled and invoke significant ranges of concern. Consequently, many lifters want to get into a lather prior to heading immediately after a major attempt. This typically consists of screaming and yelling, jumping about, and trying to use aggressiveness to fuel the attempts.
I’ve got some bad information for those people of you who do this. Realistically, you want to do the actual opposite. Watch higher-level weightlifters coach. They all have an emotionless technique to the bar. They have mastered a thousand-mile stare. In excess of-excitability disrupts the circulation of the motor program. I notify my athletes they require to have no psychological connection to the attempt. The moment you have properly concluded the carry, go berserk, but not a minute sooner.
Ice water in your veins.
Cue #two: Commit to Capturing the Elbows
This cue is pure gold if you’re working with a lifter who is not getting their elbows about the comprehensive length when they capture. I see it fifty instances a working day. Lifters require to make a official decision that no issue what, they are heading to shoot the elbows the comprehensive length as quickly as they can.
In some attempts, you will see lifters do the actual opposite. They’ve practically resigned by themselves to the fact that they simply cannot get the body weight, and the arms never have interaction. If this is the situation with a person of your athletes, you have to encourage them that the elbows are non-negotiable. The elbows require to be automatic and they require to end with tempo. So pull your athletes aside and encourage them that even before they contact the bar, they require to make a offer with by themselves that hell or higher water, they are heading to shoot the elbows. It functions.
Commit to taking pictures the elbows.
Cue #three: Knuckles Down
The feeling of losing grip qualified prospects to a confirmed failed attempt, specifically for young lifters. Issues with grip are some of the to start with glitches coaches encounter with a person who’s beginning out. This is with or with out using a hook.
In my expertise with the 1000’s of lifters I’ve worked with, practically all people will the natural way have their wrists in slight extension when they grip the bar. If you search at the site of the bar in the hand when the wrists are in any level of extension, the stress of the bar moves to the fingertips. Assume of undertaking a fingertip pull up. It’s ten instances more challenging than a comprehensive grip pull up. If you don’t have your knuckles down, you use the fingertip pull up grip to pull hundreds of kilos off of the ground. Knuckles down does 3 crucial issues:
- Simply because you have to now set your wrist into slight flexion, the bar rests in the meat of the arms as an alternative of the fingertips. So out the gate, you are in a more robust posture by advantage of a surer grip.
- Applying a hook grip (like most seasoned lifters do) moves a huge portion of the stress off the thumb.
- The intention of driving your knuckles straight down keeps the elbows straight for extended.
Knuckles down.
Still left: Right, knuckles down Appropriate: Incorrect. knuckles out.
Cue #four: Drive the Ground Absent on the Initial Pull
The to start with pull can be challenging for young lifters simply because they want to apparent their knees for the bar path. If we don’t educate that piece appropriately, amateur lifters will either grind the shins with the bar or drive the knees back again with out lifting the hips up. Even although we go by way of a full section encouraging these athletes conceptualize the require to apparent the knees, in many circumstances it continue to receives muddy.
Imagining about driving the floor away though standing up with the bar organizes not only muscular coordination that matches the endeavor, but also clears the knees from the bar. Lifters stop up in a terrific posture and are ready to transition effectively.
Drive the ground away on the to start with pull.
Cue #five: Shrug You Down
It took me quite a few several years to finally educate the 3rd pull. I found that the minute you notify your athletes to pull by themselves under the bar, they inevitably start out to pull with their arms for the duration of the next pull. And as Coach B suggests, “When the elbow bends, the ability ends.”
Right up until this cue arrived alongside, I experienced occur to the summary that if I was only heading to be working with beginners to intermediates, I was not heading to educate the 3rd pull. In the old days, we would educate the youngsters that the shrug was the final-ditch attempt to get vertical carry on the bar. Now, even although we comprehend that the shrug assists carry the bar up a smidge bigger and purchases us a fraction of a next more time to get down, we educate the shrug is the point exactly where the fall to capture begins. If you have a lifter who is eager and ready to snap their shrug – as they need to be – you possible will have an athlete who is eager and ready to fall into their capture quickly. Acquire-get.
Shrug oneself down.
Cue #six: Toss Your Bridge to the Corner
I analyzed Baguazhang for a good deal of several years and was an offensive lineman for thirteen several years. The “bridge” (or what we have occur to refer to as the back again bridge bar) is this imaginary bar that addresses the rear of the athlete from shoulder to shoulder. When you are trying to get a leverage benefit in a restricted room from an opponent, you have a appreciable benefit if you can manipulate their bridge by pushing and pulling to get regulate of their higher overall body. Wrestlers, linemen, and BJJ fighters will know what I’m chatting about, even if our terminology differs.
Know the bridge, throw the bridge to get a greater hip extension
To get a lifter to end their hips, we reveal the bridge and then instruct them to throw their bridge to the corner of the room exactly where the wall and roof fulfill. As an FYI, the platforms in my facility are up from the wall, near to the corner of the room. You could use a gentle fixture or some thing like that if your set up is substantially distinctive. If this bridge concept does not resonate with you, the base of the neck is some thing we all can comprehend. Possibly way, for a successful capture, we want the hips to end and get comprehensive extension into slight hyperextension to supply the bar.
Toss your bridge to the corner.
Cue #7: Capture Like a Mountain
How many instances have you caught a thoroughly clean, only to be buckled by the body weight at the time you and the bar fulfill? It transpires a good deal, specifically with amateur lifters. They invest all their vitality pulling, so they soften at the bottom of the capture and fold up.
I notify lifters who have this challenge that they require to be a mountain at the bottom. Comprehensive pressure during the overall body will allow their structure to tolerate the load. The visual of a mountain gives them the really feel of some thing huge and reliable. Most novices feel they are obtaining a method hiccup when in actuality, they just require to feel strong. I get approximately best results from this cue.
Capture like a mountain.
Cue #8: Really feel Your Obliques in the Squat
This a person struck me quite a few months in the past when I was trying to make greater levels of pressure in my vertical urgent. I’ve experienced quite a few back again injuries in the past, so significantly of the tinkering, I do with strategies will come from the require to build structure and stability for my back again. The more you compress the exact-side indirect to build a column of stability, the more robust the complete movement feels.
On the ascent from the bottom of the squat, most of us have to chase our center and ability by way of a extremely deep ass-to-grass squat. Then you get to this point, really feel for your obliques. Attract your attention to your obliques and lock them down, building a pillar of structure for your midline. When you get your attention to your obliques, there is a level of an elevated feeling of stability as you stand up.
Really feel your obliques in the squat.
We all have some quirky cues to get what we require out of our athletes. These are just a couple of of mine.
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