Olympic Lifting

stehigg

i am looking into adding a clean and jerk into my shoulder day at the start of my routine to help with my explosive power.

I have never Olympic Lifted before but am an experienced trainer and work in the weights rooms under my teams sports and conditioning coach who thinks i do not need to add any Olympic lifting into my current program (probably cos he designed it).

However i believe it would be very beneficial to me. My question is the amount of sets and reps i should do? I am not well read in OLympic Lifting and would apprecitae some direction on this.

spooiirt!!

i dont do the jerks, i only do cleans. Have had decent improvement with 5 sets @ 5 reps.

blazingsaddles

Keep the reps low, 5 is more then enough. 3 sets is plenty as well

Hanley

Depending on how strong you are already, your coach may be right.

Clean and jerks don't really work your shoulders either (it's all hip and legs).

But onto the meat of the question.... low reps and high sets are the order of the day.

Low reps (between one and three to five) because the more reps you do, the worse your form becomes, the less effective the lift becomes, and the longer it takes you to learn it.

Oly lifts are highly skill dependant, so more sets (since you can't go more reps) will lead to faster improvement. In fact if possible, you're probably better off doing some clean and jerk practice 2-3x a week if possible.

Frank Bullitt

Make sure you have the technique right man, thats my advice to you first and foremost.

I was doing them 10 days ago and took a step back and strained my hip flexer,not a good buzz.

Colm_OReilly

Yay for Olympic Lifting!!!

Now that I've got my excitement out of the way. If you're training for sport, why is your routine split into bodyparts? That's a more important question imo.

stehigg

Colm_OReilly wrote: »

Yay for Olympic Lifting!!!

Now that I've got my excitement out of the way. If you're training for sport, why is your routine split into bodyparts? That's a more important question imo.

that school of thought is a little out dated i think. We have been using split routines for the past 2 seasons and found them quite effective for our 1rm across the board. we alternate through phases of split, explosive work outs and plyometrics

stehigg

Hanley wrote: »

Depending on how strong you are already, your coach may be right.

Clean and jerks don't really work your shoulders either (it's all hip and legs).

But onto the meat of the question.... low reps and high sets are the order of the day.

Low reps (between one and three to five) because the more reps you do, the worse your form becomes, the less effective the lift becomes, and the longer it takes you to learn it.

Oly lifts are highly skill dependant, so more sets (since you can't go more reps) will lead to faster improvement. In fact if possible, you're probably better off doing some clean and jerk practice 2-3x a week if possible.

im aware it will not hit my shoulders (except for the jerk phase of the excercise). i want to get used to it on a day where my legs have not gone through a heavy workout

spiral

Jerks dont really hit the shoulders like a press or push press. You are using your legs and hips to drive the bar up and then actively dropping under it. Your arms and shoulders are more to support the weight once overhead not get it there.

As Hanley said multiple sets .

6 sets of 3 reps is a good start.
I would start with just a bar do the cleans and jerks seperately.
Have fun Olympic lifting is great stuff