My experiences going from powerlifting to olympic weightlifting

[hailtotheking]

As some of you may now a few months back i made the switch from powerlifting training to weightlifting. This was for several reasons, but to name a few a) i am lucky to train at a facility with proper weightlifting platforms, bumper plates and good weightlifting bars, and also got rudimentary access to a weightlifting coach, b) I have always preferred squatting like a weightlifter rather than a powerlifter, c) i wanted to become a bit more athletic before my age gets the better of me, and c) i'm cr*p at powerlifting!

Anyway, i thought i would just note down some interesting observations i made after a few months of the transition:

- Muscle gain on the quads, upper back, traps, neck, calves and medial / rear delts. Muscle loss on the hams, glutes, lower back, pecs, and front delts.

- Better spinal posture;

- Better body recomposition. No major dietary changes occurred during most of the transition;

- Massive improvement in speed and power. My sprint velocity, vertical, and horizontal jump have all improved alot;

- Better ability to absorb / decelerate sudden imposed loads (e.g depth jumps, and comfortable absorbing heavy presses when the bar is dropped from overhead back to shoulders).

- Improved spatial awareness and co-ordination.

- Improved shoulder mobility.

- Initially, less muscle soreness but increased joint soreness. however, the last month or so my joint soreness in some places like my shoulders has actually lessened than when i was powerlifting.

- Back squat has dropped off by about 10% whilst front squat increased to the same weight as my back squat. (I'm just a rubbish back squatter, always will be - much prefer the front squat).

- Have yet to test my deadlift. But my technique has improved in terms of getting my hips lower and driving my legs into the ground (rather than just pulling with my back) s a result of being coached on how to pull properly.

- Bench surprisingly has changed very little. For raw bench, my hunch is heavy overhead pressing has good carry over to it.

- A feeling of leaving the gym 'fresh' and 'charged', as opposed to drained like i used to feel after heavy powerlifting sessions. I suppose once i get my snatch and clean + jerk up to bigger loads i will feel more beat up.

[craig1014]

What is the difference in training like? Presumably with a PL set up you were deadlifting, squatting, and benching? And then with OLing snatch, squat, clean and jerk.

Do you add any other assistance exercises in, like just cleans? I can see from your post that you still bench, but was that as a test or part of normal training?

[MJ.23]

Good post httk.

It is interesting to hear you lost muscle mass on the glutes and hams. I would have thought you would have gained muscle in those areas.

Would be good to hhear how you are currently training. Are you following western principles or more along the lines of what the russians and bulgarians do? I am not even sure how the russians train at the moment.

[hailtotheking]

Craig - The program i followed to work the powerlifts was very similar to the Rippetoe's Intermediate Texas program. Once in a blue moon i replace some strict press work with some bench (moderate close grip) just for a laugh. Bench isn't really part of my program anymore. If i get bored of overhead pressing, i would rather do some press up variations or dips.

MJ - I think i lost muscle mass on my glutes because when i used to power squat i used to try and sit back alot - almost ending up like a 1/2 good morning. I never enjoyed squatting this way but i did it because thats what the powerlifters told me to do. It give you a big ass! Once i switched to oly lifting you have to squat more upright, with more knee break and quad dominance in order for it to have much carry over to the oly lifts. I also found squatting and pulling with heeled oly lifting shoes seemd to make pulling and squatting more quad dominant and remove some hamstring effort.

Whilst on the subject of changes in muscle gain / loss, i noticed that initially i packed on alot of upper body mass in general, but as i got better at not using my arms to do the 2nd pull and just using my legs / hips and a bit of traps, my legs started to grow much more and my arms shrunk a bit! I think maybe people that havent been coached in these lifts gain upper body mass alot with power cleans and power snatches because they are (incorrectly) using their upper body muscles alot in the lifts. The decent lifters in my gym can do double bodyweight (or more) clean and jerks and they do not have alot of upper body mass, but have big legs and traps.

I believe that with something as technical as olmypic lifting, specificity is the way to go. You just have to spend 90% of your time and energy just doing the lifts over and over again (with as much expert spotting / coaching as you can access) to learn them properly.
Orignally i was doing a pretty basic program - 4 days a week, and it looks like full snatch then squat then press (can choose from a number of variations, inc. things like snatch balance), full C+J then squat, power snatch then squat then press, power C + power J then squat.
However, after a few months this was starting to beat me up a bit as the loads increased. I didnt want to cut down frequency and really wanted to stick with the specificity principle, so i've temporarily dropped high pulls, OH pressing, and back squatting. So basically at the mo i am just doing the lifts (or power versions) for about 5 working sets of doubles or triples (autoregulating the weight) and front squatting. I'm experimenting with different types of accessory work at the mo that give me the right blend of working weaknesses and boosting recovery. I'm finding good ol calisthenics and mobility / stretching is working well.

[MJ.23]

Seems you have switched to a bulgarian type principal of just hammering the oly movements over and over again. It is a very effective method! I am still very tempted to try and learn at least one of the oly movements (clean and jerk preferably) and use it in my strongman training. There is mixed opinion down the gym about oly movements and their effectiveness on other sports.

Some say that the time, effort and flexibility changes required to effectively snatch or c + j can be detrimental on the strongman training. I tend to disagree personally. I would not be following both a strongman routine and an oly routine simultaneously. Just a strongman programme with 1 oly movement included. A few of the guys reckon I would be a good weightlifter as I have the build for it (apparently) big traps and big legs (as you mentioned) I have been watching a lot of the old EWC weightlifting comps and alll the lifters share very similar builds.

Koklyaev is a good example of how all strength sports can be used effectively with each other. He does powerlifting, strongman and weightlifting and it all works together. At the 2010 WSM he showed the world how effective the jerk movement can be. Savickas was strict pressing all his logs (as he does) and koklyaev was consistantly matching him using his weightlifting background and split jerking the weights.

Have you ever thought of starting a training log httk? It would be interesting to see your progression.

[hailtotheking]

Although i cant remember the exact athletes, i have seen a number of times contenders with an oly lifting background in WSM do very well in the pressing and pulling from the floor events (one guy was power jerking during the giant dumbbell press, and i have also seen power jerks done during log and axle pressing).

If you kept the reps low, sets high, and just limit it to once or twice a week you would not detract from your strongman stuff and would almost certainly enhance your strongman lifting efficiency. This article has a few ideas about throwign oly lifts into the mix Strongman Training 101.

The power clean is not difficult to learn, whereas the power snatch needs a bit more practice. If you get the fundamental principles right (knowing where to start the 2nd pull, DONT pull with your arms, keep the elbows locked out rotated out, keep your head neutral or even slightly up, stay over the bar, generate the momentum for the 2nd phase with hip drive), and keep with a weight that you can do with technical precision, both lifts can be picked up fairly quickly. The power snatch generates more power through the posterior chain than the power clean, so i think both the power snatch and power clean + jerk are worth learning.

[MJ.23]

Thanks for the article; that was a good read. Some of the training programmes they use are interesting. The owner of the gym said he could teach the oly movements up to a level. He has competed in powerlifting, strongman and bodybuilding and has used them a lot in his training. I will see how he teaches it; and use my judgement as to whether I should seek out a coach.

[dope540]

lucky you man! i wish i had access to a oly coach. training at a corssfit gym and oly lifts in crossfit isn't the best idea as it's either high rep sets or heavy weights with low reps but done very infrequently

[hailtotheking]

Harvey Newton's 'Explosive Lifting for Sports' is a good book on basic weightlifting technique, as is the DVD. He also has soem good Dartfish video analyis you can access via is site. Mr Newton himself is a really sound guy and he has helped me out with a couple of things via email.

Mark Rippetoe's 'Starting Strength' site has some good videos on power clean and power snatches.

Glenn Pendlay's site is also good for oly lifting articles and has details on some good drills by other coaches (Don McCauley's drills are pretty good and i have used them to fine tune the 'hip drive and drop').

[alhales66]

I agree, Harvey Newtons book is class! Helped me develop some explosive strength and power for my goalkeeper training. Although all the theory is great, you never know how hard it is to nail the technique until you actually do it! Just feels good when you see other guys in the gym claiming to clean and jerk and they just deadlift-2-upright-row-2-shoulder press. Breaks me!!