Introduction
Olympic Weightlifting is often a sport where athletes compete for your total weight of two lifts: the snatch and the clean & jerk. The education methods found in Weightlifting will also be employed by Strength & Conditioning coaches as a technique of resistance training to get a massive amount other sports. One of the first reasons behind exploiting various resistance training modalities such is good for power development. There are several variations on the theme of power training. Some of these training modalities include plyometrics (Wilson, Elliot & Wood 1990), assisted and resisted training (Faccioni 1993a; 1993b) and speed and acceleration drills (Cinkovich 1992). A favorite method employed to increase athletic power is Olympic Weightlifting (ie power cleans, push presses, snatches, jump jerks as well as their variations) conducted within the exercise (Garhammer, 1993). It is traditionally been seen as efficient of manufacturing general explosive ability (Takano 1992; Stone 1993; Garhammer & Gregor 1992). However, there are many important considerations that demand to get addressed when implementing Olympic lifting exercises in the Strength & Conditioning program of an athlete, some include movement competency, training age, sport and coaching time with athlete. The objective of this article by Elite Performance Institute (EPI) is to supply a biomechanical and physiological discussion as to the reasons weightlifting training is helpful to improve athletic performance and exactly how they will be performed in the training course. For more details, check out www.epicertification.com
Power Defined
Power may be looked as the perfect mix of speed and strength to create movement (Chu 1996). Specifically, power represents light beer the athlete to create high amounts of function with a certain distance. Greater power a player possesses the greater the a higher level work performed (Wilson 1992). Power is often a mix of strength and speed:
POWER = FORCE (strength) X VELOCITY (speed to move)
There are several physiological and neural adaptations which comprise the force component (Moritani 1992). Physiological adaptations to strength incorporate a boost in muscle tissue through hypertrophy, ligament density and bone integrity (Tesch 1992a). Neural adaptations (Schmidtbleicher 1992) that can be produced are: (1) increased recruitment of motor units; (2) increased firing rate of motor neurones; (3) synchronised firing of motor neurones; (4) surge in intra-muscular coordination; and (5) surge in inter-muscular coordination.
Speed to move is made up of many different interrelated factors (Ackland & Bloomfield 1995). They’re; (1) muscle fibre type; (2) skill; (3) muscle insertion points; (4) lever length; (5) muscular posture; and (6) elastic energy use of the series elastic component.
Olympic Weightling exercises facilitate growth and development of the center (Strength-Speed and Speed-Strength) from the force-velocity (FV) curve (see above). The FV curve acts a road map to Strength & Conditioning Courses according to the kind of strength developed from each exercise, session or phase to train within the program. Therefore, the Strength & Conditioning coach can effectively plan what type of power they need to develop and which training modality (powerlifting, Olympic liftining, plyometrics, etc) is better utilised to elicit these adaptations.
Conclusion
Concern still exists for the ef?cacy of including Olympic weightlifting exercises within the resistance training programs of athletes in sports aside from weightlifting. These concerns generally fall under 3 broad categories: 1) Perceived time required to educate yourself on the movements due to complexity from the lifts. 2) Too little comprehension of the potential bene?ts that can be derived from performing Olympic lifting exercises correctly. 3) Concern on the prospect of injury resulting from doing these weightlifting movements.
It can be evident you can find a multitude of biomechanical important things about doing these lifts with limited disadvantages. The biggest risk may be from the perceived danger of doing these lifts. Judging by the evidence presented by Brian Hammill from the British Weightlifting Association (BWLA), it can be stated with con?dence that the risk of harm can be as low or less than most sports providing there’s quali?ed supervision given by certi?ed Strength and Conditioning coach who are trained in coaching the weightlifting movements.
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