Interesting fact about Olympic lifting

Pound for pound, Olympic weightlifters have a greater level of speed-strength than any other class of athletes in all of sport. This fact was made very clear during a massive scientific expedition carried out on the athletes at the Mexico City Olympics in 1964. Sports scientists found that Olympic lifters were able to both vertical jump higher than any class of athletes (including the high jumpers), and run a 25 yard dash faster than any class of athletes (including the sprinters). Frederick C. Hatfield, Ph.D., F.I.S.S.A

Surprise, surprise!

[Chain]

I'm glad you posted that Ironman. But people like you and I and the others like abarlament who are into Olympic lifting have known that for quite some time.

[Kyle C]

Might be interesting to note that that study was conducted by a field of various olympic lifting coaches and scientist from the competing athletes in the games. Dr. Yessis was the one who published the studie first and took part in conducting the study.

I also have evidence that shows how FT fibers are the main components if the developement of Rate of Force, and that the higher RF='s higher jumps and short duration sprints. Plus i have biopsi studies conducted on 'trained' elite olympic weightlifters to support the theory. I can go on and on about the subject or i could give you a link to my article if you would like


Kc

[Bokuden]

~~~Mexico City Olympics in 1964. Sports scientists found that Olympic lifters were able to both vertical jump higher than any class of athletes (including the high jumpers), and run a 25 yard dash faster than any class of athletes (including the sprinters). ~~~


Not surpising in the least considering the time. Mid-60's everyone was thinking large muscles would make you clumsy and slow, so I couldn't imagine track and field people doing weight training much at all.

[Kyle C]

Originally Posted by Bokuden

~~~Mexico City Olympics in 1964. Sports scientists found that Olympic lifters were able to both vertical jump higher than any class of athletes (including the high jumpers), and run a 25 yard dash faster than any class of athletes (including the sprinters). ~~~


Not surpising in the least considering the time. Mid-60's everyone was thinking large muscles would make you clumsy and slow, so I couldn't imagine track and field people doing weight training much at all.

That holds no relevance in the discussion due to that 'fallacie' being only popular here in the West, not the East. Also should be noted that during this time the USSR, China, Bulgarian, British athletes ruled.


Kc

The link would be pretty cool, Kyle, thanks!

Question that vexes me......did the style of lifting contribute to the development of more fast twitch fibers, or is that development a genetically related issue because they were working on elite athletes? Anyone have links to an answer? Or thoughts on the subject?

[CJNY]

Originally Posted by IronMan

The link would be pretty cool, Kyle, thanks!

Question that vexes me......did the style of lifting contribute to the development of more fast twitch fibers, or is that development a genetically related issue because they were working on elite athletes? Anyone have links to an answer? Or thoughts on the subject?

This is a critical viewpoint when examining all science, Ironman, and one that I see even PhD's forget all the time. It boils down to the basic question of whether correlation (olympic lifters can jump) is the result of a cause/effect relationship (i.e., they can jump because they do olympic lifts) or merely an association with some unidentified factor (in this case, perhaps they are good at olympic lifting for the same reason they are good at jumping - better muscle physiology, etc.)

The way to tell would be to run comparative tests with randomized, untrained folks and see which training mehtods result in greatest improvement in vertical jump (or whatever). If there is such a study I, too, would like to read it.

[injusinjus]

does anyone have a link to or a good olympic lift program....3-4-or 5 day split including mostly all the good olympic lifts?

[Kyle C]

Originally Posted by injusinjus

does anyone have a link to or a good olympic lift program....3-4-or 5 day split including mostly all the good olympic lifts?

I have a 2 workout per day routine. I would train in both Am and Pm for 4 days a wk. Very effective, its hard to find a true and traditional OL program that can be managed in single workouts. AM i would work bar speed and motor specifics, and in PM id work max effort work. I was talking with Glen Pendlay and his athletes do near 200-400 max effort lifts per wk.

I was doing only about 20 lol

Kc

[Kyle C]

Originally Posted by IronMan

The link would be pretty cool, Kyle, thanks!

Question that vexes me......did the style of lifting contribute to the development of more fast twitch fibers, or is that development a genetically related issue because they were working on elite athletes? Anyone have links to an answer? Or thoughts on the subject?

What is Olympic Weightlifting?
It is sad that these great movements hardly exist anymore in the training programs of the West. Those who are performing Olympic weightlifting still have a clear-cut advantage over those who are not in improving performance. How often do you walk into a gym and you see somebody snatching, or clean and jerking a barbell? Not often, if ever.

Many people are dragged into fearing these lifts because of the words of a few. Over time these lifts have been credited as being the most dangerous form of exercise in existence. What people don't understand is this: exercises do not injure people, people injure people. It's the uneducated lifter using poor form and inadequate warm-up that results in injuries. The safety of Olympic lifting has been documented in several studies. One study has shown that Olympic lifting has the lowest number of injuries per 100hrs trained compared to both bodybuilding and powerlifting (1).

Olympic lifting is often trained very intensely and with a much greater frequency than a bodybuilding routine. The Bulgarian's train 4-6hrs a day in the gym spread over several sessions, working Olympic lifts for 6 days a week. (2). The Chinese also train in a similar manner. In the Eastern European countries Olympic lifting is virtually the national sport and being a weightlifter is a full time job, with bodybuilding a distant second. Far from being the safe option, traditional bodybuilding methods can be very hazardous to athletes in speed and strength sports such as American football or soccer. The reason for this is Olympic lifts use a much greater range of motion, which exposes the connective tissues, tendons, ligaments and muscle fibres to various angles and degrees of resistance. This helps the body become more functional, in that it can learn to cope with a variety of forces and activities without becoming injured. Whereas bodybuilding uses isolation movements that can often make the body imbalanced. In addition to this, bodybuilding exercises slows you down. Having a great deal of muscle mass does not necessarily make you slow, but if you gained that muscle mass through bodybuilding style training it is not functional.

If you look at the best Athletes in the Olympic Games 90% of them will have one thing in common, ranging from pole vaulters to shot putters, they all have some form of Olympic weightlifting in their program. Even if that ranges from the traditional power clean to the much more complex snatch. These athletes understand the importance and benefits of these movements and the carry over to their sport. Olympic lifts train the athlete to explode and use the maximum possible force. They develop a high Rate of Force (RF), a key point in sports training. Olympic lifters train fast twitch muscle fibres, the fibres that are employed to give you speed, explosiveness and power. It has been shown that the percentage of fast twitch fibres in the body directly contributes to the vertical jump, the more you have the higher you are able to jump (3), and this is the best indicator for athletic ability in American football athletes (4). The jumping and running abilities of Olympic lifters were documented in the Mexico City Olympic Games where they out ran and out jumped the jumpers and sprinters in the vertical jump and 25m sprint! This is an amazing feat considering these men do not train specifically for jumping or running. Here is a list of jumping feats by Olympic weightlifters, from Chad Ikei's 'Pulling to Jump Higher' article:

"Nicu Vlad of Romania, world record holder and two time Olympic medallist, came to the United States back in 1990, with now current US National and Olympic Team Coach Dragomir Cioroslan for a training camp. It was here at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, that this 100kg (220lbs) weightlifter recorded a 42" vertical jump. Not to mention he was in weightlifting shoes, which weigh a lot more than tennis shoes and no formal warm-up (Snatch 200kg, Clean and Jerk 232.5kg).

Wesley Barnett of Team USA, 3-time Olympian and silver medallist at the 1997 World Championships, has legs (especially hamstrings) and ass like a thoroughbred on him that most bodybuilders would like to have. He has recorded vertical jumps of over 39" at a height of 6'1" and 105kg (231lbs). I've even witnessed him dunking a basketball while jumping over my head, and I do mean literally jumping over my head which of course only stands a mere 5'2" but he straddle jumped directly over my head and dunked (Snatch 175 kg, Clean and Jerk 220 kg).

Mark Henry, 1996 Olympic Team Member, now known as 'Sexual Chocolate' on the WWF scene, had quite a vertical jump. At 6'3" tall he could dunk a basketball, not to mention that he could squat over 1,000lbs and dead lift over 900lbs. Now dunking a basketball at 6'3" doesn't sound that hard, but take in to account that he weighed at that time 175kg (385lbs). Now that's impressive for a big guy (Snatch 180 kg, Clean and Jerk 220 kg).

Shane Hamman, 2000 Olympic Team Member and current National Super Heavyweight Champion, another big man weighing in at 163kg (358lbs) but only at a height of 5'9" tall, can jump onto boxes over 42" high. Of course Shane was also known for his squatting ability of over 1,000lbs (Snatch 195 kg, Clean and Jerk 230 kg)."

There are also many other great benefits of Olympic lifts that help athletes. They develop great amounts of flexibility, a key factor in sports. They teach an athlete to coordinate their body. They teach discipline in studying and mastering the technical challenges of the lifts. They have also been used for helping athlete's recover from older injuries. In a study done by Stone, Wilson, Blessing and Rozenek (5), athletes performed an Olympic lift for eight straight weeks, and it was found that the athletes' resting heart rate decreased by 8%, systolic blood pressure decreased by 4%, lean body weight increased by 4% and body fat dropped by 6%.

It is a very sad fact that there are only around 1,500 competing Olympic lifters in America today. If I could I would change that, but there is very little one can do but to open up people's minds and help them realise the benefits. Perhaps one day we will walk into a gym and we will not see dumbbells or bench press machines, but we will see men on platforms moving huge amounts of weight from the ground to above their head like it was nothing. Hopefully I have shown you the benefits of the lifts and cleared out some of the negative factors that people use to knock down Olympic weightlifting.

References and Work Cited:


(1)Source: Brian P. Hamill, "Relative Safety of Weightlifting and Weight Training," _Journal of Strength Conditioning Research, Vol. 8, No. 1(1994): 53-57
(2)Zatsisorsky, VM "Science and Practice of Strength Training" Human Kinetics, 1995
(3)Bosco C & Komi (1979b) Mechanical characteristics and fiber composition of human leg extensor muscles Eur J Appl Physiol 41:275-284
(4)Sawyer D, Ostarello J, Suess E, Dempsey M. (2002). Relationship Between Football Playing Ability and Selected Performance Measures. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: 16(4), pp. 611 - 616.
(5)Stone, M.H., et al. Cardiovascular Responses to Short-Term Olympic Style Weight-Training in Young Men. Can. J. Appl. Sport Sci. 8(3): 134-9.

Kyle Coleman www.fortifiedIron.com

Thanks for the read. Excellent!

When I was younger (way back in the 70's) I really wanted to learn the Olympic lifts, but there was virtually no coaches or manuals around. Bodybuilding was about the only accessable weight training sport, which could help to explain why there are so few olympic lifters in this country.

In any case, I'm stoked that next summer the Empire State Games will be held in the area I live so I get to go watch them lift. They were held here a few years ago and it was a great show.

[Kyle C]

Originally Posted by IronMan

Thanks for the read. Excellent!

When I was younger (way back in the 70's) I really wanted to learn the Olympic lifts, but there was virtually no coaches or manuals around. Bodybuilding was about the only accessable weight training sport, which could help to explain why there are so few olympic lifters in this country.

In any case, I'm stoked that next summer the Empire State Games will be held in the area I live so I get to go watch them lift. They were held here a few years ago and it was a great show.

I self taught myself olympic lifting. I even reguarly olifted for awhile. I might go down and study with Glenn Pendlay in texas (I hope ) he has worked with Sane Hamman and he has coached hundreds of olympic athletes. Going to be a blast

I hope to get a 315 snatch and over 405 clean in my lifetime



Kc

Those would be very nice numbers. Got plans on competing some time in the future?

[Kyle C]

Originally Posted by IronMan

Those would be very nice numbers. Got plans on competing some time in the future?

Naww just powerlifting. Really its kinda up in the air too.. if i go study under glenn pendlay i might compete locally in the US, but i doubt anything on the level of worlds.

Im more suited to be a powerlifter neways


Kc

Local and regional contests are great ways to keep motivated. And from there....who knows what can happen?!! :thumbup: