Introduction
Olympic Weightlifting is a sport in which athletes compete for the total weight of two lifts: the snatch and the clean & jerk. The courses methods utilized in Weightlifting may also be used by Strength & Conditioning coaches as a technique of resistance training to get a number of other sports. One of the primary causes of exploiting various resistance training modalities such is made for power development. There are several variations on the theme of power training. A few 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 popular method used to increase athletic power is Olympic Weightlifting (ie power cleans, push presses, snatches, jump jerks in addition to their variations) conducted in the weight room (Garhammer, 1993). It’s traditionally been seen as efficient of producing general explosive ability (Takano 1992; Stone 1993; Garhammer & Gregor 1992). However, there are other important considerations which need to be addressed when implementing Olympic lifting exercises to the Strength & Conditioning program of the athlete, many of these include movement competency, training age, sport and training time with athlete. The purpose of this post by Elite Performance Institute (EPI) would be to give you a biomechanical and physiological discussion that explains why weightlifting training is useful to improve athletic performance and just how they ought to be performed in the training course. For more information, kindly visit www.epicertification.com
Power Defined
Power has been understood to be the suitable mixture of speed and strength to create movement (Chu 1996). Specifically, power represents light beer the athlete to create high numbers of work through a given distance. The harder power an athlete possesses the greater the degree of work performed (Wilson 1992). Power is a mixture 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 consist of an increase in muscular tissues through hypertrophy, connective tissue 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) boost in intra-muscular coordination; and (5) boost in inter-muscular coordination.
Speed to move consists 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 technique series elastic component.
Olympic Weightling exercises facilitate development of the center (Strength-Speed and Speed-Strength) with the force-velocity (FV) curve (see above). The FV curve acts a guide to Strength & Conditioning Certification UK according to the form of strength developed from each exercise, session or phase of training in the program. Therefore, the force & Conditioning coach can effectively plan which kind of power they would like to develop and which training modality (powerlifting, Olympic liftining, plyometrics, etc) is the most suitable utilised to elicit these adaptations.
Conclusion
Concern still exists as to the ef?cacy of including Olympic weightlifting exercises in the resistance training programs of athletes in sports apart from weightlifting. These concerns generally get into 3 broad categories: 1) Perceived time necessary to learn the movements as a result of complexity with the lifts. 2) Too little comprehension of the possibility bene?ts that can be produced by performing Olympic lifting exercises correctly. 3) Concern on the possibility of injury as a result of practicing these weightlifting movements.
It’s evident there’s a multitude of biomechanical benefits of practicing these lifts with limited disadvantages. The biggest risk has been with the perceived danger of practicing these lifts. On such basis as the data presented by Brian Hammill with the British Weightlifting Association (BWLA), it may be stated with con?dence the injury risk can be as low or under most sports providing there exists quali?ed supervision supplied by certi?ed Strength and Conditioning coach who’ve been trained in coaching the weightlifting movements.
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