Dan Newman is a qualified Olympic Weighlifting Coach and personal trainer based in Wimbledon SW19, South West London with the facilities required to teach the snatch and the clean and jerk.

The Snatch and the Clean and Jerk are known as the 'Olympic Lifts'.

 

Although increasing in popularity, the lifts deserve to be more widely understood and known among general fitness enthusiasts than they currently are. Many typical training imbalances are addressed in the conditioning required to perform the lifts and the results speak for themselves. When you look at the body of a professional athlete - it is highly likely that you are looking at someone who includes these lifts in their routine. The videos below show men and women at different levels performing the lifts. In many countries these are a standard practice in high school athletics.

 

 

 

 

Very few fitness clubs have either the correct facilities or qualified instructors to teach these fundamental sporting movements. 

 

These lifts are not complicated to learn but are addictive in the fine detail and great rewards of mastering them.

 

Getting better at the lifts requires a dedicated approach to the conditioning that enables each stage of the movement and the mastery of the skills at each stage of the movement.

 

These lifts have a uniquely satisfying pay-off for the time and effort spent mastering them.

  

 

The snatch and the clean and jerk are two lifts where the athlete lifts a heavy barbell from the floor to overhead.

 

The best  olympic weightlifting competitors in the world might do this with close to 200kg in less than a second. For the general gym enthusiast or amateur athlete, using these lifts at a moderate weight will deliver great results in core strength, joint mobility and joint stability, muscle balance, body fat reduction, strength, speed and total body conditioning. An amateur enthusiast or athlete that takes their training seriously will typically reach close to the own bodyweight with these techniques without strain - though this differs for the snatch and the clean and jerk.

 

Athletes that require explosive power such as fighters, sprinters, rugby players or basket ball players almost all use these lifts as part of their training routine.

 

The first part of the lift is all about control and indeed the set up and start position has an enormous influence on the success of the lift and what might be going right or wrong during it. Later parts of the lift include an explosive accelleration of the bar upwards, immediately followed by a phase in which the athlete pulls themselves rapidly under the bar before it falls, in order to catch or 'receive' the bar before standing up with the bar overhead. Timing and skill are everything, as are preparation, strength, condition and mobility.

 

It's an exciting and rewarding practice that offers great rewards to the practitioner in terms of sporting performance - and how you perform directly results in how you look. For this reason the lifts should be of equal interest to men and women with a 'I want to look good' goal as much as athletes with a 'I want to be the best I can be' goal.

 

Whether you are new to fitness, an experienced athlete or serious enthusiast looking for something new and exciting - the olympic lifts are something worth knowing about. Olympic lifting can also be highly effective for losing weight, toning up and functional goals - arguably these lifts are one of the most purely functional activities in the gym and have great postural, joint mobility and joint stability benefits. 

 

The lifts are just as safe, often more safe ( ask me why - it's interesting and important), than any other gym activity, though if they ought to come with any warning, then it is that the intellectual and physical nature of the challenge involved in perfecting your lift can be very very addictive.

 

Contact me if you'd like to know more.