The Holistic Teaching of Olympic Weightlifting for High School Sports

Q&A for Session #5

Is there a different approach to training in a HS athlete vs olympic athlete? Anything with your approach that is different?

• Football lifting 2-3 days per week olympic would be 6 days a week.
  

How do you integrate core exercises into your cycles? Any favorites?

• Good core exercises - front squat, overhead squat, back squat, knee ups, hyperextensions, planking, Hatch 8 every week - core stays steady
• With incorporating Hatch 8 every week, the core is regularly engaged and increasing in strength

What do you think about those who say triple flexion might be transferable to sports?

• It is transferrable, evidence is all out there. There's no arguing that it is not.
• Need to keep in mind post-activation potentiation (PAP), where you incorporate explosive, plyometric exercises immediately after the olympic lift (i.e. jumping after the snatch). This helps translate into teaching the body to have this explosiveness with the Olympic lift.
  
• Teaching CNS - doing a clean transfers over to athletic ability

What Olympic lifts, if any, do you suggest for high school football athletes? I loved the tip to perform front squats to help someone with their cleans.

• We use all of them. Emphasize the importance of confidence of coaches in weight lifting.
• Snatch, clean and jerk - use both for high school football athletes. Most coaches don't teach those exercises because they are not confident in those exercises — they don't know how to teach it. And you shouldn't teach if you are not confident in it, but we need to educate the coaches!

For these Olympic lifts, are there certain activation/warmup exercises you recommend? And do they vary significantly between each sport?

• General barbell warmup every time before lifts with little variation. (Check out Bruce Barbell Warmup and look up Jovorik Complex - great resource to help find a good amount of info with regard to these complexes. But a structured barbell complex of 21-28 reps related to the movements you're about to do.

How can I get my staff to understand the importance of cueing and Olympic lifts for athletic performance? I’m coaching online for a few schools in California. How do I help my head trainer handle these conversations with new trainers.

• You need to be in the eye of the storm, many people aren't cueing enough because they aren't educated on it enough.
• Encourage them to increase their confidence through education, whether it is getting a USAW certification, shadowing, or just reaching out to other coaches to become more confident in the field.

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