Olympic Weightlifting is a mentally and physically tough sport. It takes time and patience, very similar to golf, for most to succeed. Those that say they want to succeed, tend to do the little things, such as rest, proper nutrition, PATIENCE, nutrient timing, proper volume and intensity, and listening to their Coach. Point being, it’s a FRUSTRATING sport but I love it!
Now a Days:
The issue I’ve seen over the past couple years is within the ADD/Youtube generation-these are the kids that watch youtube all day and are suddenly catapulted into expert Coach level…
Professional?
Now I love youtube, but I don’t like it when I see so called “Coaches” telling people do X movement or focus on XYZ and boom you’re fixed, “you’ll have a 200k Clean and Jerk in 3 days.”
This reinforces the athlete to lack heart, focus, and patience. I strongly believe many have the will but without the focus and patience they get flustered and quit. The other issue is that a majority of the “Youtubers” just like to focus on strength movements and think that this will fix their clean or snatch…
Speaking of strength check out Shoretz Clean pulling an easy 160k:
….some like the powers (power snatch, power clean), and others focus on technique. But I find most are focused on strength, while a good base strength is always great and beneficial, you need the technique, speed, mobility/flexibility, and bar control/awareness in the FULL lifts to be successful. Each of these skills take time to learn and master, a 3-4 week quick fix program will NOT help you obtain all these skills, it takes time, dedication, and patience.
What to Really Expect:
If you’ve been power snatching/cleaning and heavy squatting but your squat snatch/clean technique sucks. You can very well expect your power strength to go down when you start to focus on technique. BUT with that said, your potential ceiling has increased because fixing the squat snatch/clean technique will inevitable allow you to hit heavier weights. On the flip side, if you focused on just your powers and general strength, then once a in a blue moon the full lifts, short term your powers and maybe lifts will increase quickly but it will catch up and you will hit a ceiling.
If your end goal is to excel in the sport of Weightlifting, then you have to learn the correct technique in the FULL lifts, not the power. If you learn correct bar positioning and build more awareness of the positionings, your potential will dramatically increase. In essence, “Take one step back, to move two steps forward”
Take Mark Verstagen’s advice :
“Do the simple things done savagely well”