Oly Lifting benefits

[knackers]

Im looking at sneaking a bit of this in with the help of some coaching.

Some questions for the o/l devotees and trainees alike.

How have you found the snatch and c/j have helped you?

Vertical leap, explosiveness, squat, sprinting?

Has your bench suffered? Or have you found the o/h stuff has been enough to improve your bench?

Anyone had any luck integrating o/l training with p/l training, best of both worlds sort of thing?

[baldy]

I feel pretty well qualified to answer this having changed from a PL style training to just Olympic lifting for the last 4 months.

How have you found the snatch and c/j have helped you?

yes my C&J and snatch have both gone up Hard to quantify what helped actually means.

Vertical leap, explosiveness, squat, sprinting?

vertical leap has gone up probably about 7cm, front squat is up about 10kg. No idea about the sprinting.
My back squat I would guess has also gone up, my deadlift has also gone up without even training it, which I think is amazing.

Has your bench suffered? Or have you found the o/h stuff has been enough to improve your bench?

Bench is exactly as I left it. I think it depends on how strong your bench is compared to your OH press, but there isn't a clear ratio between bench and OH strict press. On of the strong guys in our gym who doesnt bench has maybe 90kg strict press and benched 130 fairly convincingly. My strict is about 75 and bench 100kg, same ball park I guess.

Biggest improvement for me is my flexibility, can touch my toes now and have now have a good deep squat. Aesthetically it has also make me look bigger, I am actually 5kg smaller than I was and everyone thinks I am the biggest I have ever been. Mainly because I have lost some size in my legs and waist and got wider in the shoulder/lats.

Anyone had any luck integrating o/l training with p/l training, best of both worlds sort of thing?

No idea about this, the main issue I think is the fast explosiveness vs tight and slow. For best results you would probably end up powerlifting like an olympic lifter if that makes sense?

Don't over think it too much just do what you can to get stronger, it all carries over as long as you are strong!

If you have access to a coach use it. You will get stronger with a decent coach no matter what style of lifting it is.

[Mellos]

How have you found the snatch and c/j have helped you?

The Olympic Lifts themselves have not helped me in my powerlifting performance. My Loglift got a little better though.

Vertical leap, explosiveness, squat, sprinting?

My squat improved due to a lot of squatting in the OL facility

Has your bench suffered? Or have you found the o/h stuff has been enough to improve your bench?

I added some benchpress occasionally (once a week or so) and it didn´t improve for an entire year. Now I´ll focuss on the bench.

Anyone had any luck integrating o/l training with p/l training, best of both worlds sort of thing?

Still trying it out. Atm I combine Brian Schwabs 12 weeks to a bigger bench with Oly training and deficit deads+speed deads
I´m intending to minimize the jerk training to technique and speed only.

I am also trying to get an answer out of Louie Simmons about how he would combine those (or at least how he would train the Oly lifters). Wish me luck on that!

[Mellos]

I think it is safe to say is that what makes you stronger in powerlifting that you do in Oly training is the heavy training movements that you do in OL. On the other hand PL training like westside makes you incredibly fast, so all you need to be a good Oly guy as a powerlifter is technique, technique, quads and a little more shoulder (I guess).

[JP]

from the strong folk i train with i have drawn one conclusion:

good weight lifters make good powerlifters

but it doesnt work other way around

so if i was trying to debate training in between them i would choose weightlifting any day as my main focus with some powerlifts thrown in.

I would squat like a weightlifter too.

[ninearms]

Im looking at sneaking a bit of this in with the help of some coaching.

Some questions for the o/l devotees and trainees alike.

1) How have you found the snatch and c/j have helped you?

2) Vertical leap, explosiveness, squat, sprinting?

3) Has your bench suffered? Or have you found the o/h stuff has been enough to improve your bench?

4) Anyone had any luck integrating o/l training with p/l training, best of both worlds sort of thing?

1) As baldy said, it's definitely helped my snatch and C&J. I don't do any other sports, so...

2) - Front squat has got better by front squatting at the start and end of every session. Squatting usually improves through squatting.
- Explosiveness - I don't think weightlifting makes you more explosive so much as it is an effective means to teach you to utilise what explosiveness you already have. Some people just don't have the right fast twitch makeup and are just slow.
- I don't sprint, but the Olympic lifts are widely used by sprinters. We have a 200m sprinter at the club who comes in just to do power cleans and back squats. We also have a thrower who comes in to power snatch, squat and bench.
- Vertical leap is just a test. Who cares about a test?

3) Haven't benched in years. Benching is daft.

4) As Joni says, the transition from weightlifting to powerlifting is easier. Powerlifting is (relatively speaking) an old man's sport. In weightlifting you're over the hill before 30 and a Master at 35. The only lifter I know who has successfully competed in the two sports at the same time is Chen Wei-Ling, who holds several IPF world records and is an Olympic bronze medallist. (Related to the bench carryover thing - her best equipped bench is only marginally heavier than her best snatch.)

There is no best of both worlds, only being average at two things rather than good at one. Get strong in a way that benefits the sport you do, then practice that sport. Excellence is achieved through specialisation. Generalisation makes you average to poor at everything (see Crossfit). If you just want to have a laugh in the gym and don't care about competing then just do PL after OL, or alternate between sessions. Just cut the deads down.

In short, become a weightlifter. If you fancy doing the occasional PL comp for a laugh just bench once a week after you've done the more important stuff and deadlift once a month or so. Squatting is covered.

Whatever you do don't listen to anything Louis Simmons says about training weightlifters.

[Mellos]

About the "do weightlifting when you´re young and powerlifting as an old man" thing:
My coach told me about quite some guys that he trained who started in weightlifting and in their thirties got into powerlifting and competed on an international level.
Seems to be quite common.
Either that or you get fat and coach someone

Edit:
I´m not sure though that you can only do one thing. People who do it both at the same time are rare but there are some. Mark Henry for example had the power to do it, all he lacked was technique. I know he was one hell of a winner in the gene lottery but still. Also Koklyaev snatched 2% below the world record and clean and jerked 5% below it while at the same time his deadlift pb is 415 and he is being one of the top strongmen in the world. On the other hand you could argue that he would absolutely dominate, if he concentrated on one thing.
But there is also one guy (who I believe is natural, as far as one can know that about another) who competed in the Universiade last year and whom I´ve met at the IRP European Championships. OL 155/194 PL 152.5/240/285

Those allrounders seem not to do much good in the bench press but if you think about it that goes for many people who are strong in the squat AND deadlift.

[vegan hal]

I'm probably one of the "old men" around here. started all this lifting nonsense as I turned 40. (42 now). OLY stuff just seems to complicated for me. but i monkey with it from time to time.

i'll stick w/ the old man's sport. never to compete. just to fell good.

[knackers]

wow look at all the replies, thanks alot everyone.

So it seems squat and deadlift arent really affected on average, if not benefited at the least.

I was told an interesting story about a group of old time olympic lifters, back in the days of the clean and strict o/h press, who apparantly out benched top powerlifters without even training the bench. Mind you this story came from someone who creams over the m.press. lol

Spoke to the oly guy today and Im going to start training it on monday, havent told him yet but Im going to secretly train the way I have in the mornings and then do an oly session in the arvo. If it gets too much then Ill just drop some of the assistance stuff.