Coaching Roundtable: Olympic Weightlifting for Throwers (Part 1)

After actually throwing, most coaches regard Olympic weightlifting as the most important training exercises for throwers. The clean, jerk, and snatch provide a great method for developing explosive strength that can often transfer into better throwing results. With many variations of the lifts, there are many exercises to choose from ways to implement them into training.

Over the next week we will ask many top coaches about the use of Olympic weightlifting for throwers. In the first two parts we will ask for the input from weightlifting coaches on technique, variations of the lifts, and other comments. Then in the final part we will also ask a few top throws coaches about how they implement Olympic weightlifting into training.

The Lifting Coaches

Greg Everett is the owner of Catalyst Athletics, head coach of the national-medalist Catalyst Athletics weightlifting team, publisher of The Performance Menu, author of the books Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes & Coaches and Olympic Weightlifting for Sports, and director/writer/producer/editor/everything of the documentary American Weightlifting. I subscribe to the Performance Menu and can highly recommend both that and the Catalyst Athletics blogs as great resources for Olympic weightlifting.

Matt Foreman is the football and throws coach at Mountain View High School in Phoenix. A competitive weightlifter for twenty years, Foreman is a four-time National Championship bronze medalist, two-time American Open silver medalist, three-time American Open bronze medalist, two-time National Collegiate Champion, 2004 US Olympic Trials competitor, 2000 World University Championship Team USA competitor, and Arizona and Washington state record-holder. He currently writes regularly for The Performance Menu and the Catalyst Athletics webpage. I read and highly recommended his book Bones of Iron two years ago.

Wil Fleming is the co-owner of Force Fitness and Performance and Athletic Revolution Bloomington, in Bloomington, Indiana. He recently released the DVD Complete Olympic Lifting. Prior to working as a coach Wil was an all-American hammer thrower, school record holder, and Olympic Trials participant at Indiana University as a hammer thrower. As a junior athlete, he was an Olympic weightlifting resident athlete at the Olympic Training Center after winning a junior national championship. He also blogs about weightlifting at WilFleming.com.

Part 1: Selecting the Right Lifts

Martin: Generally, what Olympic lifts or variations do you find throwers respond to the best?

Greg Everett: My expertise is not in training throwers, but I believe the power clean and power jerk are generally going to be the most effective (this is assuming the athlete is also squatting and doing other basic strength work), both because of the actual training effect of the exercises, but also because of the relative ease of learning and performing them—they don’t require the high level of mobility that the competition lifts do, and they’re a bit easier technically, which means the athlete can learn and begin actually training with them more quickly.

Matt Foreman: I think the basic snatch, clean, clean and jerk, rack jerk, and push jerk are all important tools that a thrower needs to have some mastery of. Does that mean a thrower HAS to be good at these lifts to throw successfully? No, not necessarily. But if you look at the overall population of high-level throwers around the world, I think you find a lot of common ground in the use of these lifts.

Wil Fleming: Much of the training with the Olympic lifts can be building to a maximum in the hang versions. As the year approaches championship meets, I think it is important to instead focus on sub-maximal weights with a great bar speed. Using a tendo unit is a good option, but just timing sets of 2-3 reps and figuring out how fast the athlete is able to complete these sets is also a good option.

The jerk is often overlooked but the dynamic leg strength, and overhead strength that is displayed and developed in the jerk is very important for the shot putter. Additionally just receiving the bar overhead in a split position is very helpful in preparing the athlete for dynamic single leg support.

Martin: Many throwers rely on hang cleans and power cleans rather than the full clean. What variations do you see as best for throwers? Does the full clean always need to be used, or can we gain as much for our purposes with such variations?

Greg Everett: The power variations will provide the training effect a thrower needs. These athletes should be developing basic strength with squats, pulling and pressing exercises. The Olympic lifts for them should be all about converting that strength into explosiveness, developing precision, improving elasticity, and conditioning the structures of the body to handle impact.

Matt Foreman: I think doing cleans from the floor are very beneficial, especially with beginners and intermediate throwers, because they need to learn how to move “from the ground up” in both their throws and lifts. In the throws, the teaching process has to involve learning how to generate power with the lower body, driving the feet, legs, hips, etc. into the throw. If this doesn’t happen right from the beginning, the athlete will just naturally learn how to throw with their upper body. This lays the groundwork for bad habits that can stick around for a long time. I think learning how to clean from the floor has some good transfer in this department. However, as throwers develop and eventually reach an advanced level, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with narrowing their lifting movements (doing everything from the hang) if it benefits their throwing in some way.

Wil Fleming: For most athletes the hang power clean, or hang power snatch are good variations to use. They recruit the most muscle fibers, and get the primary action of hip extension involved. The use of variations from the floor, or in a deep catch position are not useless, but just should be used as additional variation to the program.

The clean is an interesting case though, because I have largely gone away from using straps in this movement. This can make doing heavy, hang variations difficult. For throwers though, not using straps on the hang power clean is a good idea. The straps can restrict the wrist movement through the clean, and put undo stress on the wrist, a very bad idea for any shot putter. But straps are important for hang power snatch variations.

One more thing on variations, the lifts from the floor are important for leg strength, even if just lifting the weight prior to the first hang variation.

Martin: In addition to the traditional variations, many throwers have created their own variations in order to make the lifts simulate the throw more. For example coach Jean-Pierre Egger had Werner Günthör do the clean and jerk without a pause in between to better stimulate the glide technique in the shot put (above, watch it here). Hungarian hammer throwers are famours for doing cleans in rhythm similar to the throw (watch it here). What are your thoughts on such variants?

Greg Everett: I think that if there is a clear and specific goal and the variation achieves that, it’s a good exercise. However, many times people create novel exercises for the sake of novelty rather than effectiveness. There are many approaches to training any athlete, and many of them turn out to be equally effective. The bottom line is that whatever works best for a particular athlete is the best way to train, and knowing this requires intelligent experimentation.

Matt Foreman: I’m a big believer in the “many ways to skin a cat” idea. I don’t think there are many universal rules that apply to everybody equally in throwing and lifting. Werner Gunthor found a lifting combination that worked for him. Maybe his lifting method would work for other throwers, maybe not. I also think you have to consider the idea that Werner Gunthor was talented enough that he could have used almost any lifting method and he still would have thrown 22 meters. An athlete’s talent level overrides everything. If you have an athlete like Gunthor, who simply has more talent and ability than almost anybody in the world, you could probably train him in a variety of different ways…and he would still be more successful than anybody. Likewise, let’s say you work with an athlete who has very little ability and talent. As a coach, you could use a perfectly designed lifting program with every advanced concept known to man…and that athlete still isn’t going to beat Werner Gunthor. In regards to the question about Olympic lifting variations that mimic the throws, I honestly think some throwers get a little carried away with this idea. If an athlete has a lifting program that improves strength, power, coordination, etc., then the ultimate deciding factor will be the athlete’s mastery of the actual throws. A thrower from Hungary might use a creative power clean variation that mimics the hammer throw, and he throws 75 meters…while a thrower from Russia does nothing but basic power cleans, and he throws 80 meters if he has better hammer technique and ability. The athlete with the most talent for the throws will usually win. But as always, we have to acknowledge the old concept of “If Hungarian hammer throwers use a weightlifting movement, and they also throw farther than anybody, who are we to say they’re wrong?” It’s just a very complex discussion, period.

Wil Fleming: In the scope of specificity, these types of variations are incredible to continue to develop the athlete. I follow bondarchuk’s work closely, and I believe that these exercises bridge the gap between the general (normal Olympic lifts and strength training) and the extremely specific (heavy implements). The cool thing is that these variations are only limited by your imagination. Consider speed, tempo, and timing and become a mad scientist in the weightroom.

Continue reading…

Part 2: Lifting Technique

Part 3: Input from Throwing Coaches