8 Unusual Olympic LIfting Cues That Get Results

Olympic lifting is one of the most higher-stage, skill-centered, athletic functions one can complete. No other type of lifting calls for the very same stage of coordination, focus, and detail than a hefty clean up and jerk or snatch.

 

Olympic lifts need coaching cues to develop right motor patterns

 

 

I have been amazingly lucky in my coaching profession to have been brought up by some accurate masters in the recreation. About two months into my coaching profession, I attended the NSCA’s Activity Precise Education Meeting in Anaheim in January of 2000 and listened to Mike Burgener teach the lifts. I was mesmerized by him and fell in like with just about every phrase coming out of his mouth (and his one of a kind skill of killing all of us in two short several hours with a PVC pipe). I promptly sought him out, and he opened his property and his infinite information to me. I spent the following three decades spending visits and assisting him at USAW certs.

 

Not only does Mike have many years of knowledge to share, but the cueing he makes use of can by some means get a room total of novices on the very same webpage. Which is strong. The adhering to are cues you could or could not have heard when educating Olympic lifting. Several of them I have established out of necessity. They are my go-to cues for pretty much everybody, and I have had tremendous success with each of them.

 

Cue #one: Ice Drinking water in Your Veins

Olympic lifting is as a lot psychological as it is physical. Anyone who has formulated proficiency at the Olympic lifts will concur that max makes an attempt can be amazingly nerve-racking and invoke major amounts of fear. Consequently, many lifters want to get into a lather prior to heading immediately after a hefty endeavor. This ordinarily entails screaming and yelling, jumping about, and attempting to use aggressiveness to gas the makes an attempt.

 

I have got some lousy news for individuals of you who do this. Realistically, you want to do the precise reverse. Look at higher-stage weightlifters teach. They all have an emotionless tactic to the bar. They have mastered a thousand-mile stare. Over-excitability disrupts the movement of the motor plan. I convey to my athletes they will need to have no psychological relationship to the endeavor. Once you have correctly concluded the carry, go berserk, but not a second quicker.

 

Ice drinking water in your veins.

 

Cue #2: Commit to Capturing the Elbows

This cue is pure gold if you are working with a lifter who isn’t finding their elbows about the total length when they capture. I see it fifty times a working day. Lifters will need to make a formal final decision that no matter what, they are heading to shoot the elbows the total length as quickly as they can.

 

In some makes an attempt, you will see lifters do the precise reverse. They’ve pretty much resigned on their own to the simple fact that they can’t get the weight, and the arms by no means interact. If this is the scenario with one of your athletes, you have to influence them that the elbows are non-negotiable. The elbows will need to be computerized and they will need to complete with speed. So pull your athletes apart and influence them that even just before they touch the bar, they will need to make a offer with on their own that hell or higher drinking water, they are heading to shoot the elbows. It functions.

 

Commit to taking pictures the elbows.

 

Cue #3: Knuckles Down

The feeling of dropping grip leads to a guaranteed unsuccessful endeavor, particularly for youthful lifters. Challenges with grip are some of the very first errors coaches face with an individual who’s commencing out. This is with or with no employing a hook.

 

 

In my encounter with the hundreds of lifters I have labored with, pretty much everybody will in a natural way have their wrists in slight extension when they grip the bar. If you appear at the spot of the bar in the hand when the wrists are in any stage of extension, the tension of the bar moves to the fingertips. Feel of doing a fingertip pull up. It’s ten times more challenging than a total grip pull up. If you do not have your knuckles down, you use the fingertip pull up grip to pull hundreds of kilos off of the floor. Knuckles down does three crucial issues:

 

• For the reason that you have to now place your wrist into slight flexion, the bar rests in the meat of the arms instead of the fingertips. So out the gate, you are in a much better position by advantage of a surer grip.
• Utilizing a hook grip (like most skilled lifters do) moves a massive portion of the tension off the thumb.
• The intention of driving your knuckles straight down keeps the elbows straight for extended.

 

Knuckles down.

 

Left: Right, knuckles down Correct: Incorrect. knuckles out.

 

Cue #four: Travel the Ground Away on the To start with Pull

The very first pull can be tricky for youthful lifters for the reason that they want to very clear their knees for the bar path. If we do not teach that piece properly, amateur lifters will possibly grind the shins with the bar or push the knees again with no lifting the hips up. Even though we go by way of a whole section serving to these athletes conceptualize the will need to very clear the knees, in many scenarios it nonetheless receives muddy.

 

Imagining about driving the ground absent even though standing up with the bar organizes not only muscular coordination that fits the process, but also clears the knees from the bar. Lifters close up in a fantastic position and are capable to transition proficiently.

 

Travel the floor absent on the very first pull.

 

Cue #5: Shrug You Down

It took me quite a few decades to last but not least teach the 3rd pull. I observed that the moment you convey to your athletes to pull on their own below the bar, they inevitably start out to pull with their arms through the second pull. And as Mentor B states, “When the elbow bends, the ability ends.”

 

Right up until this cue arrived alongside, I had appear to the conclusion that if I was only heading to be working with rookies to intermediates, I was not heading to teach the 3rd pull. In the old times, we would teach the children that the shrug was the previous-ditch endeavor to get vertical carry on the bar. Now, even though we realize that the shrug allows deliver the bar up a smidge better and buys us a fraction of a second more time to get down, we teach the shrug is the position in which the drop to capture begins. If you have a lifter who is eager and capable to snap their shrug – as they should really be – you possible will have an athlete who is eager and capable to drop into their capture quickly. Earn-get.

 

Shrug yourself down.

 

Cue #six: Throw Your Bridge to the Corner

I examined Baguazhang for a lot of decades and was an offensive lineman for thirteen decades. The “bridge” (or what we have appear to refer to as the again bridge bar) is this imaginary bar that handles the rear of the athlete from shoulder to shoulder. When you are attempting to obtain a leverage edge in a restricted place versus an opponent, you have a appreciable edge if you can manipulate their bridge by pushing and pulling to obtain control of their higher physique. Wrestlers, linemen, and BJJ fighters will know what I’m chatting about, even if our terminology differs.

 

Know the bridge, toss the bridge to obtain a much better hip extension

 

To get a lifter to complete their hips, we demonstrate the bridge and then instruct them to toss their bridge to the corner of the room in which the wall and roof satisfy. As an FYI, the platforms in my facility are up versus the wall, shut to the corner of the room. You could use a light-weight fixture or a thing like that if your set up is dramatically different. If this bridge notion does not resonate with you, the foundation of the neck is a thing we all can realize. Either way, for a profitable capture, we want the hips to complete and obtain total extension into slight hyperextension to supply the bar.

 

Throw your bridge to the corner.

 

Cue #seven: Catch Like a Mountain

How many times have you caught a clean up, only to be buckled by the weight when you and the bar satisfy? It transpires a lot, particularly with amateur lifters. They expend all their strength pulling, so they soften at the base of the capture and fold up.

 

I convey to lifters who have this issue that they will need to be a mountain at the base. Whole tension throughout the physique will let their composition to tolerate the load. The visible of a mountain gives them the come to feel of a thing significant and reliable. Most novices assume they are having a approach hiccup when in truth, they just will need to assume potent. I get approximately excellent effects from this cue.

 

Catch like a mountain.

 

Cue #8: Really feel Your Obliques in the Squat

This one struck me quite a few months back when I was attempting to crank out higher levels of tension in my vertical urgent. I have had quite a few again injuries in the previous, so a lot of the tinkering, I do with tactics will come from the will need to make composition and balance for my again. The more you compress the very same-facet oblique to make a column of balance, the much better the overall motion feels.

 

On the ascent from the base of the squat, most of us have to chase our center and ability by way of a incredibly deep ass-to-grass squat. Then you get to this position, come to feel for your obliques. Attract your interest to your obliques and lock them down, creating a pillar of composition for your midline. When you acquire your interest to your obliques, there is a stage of an greater feeling of balance as you stand up.

 

Really feel your obliques in the squat.

 

We all have some quirky cues to get what we will need out of our athletes. These are just a handful of of mine.

 

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