COMMUNITY: Shortcomings of Olympics lift

Editor's note: Adam Rees is Founder of GRIT Gym, a gym based on results, creating a culture and lifestyle of performance, strength, health and freedom. Rees attended Wartburg College, worked under nationally recognized strength coach Matt McGettigan and is a glutton to information and improvement in all forms.

By Adam Rees, community contributor

When the Berlin Wall fell, tons and tons of strength and conditioning information came flowing over to the United States and we realized we were 250-300 years behind what the Russians and Germans had been doing for decades.

This flood of information opened a new world of strength and conditioning. But numerous messages were lost in translation and definitely got misinterpreted by the glancing view of many coaches. This is too bad because further reading led to very significant perspectives on the actual application of the documented material.

For instance, the Russians took extremely specific body measurements and siphoned athletes into sports that would best suit their abilities. The U.S. uses a shot-in-the-dark system, which is good because in other countries athletes get little to no choice in their sport.

That means very few athletes were selected to compete in Olympic lifting. Spinal and hip research shows it's a rare body type who is optimally set up to safely perform Olympic lifts, let alone be helpful to progress athleticism.

This is significant because almost all strength and conditioning programs in the U.S. make Olympic lifts staples of emphasis. When in all actuality, it's downright dangerous to the population of athletes they are working with and sadly a waste of effort to the athletes who desire success in their sport.

l Postural concerns. There is a bottom up and top down perspective when training an athlete, especially in terms of injury prevention or post injury. Basically, if the neck is a mess, everything below also is off. The same with the ankle going up, and also with the hip radiating out to the ends of the limbs.

If the upper back is off, then the neck is likely off, the shoulder won't be able to get in position to rack/catch the weight of the Olympic lift (clean/jerk/snatch) and will sacrifice a healthy position for position that is going to cause injury. This is not 'potentially” dangerous, it is causing injury, micro traumas with every single rep. These accumulate and are literally a time bomb.

l Overhead sports include, but are not limited, to baseball and softball, tennis, volleyball, cricket and all other throwing sports.

These sports are extremely hard on the shoulder. The nice thing about Olympic lifts is they carry little negative affect on the shoulder as long as the athlete has optimal thoracic (upper back), cervical (neck), gleno-humeral (shoulder) and scapular (shoulder blade) positioning and control.

The concern comes to the elbow where there is significant valgus stress with the catch of the jerk and the snatch, putting a sudden and large amount of strain on the ulnar collateral ligament on inside of elbow. That is an extremely common issue among overhead the throwing population. Doing Olympic lifts with this population is simply adding insult to injury.

l Competitive Olympic lifters will admit it's taken them years to get 'good” at these lifts. Strength coaches who emphasize Olympic lifts will go back and forth on the length of learning curve. I would guess that within the next 10 years, Olympic lifts will be utilized far less than they are today.

By the time an athlete has gotten a handle on the Olympic lifts, she or he already is weeks behind other athletes who took on other power movements that are quick to learn, and months behind athletes who took on our 'System of Spectrums.”

l Hardly anyone has any need to train 'power.” There is no speed without power, and no power without strength. Training in reverse order, as we do in the United States, is of significant detriment to the athlete.

The best coaches in the world aren't sought out for what they do like everyone else, otherwise any coach would do. They are sought out because they do something that is vastly superior.

l Email questions to adam@gritgym.com