Photo By Bev Childress

Is Olympic-style weightlifting just a different form of plyometrics? This question has been bouncing around the strength and conditioning community for quite a long time. The answer, however, is right in front of our eyes. Verkhoshansky and Siff left a good amount of breadcrumbs along the way. Let’s follow the path and connect the dots.

Is plyometric training just a question of jumping, hopping, skipping and leaping? Well, if we obey the definition of plyometric we surely can’t disagree. The stretch-shortening cycle seems to be the one and only criteria that defines what is plyometric and what is not. It’s encrypted in the name itself “plyo”, from the Greek “to increase”, and “metric” meaning “length”: what if we replace the prefix “plyo” with “power”? How would that sound?

In their book, Supertaining, Siff and Verkhishansky redefined the concept of jump training by describing the “mechanics” of plyometrics in terms of speed, kinetic energy, and ground reaction force ultimately deriving a model that applies to more than just depth jumps and drop jumps. They called it “power-metric” and they defined it in terms of mathematical, almost algebraic equations which are, for the majority of us, quite difficult to digest.

I guess we should have expected such a scientific approach, in the end, we are talking about a mechanic engineer (Siff) and one the most brilliant sports scientist of the last century (Verkhishansky). It is possible, however, to identify and simplify a few of these complicated equations and derive some of the basic principles in power-metric; principles that underline the many similarities between plyometric training and the pull in Olympic weightlifting. Let’s start from where we left off: what are the three distinguishing characteristics of plyometric training?

1. The Pre-Stretch

What about a snatch? Or a clean and jerk? The active, concentric muscle action of the quadriceps muscles during the first pull results in the eccentric contraction (pre-stretch) of the hamstrings and glutes. It is a basic reflex, known as reciprocal inhibition. As the knees are extending, knee flexors are stretched until the second knee bend begins.

It’s “stretching” but it’s under load.. shall we call it “eccentric load”? Nothing dissimilar than what we experience landing from a depth jump.

2. Eccentric Overload

During the first pull, the active contraction (eccentric contraction) of hamstrings and glutes prevent the trunk from changing its angle compared to ground. Namely, as hamstrings and glutes are “stretching” (see point 1) they are also generating force to preserve the angle at the hip joint throughout the entire first pull.

What about elastic energy? We learned eccentric pre-stretch=elastic energy. Should we change our mind just because we call it Olympic weightlifting and not “shock method”?

3. Peak Power Output

For the pull in weightlifting to be effective, the transition between first and second pull must be as quick and reactive as possible. Any delay will result in lack of proper speed coming from the power position, “wasting” the elastic energy stored in the muscle-tendon complex during the moments preceding the second pull. A fast, explosive eccentric to concentric muscle action does, eventually, result in greater peak power output making Olympic-style weightlifting exercise some of the most powerful strength training exercises.

Bringing Weigtlifting and Plyometrics Together in Training

Olympic-style weightlifting exercises are the most explosive movement an athlete can perform in the weight room. As explosive as a vertical jump, like John Garammher, demonstrated back in the late ’70s. Are they plyometric in nature? The answer, now, seems pretty evident. Here is the way plyometrics and Olympic-style weightlifting can come together in the training of athletes:

For a beginner athlete: vertical jumps and box jumps can help young and/or beginner athletes to learn the basic in training without having to deal with more complicated movements such as the snatch, clean and jerk. Basic jumping exercise have a great degree of similarities with the pull in Olympic weightlifting and they can be used to teach proper body mechanics and to develop overall strength and coordination.

For an intermediate athlete: high impact plyometric training goes hand in hand with Olympic style weightlifting. Jump training emphasizes speed over the strength (speed strength) while snatch, clean and jerk emphasize strength over speed (strength-speed). They complement each other as they represent an excellent way of distributing training volume and intensity within each micro and mesocycle.

For an advanced athlete: Olympic-style weightlifting exercises and plyometric drills fit into a more organic progression that goes from general strength training (GPP) to sport specific training. Snatch, clean and jerk become the surrogate for strength training during the pre-competition period whereas plyometric – especially low impact plyometrics – takes over as the season begins in the effort to further improve speed, power, and agility.

Olympic-style weightlifting exercises can be considered as the most athletic-like form of shock method.

Reference

1. Enoka, R. M. “The Pull in Olympic Weightlifting.” Medicine and Science in Sports 11, no. 2 (1979): 131–37.

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I am often asked, when should one use Olympic-style weightlifting exercises in the training of competitive athletes, especially at the high school and collegiate level? Should athletes be bigger, faster and stronger in order for them to survive? It’s not a provocative question, or at least it does not mean to be. Bigger, Faster, Stronger and The Strongest Shall Survive are two of the most referenced books when it comes to strength training for sport.

Are stronger athletes necessarily better? Are they faster? And do they have to be bigger? In essence, is strength always good in sport? And is hypertrophy always the byproduct of strength training? Hamlet himself would have been lost in such a conundrum.

Strength in sport is absolutely important. I like to use a quote from Dr. Dan Baker who recently discussed the importance of “brute strength” among elite level athletes. Strength, however, is not the goal. Speed is the goal, as athletes need to run faster, jump higher and throw farther in order to dominate in a sport. So, strength can’t be put into a pigeonhole in training. It can’t be isolated.

“Citius, Altius, Fortius” is Latin for faster, higher, stronger. It should ring a bell. It’s a moto of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and enthusiastically taken up by its founder, Pierre de Coubertin over a century ago. He went on to say, “These three words represent a program of moral beauty. The aesthetics of sport are intangible.”

You may have heard, a stronger athlete can perform better in a sport if they can “transform” – a term that used to be very familiar in the late ’90s when the first translations of Russian manuals on periodization became available – strength into speed. How this “transformation” actually takes place has led to some big misconception.

Let’s start at the beginning, we accept initially that in order for athletes to perform better they need to get stronger. They become stronger by lifting heavy weights (not the heaviest) in an explosive manner, ultimately striving for power instead of sheer brute strength. Such an explosive training – which, by definition, implies submaximal loads – does not necessarily result in an increase in body weight (muscle mass), namely hypertrophy. So, you have strength but it’s part of a more power-driven activity.

Therefore, I can say there is no such a thing as transformation. Athletes need to use a combination of heavy strength training (squat, deadlift, bench press just to name a few) and explosive strength training (Olympic-style weightlifting, plyometrics, throwing exercises) all year-round but they should do it as the sum parts of a greater whole. Athletes should be training for integration rather than compartmentalizing their lifting, in the effort to develop different aspects of strength because it all contributes to improved performance in sport.

Too many times, coaches will tend to isolate strength training because, frankly, it is very easy and very exciting to work on pure lifting exercises. I say Olympic-style lifting is the bridge between traditional strength training and its integration to create programs to create power and speed. Athlete’s need speed and power. They’re not in the gym to max out on their lifts. They’re there to max out the opportunity to go higher, to go faster, and yes, to go stronger.

Integrate Olympic-style lifts in your athletic training. As technically challenging as they can be, they are a great set of tools to have on hand to get the job done right.

Reference:

1. Newton, R. U., & Kraemer, W. J. (1994). Developing Explosive Muscular Power: Implications for a Mixed Methods Training Strategy. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 16(5), 20-31.

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Olympic-style weightlifting exercises have long been considered as the most successful sport-specific form of resistance training. Despite their complexity, derivates of the main movements have been developed in the effort to preserve their main biomechanical features – namely, the ability to generate explosive strength via the triple extension of ankles, knees, and hips from the power position – while decreasing their technicality.

More often than not, young athletes are taught how to snatch and clean from the “hang position” instead of pulling the bar from the ground up. By initiating these exercises from the power position – the standard, hanging position with the bar resting at mid thigh – the overall efficiency of the movement is preserved while reinforcing positive transfer of training. Sport-specific biomechanic features (absolute strength, speed, angular displacement, direction and orientation of the movement), however, only represent the superficial parameters of complex motor patterns resulting from the combination of discrete skills into motor sophisticated motor tasks.

Based on the General Motor Pattern (GMP) theory described by Schmidt in 1982, movements – skills – present a unique combination of general motor schemes occurring at different timing, involving different joints and different muscles groups, different muscle contractions and ultimately, different combination of strength and speed: the ability to transition from one movement pattern to the other while preserving the integrity of the task being performed represents one of the fundamental motor skills (FMS) originally described by Blume as the “ability to combine different degrees of freedom in a smooth and coordinate mannare to provide efficient and effective movements”. It is a paramount ability that needs to be developed in the effort to “learn how to learn” new motor skills.

Transfer of Learning – general and special coordination, adapted from a translation of Blume’s work on fundamentals and methods for the formation of coordinative abilities^[2]

The first pull in Olympic-style weightlifting exercises is, for the most part, a slow, knee-dominant, strength oriented movement that ultimately allows placing the bar in the most effective position to begin the second pull. The second pull, on the other hand, is a fast, explosive, hip dominant and power oriented movement that requires a high degree of coordination, strength, and speed representing the most important portion the lift. By combining first and second pull in one, synchronized movement, general and special coordination can be developed (see pic) while improving strength and power.

Training the snatch and the clean from the ground up represents, therefore, an excellent opportunity to promote the optimal transfer of learning, the positive carry over between gross skills that facilitate the learning of new movements, while developing important physical attributes. Full lifts are, especially for young and beginner athletes, an excellent strategy to facilitate the acquisition of fundamental motor skills while fostering optimal physical development.

You might also like:

• The Catch: Weightlifting’s Most Complicated Movement
• Use Olympic Lifts to Increase Speed and Agility
• Olympic Weightlifting: Lifting Fast and Lifting Big

Reference:

1. Seidler, R. D. (2010). Neural Correlates of Motor Learning, Transfer of Learning, and Learning to Learn. Exercise and sport sciences reviews, 38(1), 3.

2. Blume DD. Kennzeichnung koordinativer Fähigkeiten und Möglichkeiten ihrer Herausbildung im Trainingsprozess. Leipzig; Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Deutschen Hochschule für Körperkultur 1981 22: 17

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Should athletes in sports learn how to catch if they want to learn how to move faster? Strength is important, definitely. For that they have weighted pulls and more traditional heavy strength training exercises such as squats, deadlifts, and overhead presses. However, with no speed, there will be no power.

That’s where Olympic-style weightlifting exercises come in to play. These lifts are known to provide athletes with the unique opportunity of lifting heavy weights in an explosive manner. Speed. as measured by the bar at peak vertical velocity, is nothing but the consequence of a terrific amount of force applied to the ground almost instantaneously at the lift-off. So, as you can see, with no speed, there will be no power.

Let’s dig into that a little more. Shortly after the athlete begins the lift, the bar becomes a projectile. Force is applied in a relatively short amount time (150-180 ms is the average length of the second pull) while for the remainder of the flying time gravity is the only constraint. The movement is said to be ballistic.

This is nothing dissimilar than the projectile-like motion of a long jumper or the parabolic trajectory of a shot put. In order to achieve peak velocity – velocity of release, in throwing events, or horizontal velocity in the long jump, or vertical velocity in weightlifting – every other force acting upon the athlete needs to be minimized. That’s why jumpers try to be as aerodynamic as possible when airborne and that’s why weightlifters try to “pull” their body under the bar before the bar starts to descend.

What is more ballistic, a full snatch or a snatch high pull? A full clean or a clean pull? A split jerk or an overhead press?

Catching is, without doubt, the most complicated skill to master in weightlifting. It requires the athlete to learn how to “pull under the bar” as gravity is acting upon it. It is, however, a necessary element to provide optimal speed development. If power can be achieved by simply completing the second pull, speed will suffer from stopping the bar before its apex. The ballistic nature of the movement would be lost. On the other hand, by accelerating the bar throughout its entire path, peak vertical velocity can be achieved right before the bar starts to descend.

Photo by Bev Childress

Learning how to catch is not as easy as it seems. It’s not as simple as combining a clean high pull and a front squat or an overhead squat with a snatch extension. It’s a skill, and as any other skill needs to be approached in a simple to complex, general to specific way. This is a simple basic progression to learn how to catch the bar at the end of the second pull:

Medicine Ball Slam

By reversing from a fast, triple extension to an explosive slam atheists can learn how to reverse from pulling to pulling under without the impediment of the bar.

Tall Snatch/Clean

These exercises provide the opportunity to add the final “drop” under the bar without performing the pull. Meaning, speed is not a limiting factor and the skill can be acquired with less inter-trial variability. Snatch balances and push jerks are good propaedeutic exercises before this step.

Hang Power Snatch/Clean

This is the last step of the progression, according to the top-bottom approach taught by USA Weightlifting and commonly used for beginner athletes. By further progressing from mid-tight to below the knees, the starting position will soon be at ground level, including both fist and second pull in the picture.

As any other learning progression, high frequency and high volume with low weights are recommended. These exercises can be added to a daily warm up routine for a total of 30 reps per day.

Reference:

q. Ebada, K. H. (2013). The Impact of Ballistic Training on Explosive Power Development and Some Biomechanics Parameters for Lifting the Snatch Youth Weightlifters. International Sport Science Student’s Conference (ISSSC 2013) from (Vol. 28).

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According to a series of recent posts published online by the NFHS and the NCAA, the vast majority of high school and collegiate athletes are familiar with one or more Olympic style weightlifting exercises. Lifting weights, however, is still considered just “another way” to make athletes stronger. Weightlifting – snatch, clean and jerk and their many derivatives such as pulls and extensions – however, is more than that. Here is why.

Olympic-style weightlifting exercises require a terrific amount of force to be exerted against the ground in a very limited amount of time. By doing so, athletes learn how to increase velocity (vertical velocity) a mechanical feature that represents the blueprint of many sport-specific skills.

What About Change of Direction (Cod) Speed?

What about movements in a sport that require horizontal and lateral acceleration, deceleration, but also cutting and pivoting? How does vertical velocity come into play? Are Olympic lifting exercises useful to improving agility?

Studies have shown controversial evidence when it comes to lower body explosive strength and COD speed (agility). Some basic biomechanics, however, comes in handy to provide a rational explanation of the relationship between peak vertical ground reaction force, OL and COD speed.

Trigonometry, although tedious when it comes to sin, cosine, vectors and vectorial components provides a rational explanation of this confusing, yet approachable, geometrical controversy.

For the general center of mass (GCM) to preserve its momentum – forward, backward, or in any other direction – the vertical force contributing to the motion needs to prevail in order to prevent gravity from becoming a braking force. Studies investigating the tri-dimensional component of the ground reaction force acting at any given time on an athlete’s GCM during activities involving cutting, pivoting and changing direction confirm that, regardless of the direction an athlete is moving to, peak vertical force represent the most relevant vectorial component.

By improving the ability to generate vertical ground reaction force, Olympic-style weightlifting exercise can improve agility as they positively affect the muscular component of what is known as changing of direction speed.

Applying Olympic Weightlifting to an Off Season Footballer

Now, let’s look at how this works in practice and I will use the example of a routine I prepared for a football player during the off season. He was about 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighed about 235 lbs, had great strength, a little tight in the hamstrings, but looked liked he could generate more power. He was not fulfilling his potential.

I programmed a push/pull work out for my off season football player as follows:

This workout can follow some basic speed and agility training at the beginning of the sessions. At end of the session, it is recommended to add some core work and a short conditioning burst if needed.

Reference:

1.Tricoli , V., Lamas, L., Carnevale, R., & Ugrinowitsch, C. (2005). Short-term effects on lower-body functional power development: weightlifting vs. vertical jump training programs. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 19(2), 433.

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Source: Bruce Klemens

With absolute strength being the physiological limit that defines the ability for an athlete to produce power, the optimal rate of force development is achieved by increasing speed. Paraphrasing Dr. Fred Hatfield developing athleticism means to develop strength – muscular strength – while increasing speed.

The combination of both corresponds to a specific point along the force-velocity curve, described by Archibald Vivian Hill in 1926, that defines performance in terms of peak power output (PPO). The function f(P) – power, the time derivative of work – normally sits on the left-end side of the force-velocity curve, confirming the importance of absolute strength in producing the greater power output. At any given percentage of Fmax (maximal isometric strength, according to the most traditional standards in the academic literature, 1RM according to the more recent guidelines).

Olympic-style weightlifting movements have been shown to produce greater power output than any other conventional resistance training exercise; PPO in the snatch, the clean, and their main derivatives (pulls and extensions) ranges between 75 and 85% of 1RM with speed – bar speed – reaching approximately 2-2.5. m/sec. Almost twice the speed recommended to develop speed-strength, the most athletic-like expression of absolute strength.

According to Dr. Bryan Mann, “speed-strength […] includes velocities ranging from about 1.0 to 1.3 meters per second, depending on the amplitude of motion. The Olympic lifts may have a much higher velocity as the bar has to move much farther”

By manipulating the variable d (displacement) – the incognita in the function f(P) as P represents the rate of change in work (Fxd) over time (t) also known as rate of force development (RFD) – Olympic-style weightlifting exercises display a longer bar path than any other traditional resistance training exercise, a mechanical  feature that allows force to be applied against the ground over a longer period of time producing more speed throughout the entire range of motion.

It is therefore important for high school and collegiate athletes to learn the correct line of pull, the (quasi)linear distance between the point of maximal inertia (the starting position) and the point of minimal inertia (the catch). Pulls from the blocks, three positions snatches and cleans, and halting deadlifts are great exercises to develop strength and power while learning the proper pulling mechanics.

For more advanced athletes, power snatches and power cleans represent an interesting solution to further increase overall vertical displacement by receiving the bar in the power position.

Reference

1. Harbili, E., & Alptekin, A. (2014). Comparative Kinematic Analysis of the Snatch Lifts in Elite Male Adolescent Weightlifters. Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, 13(2), 417.

The post Olympic Weightlifting: Lifting Fast and Lifting Big appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Photo by Bruce Klemens

Interestingly enough, not many studies have investigated the impact of explosive overhead pressing movements – push pressing, push jerking and split jerking, for example – on performance in sports. More than 20 years have gone since Garhammer’s last publication in merit on propulsion forces as a function of intensity for weightlifting and vertical jumping in the Journal of Applied Sports Research.

Dr. Garhammer found reasons to consider the hang power clean and the split jerk as different exercises, with different applications in the strength and conditioning field. The weightlifting jerk “happens” to be part of a more complex event, the clean & jerk: these movements, however, display different biomechanical features which, in turn, suggest different applications for athletic development.

Ideally snatch, clean and jerk could be aligned in this particular order along a continuum that goes from high-velocity/low-force movements to low-velocity/high force movements as indicated by the different kinetic and kinematic profile of these exercises: the jerk, on the left-hand side of the Hill’s curve, displays what Dr. Garhammer called a U-shape profile whereas the snatch, the clean and any other athletic-like movement (such as the vertical jump) display what appears to be a V-shape profile and they heavily spread across the middle/right-hand side of the hyperbole.

The overhead pressing mechanics involved in the weightlifting jerk allows for peak power output to be achieved with a much higher load than any other Olympic weightlifting movement although the rate of force development (RFD) displays a less “sharp” peak resulting in a smooth, U-shape slope.

These basic considerations suggest how the jerk and its variations – the overhead press, the push press and the split jerk – should be considered more like a strength-oriented movement rather than like a power-orientated movement: they provide excellent axial load, developing lower and upper body maximal strength while challenging coordination, balance and active range of motion. Paraphrasing Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky, the weightlifting jerk develops “strength in presence of speed”, the stereotypical definition of “functional strength” as it applies across the board in every sporting event that requires a different combination of strength, speed, and power.

Reference:

1. Garhammer, J., & Gregor, R. (1992). Propulsion forces as a function of intensity for weightlifting and vertical jumping. J Appl Sport Sci Res, 6(3), 129-34.

2. Lake, Jason, Mike Lauder, and Rosemary Dyson. “Exploring the biomechanical characteristics of the weightlifting jerk.” ISBS – Conference Proceedings Archive 1, no. 1 (November 2, 2007).

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“The clean is a very important movement, both for motor skill development and for full-body conditioning. Learning it is important, since it is complicated, and learning complicated things improves the ability to learn.” That’s a quote from Mark Rippetoe in this piece on the power clean.

Learning how to learn new motor skills does represent a fundamental stage in the development of young athletes, a pragmatic approach that tends to promote a positive transfer of learning over the positive transfer of training. Learning new skills, such as snatching, cleaning, or jerking, represents nothing but a basic application of the general motor pattern (GMP) theory first identified by Richard Schmidt in his seminal work in the early 80s: once the central nervous system (CNS) defines the basic, invariable aspects of the movement the cerebellum can incorporate speed and power to perform the lift.

Lifting weight or throwing a football, in terms of motor learning and control, does not really make any difference. So why are Olympic-style weightlifting exercises mostly neglected when it comes to young athletes? The misconception comes from a fundamental lack of understanding of the intimate relationship between muscular strength and speed. It comes, also, from a general lack of understanding of the physiological development of these physical attributes across childhood and adolescence.

Olympic-style weightlifting exercises teach athletes how to overcome inertia with speed: speed – linear speed but also quickness, the ability to move the upper and/or the lower extremity in a fast manner – naturally develops between the age of 7 and 11 years old with a proportional increase in rate of force development that significantly improves as pre-adolescent male and female athletes approach peak height velocity.

Explosive Olympic Lifts – An Early Stage Training Tool

Strength will, eventually, increase throughout puberty although the ability to learn and master new movements reaches its best during this age. Explosive in nature, Olympic style weightlifting exercises can, therefore, be introduced relatively early in the training routine of younger athletes: to preserve speed, evidence shows that 35% of an athlete bodyweight is sufficient to promote optimal inter and intramuscular coordination, as well as optimal motor unit recruitment, a condition sine qua non any effort of learning proper lifting mechanics, would be vain.

What that means is that young male and female athletes can start practicing snatches, cleans and jerks with 15 to 20 pounds bars (youth bar): they will master the skill while fostering optimal development of those neurological aspects that are responsible for any major improvement in the weight room but, most importantly, on the filed and/ or on the court of play.

By learning Olympic-style weightlifting exercises – snatch, clean and jerk but also their many variations and derivative – young athletes will improve performance in an activity involving sprinting, jumping and changing direction. This is the fundamental skill that athletes need to master in the process of sports specialization that begins after the onset of puberty. Olympic-style weightlifting exercises have shown to foster the acquisition of a broad variety of sport specific skills via transfer of learning, a key concept in the process of laying the foundation for athleticism to develop. Muscular strength will follow alongside with a most remarkable improvement in peak power out, the beginning of a train to compete phase that will benefit from a positive transfer of training between the weight room and the field and/or court of play.

If you’re a member of the International Youth Conditioning Association, you can get read more of my observations on Olympics-style weightlifting exercises for youth athletes: Olympic-style Weightlifting Exercises for Youth Athletes. Evidence-based recommendations to introduce youth athletes to the snatch, the clean and jerk, and their derivatives.

Reference:

1. Lloyd, R. S., Oliver, J. L., Meyers, R. W., Moody, J. A., & Stone, M. H. (2012). Long-Term Athletic Development and Its Application to Youth Weightlifting. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 34(4), 55-66.

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Strength and speed sit at opposite ends of a spectrum that embraces different manifestations of work, different forms of “athleticism” including absolute strength, strength speed, explosive strength, and speed-strength. A broad variety of high-intensity, anaerobic activities such as sprinting, jumping, throwing or lifting that last anywhere between 30 and 90 seconds.

The ability to repeat these efforts over a longer period of time without suffering any loss in terms of power and/or speed defines an athlete’s work capacity, a physical attribute that is strongly dependent on the nature of each and every different sport. By creating sport-specific conditioning sessions in such a way that allows to preserve speed in a state of fatigue – peripheral fatigue, for the most part (accumulation of H+ in the bloodstream) rather than central fatigue that will compromise the ability of generating power – it is therefore possible to improve performance on the field and/or on the court of play.

Cluster sets – a system of combining max efforts in groups of reps across smaller sets divided by short, incomplete rest periods (a system originally developed to increase volume in Olympic weightlifting training programs while preserving optimal speed bar) – can provide an excellent template to build athletic-like conditioning sessions for high school and collegiate athletes.

By increasing the number of reps performed each set at a given intensity, cluster sets can significantly increase volume while preserving a specific work to rest ratio, namely a specific metabolic impact. In order for that to happen, the number of reps performed per cluster needs to decrease to compensate for the overall increase in volume: buffering by approximately 50% the number of reps per cluster within each set at a given intensity allows to accommodate more work while maintaining the work to rest ratio based on the original study carried out by Haff and colleagues in 2003.

Load can eventually be changed in order to design different conditioning sessions aimed to target specific portion of the force-velocity curve. Cluster sets allow for a higher amount of work to be performed at any given intensity – considering the very nature of the exercises selected (snatch, clean and jerk and their derivatives) loads will oscillate between 70-90% of 1RM – while preserving speed (speed of the bar), a combination that will ultimately increase the amount of stress placed upon the anaerobic metabolism.

Total reps per cluster should range, ideally, between 1 and 3; work to rest ratio should stay within 1:2-1:3 allowing anywhere between 15 to 45 seconds of rest between clusters. This combination is capable of improving the anaerobic threshold while sustaining enough volume to target the cardiovascular system as well.

Reference:
Haff, G. G., Whitley, A., Mccoy, L. B., O’bryant, H. S., Kilgore, J. L., Haff, E. E., … & Stone, M. H. (2003). Effects of different set configurations on barbell velocity and displacement during a clean pull. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 17(1), 95-103.

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