• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Breaking Muscle

Breaking Muscle

Breaking Muscle

  • Fitness
  • Workouts
    • Best Shoulder Workouts
    • Best Chest Workouts
    • Best Leg Workouts
    • Best Leg Exercises
    • Best Biceps Exercises
    • Best Kettlebell Exercises
    • Best Back Workouts
    • Best HIIT Workouts
    • Best Triceps Exercises
    • Best Arm Workouts
  • Reviews
    • Supplements
      • Best Pre-Workout
      • Best BCAAs
      • Best Testosterone Boosters
      • Best Bodybuilding Supplements
      • Best Creatine
      • Best Supplements for Weight Loss
      • Best Multivitamins
      • Best Collagen Supplement
      • Best Probiotic
      • Best Non-Stim Pre-Workout
      • Best Greens Powder
      • Best Magnesium Supplements
    • Protein
      • Best Protein Powder
      • Best Whey Protein
      • Best Protein Powders for Muscle Gain
      • Best Tasting Protein Powder
      • Best Vegan Protein
      • Best Mass Gainer
      • Best Protein Shakes
      • Best Organic Protein Powder
      • Best Pea Protein Powder
      • Best Protein Bars
    • Strength Equipment
      • Best Home Gym Equipment
      • Best Squat Racks
      • Best Barbells
      • Best Weightlifting Belts
      • Best Weight Benches
      • Best Functional Trainers
      • Best Dumbbells
      • Best Adjustable Dumbbells
      • Best Kettlebells
      • Best Resistance Bands
      • Best Trap Bars
    • Cardio Equipment
      • Best Cardio Machines
      • Best Rowing Machines
      • Best Treadmills
      • Best Weighted Vests
      • Concept2 RowErg Review
      • Hydrow Wave Review
      • Best Jump Ropes
  • News
  • Exercise Guides
    • Legs
      • Back Squat
      • Bulgarian Split Squat
      • Goblet Squat
      • Zercher Squat
      • Standing Calf Raise
      • Hack Squat
    • Chest
      • Bench Press
      • Dumbbell Bench Press
      • Close-Grip Bench Press
      • Incline Bench Press
    • Shoulders
      • Overhead Dumbbell Press
      • Lateral Raise
    • Arms
      • Chin-Up
      • Weighted Pull-Up
      • Triceps Pushdown
    • Back
      • Deadlift
      • Trap Bar Deadlift
      • Lat Pulldown
      • Inverted Row
      • Bent-Over Barbell Row
      • Single-Arm Dumbbell Row
      • Pendlay Row
Reviews

Book Review: “Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes & Coaches” by Greg Everett

If you don't own Greg Everett's original book on Olympic weightlifting then your library is not complete, whether you are a coach or an athlete. Read our review to find out why this book is essential.

Logan Gelbrich

Written by Logan Gelbrich Last updated on Nov 16, 2023

We receive free products and receive commissions through our links. See disclosures page.

greg everett, catalyst athletics, performance menu, weightlifting

greg everett, catalyst athletics, performance menu, weightlifting

I first met Greg Everett… Well, now that I think of it, I haven’t met him. I just feel like I have because of the incredible number of times I’ve listened to him and Robb Wolf on the Paleo Solution Podcast. Though both he and Robb both can assume this position, Greg Everett stands out in my mind as the reluctant genius. His ability to navigate his own wealth of knowledge with regards to nutrition, performance, and weightlifting seems to come so easily that discussing such matters seems like it bores him, at least on the podcast.

Everett’s iconic book titled Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes & Coaches is a “go to” resource for weightlifting in text form. I can’t begin to tell you how many of my coaches’ bookshelves I’ve seen this gem on. In a nostalgic way, it elicits the type of authority that a similar but different text I had as kid growing up did. It went by the name of Nolan Ryan’s Pitching Bible.

Though I am no Greg Everett I do know my way around a barbell, and as I initially thumbed through the text I became anxious just thinking about all the potential rabbit holes of intricate details that the Olympic lifts make available. Entire volumes could be written on each of the three pulls, or major segments of the movements.

A separate volume of work could be devoted to the ideology of efficiency, the laws of nature, and weightlifting’s attempt to maneuver the two. When you title a book Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes & Coaches, you are committing yourself to providing a great depth of information, so much so that I started my experience with the text wondering which areas Mr. Everett would carefully choose to omit or neglect. As you will soon learn, I was surprised to find that nearly every conceivable stone was, in fact, unturned.

Like any good text, Everett’s book lays the groundwork for Olympic lifting with an opening section on foundations. Here the reader welcomes, potentially for the first time, a general look at physics with the Law of Inertia, the Law of Acceleration, and the Law of Reciprocal Actions. Once explained to them in layman’s terms, most readers will advance quickly with a new name for something they’ve long understood.

The book then dives into a long linear journey that begins as elementary as describing the equipment down to the collars and knee sleeves. From there, easily overlooked and under respected content about proper warm ups is outlined in beautiful detail with descriptive images to go along.

Pleasingly, I found that the first mention of an exercise thereafter was, most simply, the squat. It’s here I began to recognize Greg’s voice coming through in a brief, but educational diatribe into squat depth and the stir it still causes in circles outside of the sport of weightlifting.

It’s this genuine voice that I enjoy about Greg that I hear so clearly in his work with the Paleo Solution Podcast. Like all the sections of this text, Greg includes exceptions, modifications, and a multitude of explanations of how and why things may occur less than optimally.

Like in the squat section, each section thereafter includes coaching cues and relevant mobilizations and activations. The snatch, for example, covers nearly fifty pages on instruction. Breaking down the starting positions, execution, finish, and various progressions for the clean, the snatch, the jerk, and the clean and jerk begins to lay out a language to the reader, if he/she hasn’t had previous experience with the lifts.

This language and the relevant progressions outlined in the movement chapters make the subsequent section that addresses common faults and fixes a breeze. “Starting position” and “third pull” have meaning now, whether Greg’s making reference to the snatch or the clean.

After a thorough examination of the movements and common faults, the text moves into programming. Another impressive note about this text is that Everett covers so much content the book is impactful no matter what the level of competency of the reader. So, even if weightlifting isn’t new for you, anyone can get something from this section. As a coach, this section will be one I will refer back to often as a resource for developing programs for different types of athletes.

If that wasn’t enough, Everett offers an opportunity to get a bit of extra credit with a full section of supplemental exercises and skill transfer drills. The book then closes with an overview of nutrition, supplementation, flexibility measures, and even a dive into the intricacies of weightlifting competition. I’ve always wondered how lifters and their coaches plan attempts and the strategy of the sport of weightlifting.

It’s quite easy to become overwhelmed with a book like this, but it’s just too good not to own. Everyone who reads it will get better (as an athlete or a coach). There’s no doubt about that. The most practical use for this book, in my opinion, is as a resource. Whether you’re a hobbyist who likes weightlifting or you are a professional coach, this text will be one to thumb through, refer back to, and crosscheck ideas with for years and years.

“Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes & Coaches” is available at CatalystAthetlics.com for $34.95.

Read a review of Greg Everett’s second book, “Olympic Weightlifting for Sports.”

Want to train like Greg’s athletes? Follow his three weeks of free workouts.

Logan Gelbrich

About Logan Gelbrich

As a catcher with the University of San Diego and the San Diego Padres, Logan saw training simply as support for his athletic endeavors. Now, however, he enjoys its more universal application in himself and others.

Logan is the founder of Functional Fitness on the Bluffs and Original Nutritionals, as well as an athlete and coach at CrossFit Los Angeles. With a background in professional baseball, Logan has committed his life after baseball to a more general application of performance. His passion for functionality and improvement, coupled with an evolutionary approach to nutrition, has become a career grounded in making people better.

View All Articles

Related Posts

A photo of the bag of XWERKS Motion on a red background
XWERKS Motion BCAA Review (2025): A Registered Dietitian’s Honest Thoughts
A photo of the Assault Fitness AssaultBike Pro X on a red background
Assault Fitness AssaultBike Pro X Review (2025): Assault’s Best Bike Yet?
Photos of the Peloton Bike+, Concept2 BikeErg, and NordicTrack S22i Studio Bike on a red background
13 Best Exercise Bikes for Home Gyms (2025)
Featured image of Transparent Labs BCAA Glutamine supplement
Transparent Labs BCAA Glutamine Review (2025): The Key to Post-Workout Recovery?

Primary Sidebar

Latest Articles

New Year’s Fitness Sales (2025)

XWERKS Motion BCAA Review (2025): A Registered Dietitian’s Honest Thoughts

Assault Fitness AssaultBike Pro X Review (2025): Assault’s Best Bike Yet?

13 Best Exercise Bikes for Home Gyms (2025)

Transparent Labs BCAA Glutamine Review (2025): The Key to Post-Workout Recovery?

Latest Reviews

Element 26 Hybrid Leather Weightlifting Belt

Element 26 Hybrid Leather Weightlifting Belt Review (2025)

Omre NMN + Resveratrol, Lifeforce Peak NMN, and partiQlar NMN on a red background

Best NMN Supplement: Fountain of Youth in a Bottle? (2025)

The Titan Series Adjustable Bench on a red background

Titan Series Adjustable Bench Review (2025)

A photo of the NordicTrack Select-a-Weight Dumbbells on a red background

NordicTrack Adjustable Dumbbell Review (2025): Are These Value Dumbbells Worth It?

woman lifting barbell

Be the smartest person in your gym

The Breaking Muscle newsletter is everything you need to know about strength in a 3 minute read.

I WANT IN!

Breaking Muscle is the fitness world’s preeminent destination for timely, high-quality information on exercise, fitness, health, and nutrition. Our audience encompasses the entire spectrum of the fitness community: consumers, aficionados, fitness professionals, and business owners. We seek to inform, educate and advocate for this community.

  • Reviews
  • Healthy Eating
  • Workouts
  • Fitness
  • News

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS Feed

© 2025 · Breaking Muscle · Terms of Use · Privacy Policy · Affiliate Disclaimer · Accessibility · About