olympic weightlifting

Weightlifting training has the characteristic feature that in a training session lasting from 1.5 to 2.5 hours the actual hands-on-the-bar time will amount to only five to twelve minutes. But in this short ... Continue Reading

With the popularity of CrossFit and its extensive use of the Olympic lifts in their workouts, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of CrossFitters who have decided to enter into ... Continue Reading

Many Breaking Muscle readers have taken to watching the Winter Olympic Games from Sochi this month. During the broadcast, several product advertisements or feature stories have highlighted America’s finest ... Continue Reading

Dresdin Archibald (pictured below) is a 63-year-old accountant from Canada. He started weight training in 1963 at age fourteen, moving over to the Olympic lifts in 1966, and continues training to this day. ... Continue Reading

I’ve been a competitive athlete for a good chunk of my life and much of what I’ve learned about success has come more from my failures than my wins as a collegiate track and field hammer thrower and ... Continue Reading

EDITOR'S NOTE: Welcome to the athlete journal of Terry Hadlow. Terry got started in Olympic weightlifting in 1970 and is the only Canadian to have competed in senior nationals in five different decades - ... Continue Reading

There are a lot of sources for beginning weightlifting training information available these days. So much so that it is understandable that newcomers are overwhelmed and befuddled as to which instruction ... Continue Reading

In the weight and combatative sports the competitors are divided into a number of weight categories to ensure fair and even competition. It would not be fair to have 120-pound athletes facing 220-pound ... Continue Reading

Olympic weightlifting is an increasingly popular sport. Year upon year, it seems that more people step into the world of weightlifting, while others take the next few steps in their weightlifting ... Continue Reading

With the sudden rise in popularity of weightlifting as a participatory sport and as a vehicle for improving sport performance, there has been an accompanying rise in misinterpretation of the training ... Continue Reading

EDITOR'S NOTE: Welcome to the athlete journal of Terry Hadlow. Terry got started in Olympic weightlifting in 1970 and is the only Canadian to have competed in senior nationals in five different decades - ... Continue Reading

One thing seldom talked about by weightlifters and weight trainers is the knurling on the bar. This happens despite the fact that we all come into contact with it every time we lay hands on the barbell. In ... Continue Reading

Being a financial professional and also a weightlifter with a long time interest in the body composition of athletes, I recently had a discussion with a colleague about how these two disciplines can be ... Continue Reading

The dip in the jerk seems straightforward enough (straight down, actually). Just bend your knees, and once bent straighten them vigorously. Sounds pretty simple, right? Yes, it does sound simple, but like ... Continue Reading

We all remember the basic laws of physics that we supposedly learned back in our school days. Well, we may have "learned" them, but the real test is whether we remember them. These lessons are ones we ... Continue Reading

What is a clean and snatch complex? Essentially, it’s the breakdown of these Olympic lifting movements into individual lifts. It is broken down in order to properly build each section of the complete lift. ... Continue Reading

Recently, after another of my discussions with colleagues over the ideal snatch percentage of one's clean and jerk and the comparison of men's to women's lifting, I decided it would be a good idea to do a ... Continue Reading

Olympic weightlifting can seem like a never-ending journey of self-improvement and bewilderment. This isn’t too far from the truth, at least on the self-improvement side of things. Weightlifting is a ... Continue Reading

Bob Takano is a highly regarded weightlifting coach who was inducted into the USA Weightlifting Hall of Fame in 2007 for his contributions to coaching. His experience in coaching all levels of lifter from ... Continue Reading

Last week we talked about the snatch grip width, so naturally this week we are going to move on to the clean and jerk. I will not discuss the clean in any great detail, but the standard recommendation here ... Continue Reading

Okay, so now you have completed your clean and you caught the bounce just right on the springy bar. That bounce helped you climb out of the squat. You are now standing erect, the bar is racked on your ... Continue Reading

The topic of exercise order is a topic not frequently discussed outside of the circle of veteran coaches, but it is a factor that can have significant effects on the training of athletes. I often run ... Continue Reading

Some lifts done in the gym can easily be confused with other movements even though they use entirely different muscles. Overhead presses and jerks are good examples of these. They do bear a superficial ... Continue Reading

A question I have pondered for some time is "How is masters competition different from regular, open competitions?" While I am thinking most about how this query applies to weightlifting, I imagine the ... Continue Reading