Introduction
Olympic Weightlifting is a sport in which athletes compete for the total weight of 2 lifts: the snatch and also the clean & jerk. The education methods employed in Weightlifting can also be utilized by Strength & Conditioning coaches as a way of resistance training to get a wide range of other sports. Most significant reasons for exploiting various resistance training modalities such is perfect for power development. There are numerous variations on the party theme of power training. Many of these training modalities include plyometrics (Wilson, Elliot & Wood 1990), assisted and resisted training (Faccioni 1993a; 1993b) and speed and acceleration drills (Cinkovich 1992). A popular method utilized to increase athletic power is Olympic Weightlifting (ie power cleans, push presses, snatches, jump jerks along with their variations) conducted from the training (Garhammer, 1993). It’s traditionally been described as effective way of producing general explosive ability (Takano 1992; Stone 1993; Garhammer & Gregor 1992). However, there are other important considerations which need to be addressed when implementing Olympic lifting exercises into the Strength & Conditioning program of the athlete, some of these include movement competency, training age, sport and training time with athlete. The purpose of this short article by Elite Performance Institute (EPI) is to provide a biomechanical and physiological discussion as to the reasons weightlifting workouts are helpful to improve athletic performance and exactly how they should be performed in a exercise program. For more details, go to www.epicertification.com
Power Defined
Power has been thought as the perfect combination of speed and strength to generate movement (Chu 1996). Particularly, power represents ale the athlete to generate high amounts of process a certain distance. Greater power a sports athlete possesses the higher the a higher level work performed (Wilson 1992). Power is a combination of strength and speed:
POWER = FORCE (strength) X VELOCITY (speed of movement)
There are numerous physiological and neural adaptations which comprise the strength component (Moritani 1992). Physiological adaptations to strength contain an increase in muscle tissue through hypertrophy, connective tissue density and bone integrity (Tesch 1992a). Neural adaptations (Schmidtbleicher 1992) that can be produced are: (1) increased recruitment of motor units; (2) increased firing rate of motor neurones; (3) synchronised firing of motor neurones; (4) increase in intra-muscular coordination; and (5) increase in inter-muscular coordination.
Speed of movement consists of many different interrelated factors (Ackland & Bloomfield 1995). These are; (1) muscle fibre type; (2) skill; (3) muscle insertion points; (4) lever length; (5) muscular posture; and (6) elastic energy standby time with the series elastic component.
Olympic Weightling exercises facilitate development of the middle (Strength-Speed and Speed-Strength) with the force-velocity (FV) curve (see above). The FV curve acts a guide to Strength & Conditioning Courses London according to the form of strength developed from each exercise, session or phase to train from the program. Because of this, the force & Conditioning coach can effectively plan what type of power they need to develop and which training modality (powerlifting, Olympic liftining, plyometrics, etc) is best utilised to elicit these adaptations.
Conclusion
Concern still exists regarding the ef?cacy of including Olympic weightlifting exercises from the resistance training programs of athletes in sports besides weightlifting. These concerns generally belong to 3 broad categories: 1) Perceived time necessary to discover the movements because of the complexity with the lifts. 2) An absence of knowledge of the opportunity bene?ts that can be produced by performing Olympic lifting exercises correctly. 3) Concern on the prospect of injury resulting from these weightlifting movements.
It really is evident there are a multitude of biomechanical important things about these lifts with limited disadvantages. The biggest risk has been with the perceived danger of these lifts. Judging by the evidence presented by Brian Hammill with the British Weightlifting Association (BWLA), it could be stated with con?dence that the injury risk is really as low or under most sports so long as there is quali?ed supervision furnished by certi?ed Strength and Conditioning coach who are competent in coaching the weightlifting movements.
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