lifting weights and flexibility

[Antonio Boyer]

I have tried searching the forums but have been unable to find this topic. There are topics about combining weights and gymnastics but they don't say how it affects flexibility. I know that added weight will cause more resistance for gymnastics exercises, But will extra muscle also make me more stiff and slow down flexibility gains? I want to start doing squats and dead lifts, how will those affect my pike flexibility? Is it possible to squat and dead lift heavy weights but also be really flexible? Will being flexible make me more prone to injury? 

[Mikkel Ravn]

I'm certainly no expert, but olympic lifters are known for being quite flexible while also being big, I mean, look at a 180 kg snatch and tell me the lifter is inflexible. So theoretically, there's no dichotomy between strength, hypertrophy and flexibility.

I'd also say that no, flexibility does not make you more prone to injury, quite the contrary - it enables high strength throughout the ROM. When an olympic lifter fails to complete a heavy snatch, he'll usually drop the weight behind his back, and he's able to do that precisely because he's flexible. Try that with your average zombie Joe, and you're probably looking at a dislocated shoulder or worse.

[Blairbob]

 If we talk about flexibility amongst Olympic Weightlifters, some of them can be pretty damn flexible. Some of this is because they are ex gymnasts or came from a sports school as a youth but for instance, Greg Everett recently posted a picture of himself doing the splits because he decided he wanted to get them back.

 

http://www.catalystathletics.com/articles/article.php?articleID=137

 

 Now, if we are talking about lifting weights as in bodybuilding with poor ROM or abbreviated ROM, I don't see how that's going to do anything really good for you. I see and watch it every day at the gym. Short ROM on pullups or squats or guys who can't really press overhead or these wide arm DB presses (Arnold Press?) or bar presses exercises of all kinds.

 

 I will state that I believe Olympic Weightlifting doesn't really a lot of flexibility regarding the shoulder extension ROM. Some is down in the form of bar pass thru's/bar dislocate/inlocate but that's about the extent of them versus something like a skin the cat or seated floor shoulder extension.

 

 And they don't work something like a hand bridge but I don't think would really be much of a problem if they were to all of a sudden start working them. I bet they would fair a lot better than the normal populace though there are plenty of good lifters who have tight shoulders regardless of being good technical lifters (being National/World lifters).

[Antonio Boyer]

I'm certainly no expert, but olympic lifters are known for being quite flexible while also being big, I mean, look at a 180 kg snatch and tell me the lifter is inflexible. So theoretically, there's no dichotomy between strength, hypertrophy and flexibility.

I'd also say that no, flexibility does not make you more prone to injury, quite the contrary - it enables high strength throughout the ROM. When an olympic lifter fails to complete a heavy snatch, he'll usually drop the weight behind his back, and he's able to do that precisely because he's flexible. Try that with your average zombie Joe, and you're probably looking at a dislocated shoulder or worse.

yeah I figured that olympic lifting wouldn't affect shoulder mobility. I just wasn't sure if increased strength or mass would affect leg flexibility. I was thinking if my legs were all sore it would be harder to stretch. Would a good balance be stretching everyday and then squats and dead lifts once a week? I want to get into olympic lifting too but I heard I should build a good base of absolute strength first. how much would you say is recommend to squat and dead lift before doing olympic lifting?

[Mikkel Ravn]

how much would you say is recommend to squat and dead lift before doing olympic lifting?

No idea - I don't think that those lifts are necessarily a prerequisite for oly lifting, but you'd better approach someone who actually knows something about this stuff

[Joshua Naterman]

yeah I figured that olympic lifting wouldn't affect shoulder mobility. I just wasn't sure if increased strength or mass would affect leg flexibility. I was thinking if my legs were all sore it would be harder to stretch. Would a good balance be stretching everyday and then squats and dead lifts once a week? I want to get into olympic lifting too but I heard I should build a good base of absolute strength first. how much would you say is recommend to squat and dead lift before doing olympic lifting?

If you take a look at research that examines the effects of various "assistance" work on the amount of weight someone can jerk (explosively drop under the bar and catch it in an overhead position), you will find that strength exercises like shoulder press actually decrease what a high level lifter can jerk.

 

The proposed reason for that is that the press is so neurologically different that it detrains the nervous system of a super-highly trained athlete. So, if you were trying to be a world champion O-lifter, you wouldn't want to press.

 

In practical terms, for overall athletic ability, the picture is different. The amount of weight that is hypothetically being lost is something like 30 lbs at the most. Being able to jerk 260 kilos instead of 245 kilos is the difference between first place and not even stepping on the podium for an Olympic lifter, but for you and me... irrelevant. Both are completely beastmode, but  sacrificing a little off of the jerk in order to not only be an incredibly good O-lifter but also have more strength in other upper body areas is worthwhile.

 

Specialists have to make some "sacrifices", but we are not specialists here... Shooting for being in the top 95% of everything instead of the top 99.99% (for example) allows you to be extremely good at everything.

 

 

 

 

 

That's just something I think is worth keeping in mind, if you're going to spend a bunch of time thinking about O-lifting. As for actual pre-requisites, you should be able to EASILY squat (Front squat for clean and jerk, and overhead squat for snatch) whatever weight you are trying to pull. That's the major pre-requisite. You want it to be at least 30-40 lbs under your 1RM for whichever squat,I believe (just to throw some ballpark numbers). It may need to be a certain percentage, like 80% of your 1RM for said squat, because you don't get as much stretch reflex assistance when O-lifting compared to just squatting the weight, but if there's a preferred percentage I do not know it. I just know that you're pretty much never going to perform a full clean or a full snatch with your max squat.

 

 

As for DL, you obviously can't do these movements with your max DL, you have to really be able to accelerate the bar once you clear the knees and this requires the load to be well within your max DL. I would imagine there are similar ballpark figures to what is listed above, but I'm not delving deeper into this here.

 

If you want more O-lifting advice then you really need to go to the Pendlay forums or somewhere like that... a place dedicated to O-lifting. You should learn from the best, which is why you should come to us for gymnastics, and why you should go to the best O-lifting communities to learn THAT sport.

[David McManamon]

To be strong and flexible you need to train strength and stretch.  Anyone can do it but few bother.

[Sailor Venus]

I hear weight lifting does reduces flexibility. But just do some stretching at the end of a weight lifting session to save your flexibility from being lost. Throw in some PNF in your stretches so you can build strength AND stretch at the same time!

 

For olympic lifting I don't think there's any prerequisites. If there is, they would be deadlifts, front squats and shoulder presses.

 

Here's a video to help you with shoulder flexibility to be olympic lift ready:

 

And no, you don't need a shit load of strength to begin olympic lifting. You can start right away!

 

I think you should worry more about the olympic lifting techniques (power cleans are hard but less difficult than doing front tucks) than worry about losing flexibility. Like I said, stretch at the end of a lifting session. If the muscles are sore, just stretch lightly.

[Joshua Naterman]

The major issue with trying to learn barbell-based strength before you develop good active pike and straddle pike flexibility (think lifting into a V sit, straight arm straddle handstand presses, etc) is that barbell work requires you to tense your entire body pretty hard and create a very rigid core.

 

Gymnastics, by contrast, has many essential and basic elements that require one to be able to tense part of the core but not all. Lifting into a V sit requires you to tense your quads, calves (for toe point), hip flexors, anterior abdominal wall, triceps, serratus anterior, middle and rear deltoids, and lats while NOT developing much tension in the glutes, hamstrings, pecs, biceps, lower spinal erectors, etc. it is a very complex movement, and very different from the all-out tension you develop everywhere during an olympic lift, squat, deadlift, etc.

 

I think that if you wait until you have mastered these basic abilities that you will see better progress overall, but that's just my opinion, which is colored by my experiences. I came from a barbell background, and it has been difficult to learn the kind of movements we need to be able to do here. I have found that taking a break from pretty much everything barbell has been very good for me. I do squat and occasionally bench press, but I don't deadlift at the moment because I find that deadlifts are just not good for me while I learn the compression work. It's not like I'm missing anything, there's plenty of posterior chain work in Foundation that doesn't interfere with my ability to learn the gymnastic stuff.

 

I think that once I have good control of compression that DL won't be a bad thing, but I don't advise spending too much time on heavy barbell work while trying to learn the gymnastic stuff. This approach has been good for me.

 

Later on, once you've mastered the true basics, you would probably NOT encounter the same issues because you would already have learned the less intuitive movements of gymnastics, like abdominal compression at various angles of hip abduction/adduction, different body positions/orientations, and bridging. 

[Blairbob]

 Ehh, kids start Olympic Lifting without any strength phase. Don't worry, any decent program will have you doing squats and press/press variants to get stronger. They will probably use some variant of a Deadlift as well. Snatch/Clean deadlift or Sn/Cn pulls, RDL's, position DL/lifts.

 

 The Russian Weightlifting program is based off the Back Squat as was the Bulgarian though eventually Abadjiev preferred the Front Squat but bare in mind other Bulgarian coaches did use the Back Squat and even pulls and there is footage of this (though sometimes pulls and backsquats were for an injured lifter according to Abadjiev). Naim did BS though.

 

 Chinese and American systems use both. Actually the Chinese are known to a bunch of bodybuilding exercises afterwards as well.

 

 Most weightlifters that were gymnasts are still pretty flexible, well the gals. The guys I've met who have done the crossover (very few and none that were high level) only had meager flexibility in their shoulders and hips. Thing is not every gymnast out there has GREAT flexibility in their shoulders and hips.

OTOH, some of the top CFers nowadays were ex gymnasts, some ex National/Collegiate gymnasts including Annie Thorridottir. There are 6 gals on the US team that were ex gymnasts.