GST and Oly Work?

[Alexander Castiglione]

I have a question stemming from my immense ignorance. Would olympic lifts need to be continuously progressed, or after reaching some benchmarks based on height, weight, etc... there's no reason to progress further in order to optimally benefit GST?

 

This has nothing to do with me specifically as I'm at the beginning of F1, I'm just curious.

By no means am I an expert, but I can give you some advice from my own perspective. You should always be adding weight to the bar - but thats IF and ONLY IF your form is perfect. There's no point in trying to C+J 225lbs if you can't hit 205 flawlessly, and the same tenets go for GST. IE if you can't do a planche lean perfectly for a certain time, don't even bother doing it elevated: you're setting yourself up for injury. 

 

Personally, I've plateaued with weightlifting, but that's not my main focus. I had certain goals set and I hit them, or got damn close, but I have no illusions: I'm not built to be a weightlifter, I'm built to be a bodyweight guy (5'7" 150 or so, 29 inch waist and 40 inch chest). If I'm reading your post right, I'd say get your form dialed in first and foremost, but then, work up to a "Heavy set of x" which will also depend on your goals. If you're looking for raw power, work up to heavy doubles or singles. If you're looking for technical proficiency, 3-5. IMHO, anything more than touch and go triples in OLY lifting is a waste of your time, and it will fatigue everything from your joints to your CNS.

 

Now that I've said my piece, even with the caveat of "I am by no means an expert" - I await someone to tear me apart. lol. 

[Blairbob]

Coach Sommer has stated that BW PowerClean is probably sufficient for a GST enthusiast whereas that would be only be advanced beginner/beginner intermediate for a Weightlifter. BW C(J) is considering beginner level for a Weightlifter and PC should be 87-90% of Clean (though some people will say as low as 80-85% Roman Roberts states 87-90% and is pretty much the definitive text of Soviet WL).

It's just that the typical GST enthusiast will not be training WL as much as a beginning WLer and the law of diminishing gains. If a GST enthusiast were to start training 3, 4, or 5 days of WL; how many days could they effectively train GST? Something has to give to balance out and the GST enthusiast should be training GST predominantly with WL as an assistance means of training rather than something predominant.

It used to be considered that BW Sn and BW+ CJ was good enough for a regular Joe training CF for fitness purposes (but not Regional or Games level these days). Snatch is supposed to be 78-82% of CJ so roughly the same or slightly less than PowerClean.

[Jan Reipert]

oly lifters are forced to be more flexible because their sport requires a huge amount of flexibility and mobility (imagine someone cathcing a snatch really deep, often you see weightlifters touching their butt to the floor in overheadpositions). in powerlifting there is no lift that requires more than average flexibility. some federations require you to squat deeper than others but there is no need to really squat ass-to-grass, which means the majority does not train that ROM since they do not really needed in their sport.