“Two chalk covered hands grasp the barbell. Her hands calloused from hours of repetitions. Her head is in perfect alignment with her shoulders and back, several voices can be heard in the background shouting words of encouragement.

She lifts her head up and then the room goes silent, the bar starts to ascend slowly off the ground until it reaches the middle of her thighs.

In a flash of raw power and speed, she throws bar over her head while descending into full squat then exploding into a full standing position holding the bar overhead completing the Olympic lift known as the snatch.

‘I love snatching in training, but I definitely feel more comfortable clean and jerking in competition,’ said Ali Ludwig.

Ali Ludwig 25, is the first ever National Champion in the 90 kg weight class in sport of Olympic Weightlifting.”

Read the full article here.

Lifters and coaches: When a lifter has multiple problems with their technique, how do you approach fixing them? Which problems do you attack first and why?

If you don’t have one already, we recommend you develop a framework for fixing problems rather than winging it.

For us, diagnosing and fixing technique using a consistent and repeatable framework offers the best chance of developing consistent and repeatable results. It also enables any lifter to work with multiple coaches in our organization without conflicting feedback and confusion. This latter feature is a modern-day necessity if your gym, like ours, has members who work with multiple coaches.

With that in mind, here’s our framework for categorizing, diagnosing, prioritizing, and fixing errors in the snatch and clean & jerk: [Read more…]

Here are most of the major meets we’re looking at for 2018 with location, date, and qualifying deadline. Posting here in case it can help with your planning as well.

2018 National and International Meet Schedule, Qualifying Deadlines

To help you get into the proper starting position for the snatch and clean without cueing a million complicated details, we recommend you simply squat down to the bar, just as you would lower yourself in a back squat.

This will immediately put most people in an efficient and advantageous position for breaking the bar off the ground using their legs.
[Read more…]

UPDATE: November 12 is SOLD OUT too. Grab your spot for December while they last!

All prior sessions SOLD OUT. So we’re doing it again in November and December: Fix Your Technique Sunday!

We’ll be open Sundays November 12 and December 17 for custom coaching. Come fix your Olympic lift technique. Not a class but personal custom coaching.

[Read more…]