Introduction
Olympic Weightlifting is really a sport through which athletes compete to the total weight of 2 lifts: the snatch as well as the clean & jerk. The courses methods utilized in Weightlifting may also be used by Strength & Conditioning coaches as a means of weight training to get a great deal of other sports. Most significant causes of exploiting various weight training modalities such is for power development. There are several variations on the theme of power training. Some training modalities include plyometrics (Wilson, Elliot & Wood 1990), assisted and resisted training (Faccioni 1993a; 1993b) and speed and acceleration drills (Cinkovich 1992). A trendy method employed to increase athletic power is Olympic Weightlifting (ie power cleans, push presses, snatches, jump jerks in addition to their variations) conducted from the exercise (Garhammer, 1993). It has traditionally been described as efficient of manufacturing general explosive ability (Takano 1992; Stone 1993; Garhammer & Gregor 1992). However, there are additional important considerations which need to become addressed when implementing Olympic lifting exercises to the Strength & Conditioning program of your athlete, a few of these include movement competency, training age, sport and training time with athlete. The intention of this short article by Elite Performance Institute (EPI) would be to supply a biomechanical and physiological discussion as to the reasons weightlifting workouts are necessary to improve athletic performance and the way they should be performed in a training program. For more information, go to www.epicertification.com
Power Defined
Power continues to be looked as the best blend of speed and strength to make movement (Chu 1996). More specifically, power represents draught beer the athlete to make high levels of work through a certain distance. The more power an athlete possesses the better the amount of work performed (Wilson 1992). Power is really a blend of strength and speed:
POWER = FORCE (strength) X VELOCITY (speed to move)
There are several physiological and neural adaptations which comprise the force component (Moritani 1992). Physiological adaptations to strength incorporate more muscle tissues through hypertrophy, ligament density and bone integrity (Tesch 1992a). Neural adaptations (Schmidtbleicher 1992) which can be produced are: (1) increased recruitment of motor units; (2) increased firing rate of motor neurones; (3) synchronised firing of motor neurones; (4) boost in intra-muscular coordination; and (5) boost in inter-muscular coordination.
Speed to move consists of various 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 utilisation of the series elastic component.
Olympic Weightling exercises facilitate continuing 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 Certification UK regarding the type of strength developed from each exercise, session or phase of education from the program. As a result, the Strength & Conditioning coach can effectively plan what sort of power they would like to develop and which training modality (powerlifting, Olympic liftining, plyometrics, etc) is best utilised to elicit these adaptations.
Conclusion
Concern still exists regarding ef?cacy of including Olympic weightlifting exercises from the weight training programs of athletes in sports aside from weightlifting. These concerns generally fall into 3 broad categories: 1) Perceived time needed to discover the movements as a result of complexity with the lifts. 2) Too little understanding of the opportunity bene?ts which can be produced from performing Olympic lifting exercises correctly. 3) Concern within the potential for injury caused by doing these weightlifting movements.
It is evident there is a great number of biomechanical benefits of doing these lifts with limited disadvantages. The biggest risk continues to be with the perceived danger of doing these lifts. Judging by the evidence presented by Brian Hammill with the British Weightlifting Association (BWLA), it may be stated with con?dence that this risk of harm can be as low or less than most sports as long as there is quali?ed supervision furnished by certi?ed Strength and Conditioning coach who have been competent in coaching the weightlifting movements.
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