Having looked yesterday in Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: OL’ing Part 1 at the origin and history of weightlifting along with the basics of competition and judging I want to spend today giving a brief overview of the technique of the lifts.  Please note, this is going to be extremely general and I will be leaving out a lot of details, much to the chagrin of those who know the lifts.

Numerous books and hundreds if not thousands of pages of analysis have been dedicated to this topic, I’m spending a post on it.   So don’t get all twisted if I leave out some miniscule detail such as the need to flex the wrists during the ‘third pull’ (NB: there is no fourth pull despite what some particularly misguided individuals seem to think).  I’ve also provided links to the best sources of English language information on the lifts, technique, how to do and learn them, etc.  If you want details, go there.  This is mainly background for tomorrow.

OL’ing Technique: Introduction

Sports can vary drastically in how much or how little technique plays a role in their successful performance.  Make no mistake, all sports have technique but some are relatively more or less sensitive to proper (and improper) technique than others. For example, it’s not uncommon to see some really ugly elite distance runners. It’s an activity where poorer technique can be overcome through sheer grinding work.  It’s also a fundamental human movement pattern which is probably why conditioning can overcome technique.  It’s also why running is easy to pick up.  The same can be said for cycling (which I described previously as seated running with gears).

In contrast, very, very little about the technique of Olympic lifting has anything to do with normal human movement patterns with one exception (the much vaunted triple extension) which I’ll discuss below.   In this sense it’s a lot like swimming and speedskating and that’s part of the reason I discussed both.  None of those three sports has much in common with normal human movement patterns and all three are exceedingly sensitive to technique (or the lack thereof).

Continue reading Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: OL’ing Part 2