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The

7 Deadly SinsOf

Olympic Weightlifting and How to Avoid

Them

written by:Nick Horton

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Forward to the 2nd edition

The biggest problem with writing down your opinionsabout certain topics is that those opinions might changelater. Sometimes dramatically! If Emerson said,"consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," then anavoidance of rewriting is the ogre of arrogant writers.I wrote The 7 Deadly Sins of Olympic Weightlifting anumber of years ago, put it up onto The Iron Samurai siteand then promptly forgot about it. This happens, youknow. You write something that takes a lot of focus andeffort at the time, but as soon as it's left your sight,you're so focussed on the next project that yousometimes forget (for far too long) to go back and makesure that what you wrote previously is still in line with

how you are thinking today.Just like you, every reader who joins my newsletter listhas been getting a copy of this eBook for a good numberof years now. I've even got a fair amount of positivefeedback on it. So, the combination of positive responsewith "out of sight, out of mind" embedded my ownpredilection to just let it stand on its own and not bother

to go back and ... gasp, actually reread it!The other day, in testing out some new software to runmy newsletter, I signed up for my OWN list. There is

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nothing like getting an email from yourself congratulatingyou on deciding to get email from yourself.I went through the process of downloading the eBook (tomake sure the process is working correctly - due diligenceand all that) and then, on a whim, decided to actuallyopen the file and READ what I'd written over two yearsago.The first thing I noticed was that I didn't like the cluttered

formatting. I've gotten rather minimalistic as of late (ifyou've read my beginners guide to Olympic weightlifting,Samurai Strength, then you'll notice some similaritieshere).The second thing I noticed was that I still agreed with alittle bit of what was in there - especially the psychologicalstuff. In this rewrite, a few of the "Sins" haven't changed

much. Unfortunately, there was a third thing I noticed. There were a number of the Sins that I not only feltweren't expressing my current views particularly well, butwere almost the OPPOSITE of how I think about these

topics today. Some of them were simple technical issues.As I've become a better - and far more experienced -coach, my ideas have altered to fit reality. (It's always aproblem to go the other direction!)

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Other concerns were more pedagogical. The theory of teaching is a big deal to me. It IS my job. Acoach is a teacher. It's as simple as that. So the methodsof HOW we teach are as important as WHAT we teach. The way I was teaching the Olympic lifts to beginners anumber of years ago has changed dramatically. I'm nowusing a much faster, leaner, and more robust method, oneI've been able to test on hundreds of lifters. I don't want

to make the idiotic claim that I have THE answer to the"how" questions. But I CAN say that I have a betteranswer than the one I had over two years ago. This rewrite represents my current views about the Top 7Sins beginning weightlifters make.We're just scratching the surface of what my thoughts areon this subject. Thankfully for you, there's an entire blogwww.TheIronSamurai.com, a bookwww.SamuraiStrength.com, a video series, and even anupcoming podcast that you can go through to learn allyou can about how to be the best weightlifter you can be. Read this book first, then keep on reading and learning. I

promise I'll do the same. And if I decide in the future Ineed to update this thing (I will), then I'll just email youout the new copy.

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Introduction to the 1st Edition

The Olympic weightlifting movements the snatch, theclean, and the jerk are the closest things that we havein the strength training community to a panacea.They cure almost everything.If you have mobility and flexibility problems, learning howto overhead squat (the bottom of a snatch) will fix mostof them. If you are weak (most athletes are weak), thendoing heavy clean and jerks will make you strong. If youneed explosive power and to increase your vertical jump,both the lifts will dramatically improve that. Want to bemore agile? Reactive? Do the lifts.The list just keeps going on and on.And yet, it is extremely rare that strength andconditioning programs incorporate these lifts into theirroutines. Why? Because they are hard.

Even among the few programs that do have people doingsome Olympic lifting, it's usually just a simplified versionof a power snatch or power clean and usually from thehang.

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While I would agree that doing something is better thandoing nothing, it is sadly rare to see the full Olympicweightlifting movements done in a sports-related context and done properly.This book is designed to help you to correct a few of whatI see are the major issues stopping you from getting themost out of using these lifts in your own training. There'smore to it, of course, but these key things should get yougoing in the right direction.After you read this, make sure to check out my blogwww.TheIronSamurai.com I keep it updated with lots of information that will aid youin your quest to be a stronger and faster athlete with a

clear emphasis on the Olympic weightlifting movementsand their assistance work.

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Sin #1 Believing The Olympic Lifts

Are Too Hard to LearnNo Athlete has ever gotten anywhere in life with a can'tdo attitude. Sadly, many in the weightlifting community havecultivated that exact response in athletes by way ofperpetrating a series of myths about the Olympicweightlifting movements (the Snatch, the Clean, and theJerk). The most important of which is the idea that theselifts are just too hard to learn - at least for most athletes.And the other is that even for those athletes that couldlearn how to do them correctly, it isn't worth the time andeffort because it will just take far too long.This is just flat-out BS. Period.

It is a crock of sh$t that it takes 10,000 reps to learn howto properly do a snatch in a way that will be beneficial toyou.

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It is false that the snatch is the hardest thing to do in allof sports.It is not at all true that most athletes can't afford the timeto learn to do these things.Now it IS true that to get to the level of ELITE-levelcompetitive Olympic weightlifters that it will take on theorder of 10,000 reps (or more! And with heavy weights,all done correctly). It is also true, that the way that Elite lifters perform thesnatch makes it one of the most technically difficultmovements in all of sports. But, it is also true that most athletes don't need to learnthem to THAT level. And Let's be honest. Everything is like that. The way Usain Bolt runs is more technically perfect thanthe way that most of us do. Does that mean we should

stop sprinting?Of course not. Sprinting is an amazing form of exercise,even if you are not a sprinter.

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Should we stop doing chin ups because we'll never begreat gymnasts? Come on ...Your goal is to do the Olympic lifting movements in a safe,and performance-enhancing way; to do them in a waythat is as close to perfect as you can, so that you canreap the most benefit from them. This is a reasonable goal. And I'm here to tell you thatANY athlete can do it in a relatively short period of time.

(12 weeks flat if you follow the program in my book,Samurai Strength)Sure, you will need to work hard, be patient, and notwimp out. But, that's true of most things that are worth it like

marriage or beating your favorite video game (I'm a MarioKart guy, myself). So, why has this myth of the Olympic-lifts-as-impossiblegotten around and become so persistent?The first reason is that most strength coaches have never

figured out how to do these lifts themselves. If they don'teven know how to do them correctly how can they teachthem correctly?

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The other reason is that Olympic lifters as a group tend tobe a rather elitist group, by nature. It helps ensure theirstatus if they can perpetuate the myth that the snatch

and clean and jerk are just sooooo hard to do that youshouldn't even bother trying.I'm not saying that Olympic lifters are mean or rude. Infact, it's quite the opposite. As a community, they aresome of the nicest people around. The sport is so darnedsmall that they are super excited every time a new personenters it.That said, they ARE elitist. They think of what they do as the most important ofstrength sports. For instance, they call Powerlifters dumptrucks, and themselves sports cars it has a ring of truth,but it's condescending. They nitpick on form and technique as a way of remindingpeople just how hard it is to get it just right. They pat themselves on the back for having the patienceand the wherewithal to stick with these lifts long enoughto get good at them. And they are right.

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They are elitists for a reason. This stuff is hard, it takes awhile to get even decent at them, and when you do startto get it then amazing things start to happen to you. But, they aren't THAT hard to learn. For most people, getting to an intermediate level ofproficiency is plenty and will do wonders for your body.It'll take some time, it'll take hard work, but it's morethan doable.Don't ever let yourself get psyched out by this posturing.They don't mean it to be mean, but it ends up beingexactly that because it causes so many to give up beforethey even begin.You CAN and you WILL learn to do the Olympic lifts

correctly if you put in the time and the effort and have apositive attitude about the process. And once you get good, make sure you don't discourageothers from getting good at them too!

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Sin #2Not Getting the Bar into the

HipSin number two is the first of the technical sins. And,along with sin number three, deals specifically withmaximizing your vertical jump. If you can't finish the pullon your Olympic lifts correctly, then you are forgoing thepoint of doing them.The trouble is the a proper Olympic lift isn't really like ajump (more on this later). Simply putting a bar in yourhands and jumping upward, then catching it on yourshoulders isn't a very good way to learn how to do thepull correctly. Yet, that is exactly how it is taught in mosthigh schools, colleges, etc.Check out the two pictures below. The first is of my lifter,Peter, at what we'll call, "The Hip Position". The second isof my other lifter, Brandon, at full extension.

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I like to break the pull from the floor-up into three distinctpositions that I call:- The Start (or Floor) position- The Knee Position- The Hip Position(By the way, I didn't make this stuff up. I've adapted it -and nearly everything else I do - from the stuff I've

learned from other coaches like Tom Hirtz, Glenn Pendlay,Don McCauley, Sean Waxman, John Broz, and GregEverett, just to name a few. Be smart, don't try toreinvent the wheel all the time. Find what's worked forothers and find a way to adapted to your needs and yoursituation.)The most important of these three is the Hip Position.If you did everything else wrong, but you got this right,then you'd be 80% of your way to being a goodweightlifter. However, if you got everything else right, butgot this wrong, you're only at about 20%. Seriously. I'm not saying that hyperbolically. It is THAT

important!OK ... so, what do I mean by "hip" position. For athorough explanation, see my video "How to Snatch, Part1" where I explain how to move from the Hip position, up;

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and the second "How to Snatch, Part 2" where I explainhow to move from the Knee to the Hip.But, for now, let's go over the basics. The bar starts at the hip - literally. It should be touchingyou! Your shoulders are behind the bar (or at the most,right on TOP of the bar). They are not forward over thebar, here. Your heels are planted firmly on the ground.The legs should be in about a quarter-squat position:

knees forward a touch. Recap:- Bar touching Hips (on Snatch, high up the thigh oncleans)- Shoulders behind the bar- Legs in a (roughly) quarter-squat position

What about all that talk about extending, triple-extension,shrugging, etc?You aren't there yet!The Hip Position is the spot you hit the moment BEFOREyou "finish your pull". Finishing hard and extending isgreat ... but worthless if you don't hit this spot first.

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Here's the rub. If you were to take a video of aweightlfter, slow it down, and check out each frame, theHip Position would take up maybe ONE of those frames. It happens FAST.

Over time, a good weightlifter makes hitting this spot soingrained that they never need think about it. How couldthey at that speed?! But, the DO hit it.I strongly suggest that you spend a solid amount of timein the begining just standing in this position using abroom stick.

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Sin #3 Not Working Hard Enough, OR,

Not Facing Your FearOne of my coaching mentors, Tom Hirtz, taught me one ofthe most important lessons I've ever learned as a coach:Hard work trumps everything else.If you mess up everything, but you still work your tail off,you'll go far. If you are lazy, if you don't push yourselfbeyond your own comfort levels and boundaries, if youdon't stay with it no matter how tough it gets, then itdoesn't matter how much you know or how smart theprogram is that you're on ... you'll fail.When I tell you to work hard, however, I don't just meanthe physical stuff. You DO need to push yourself on thebig lifts. But just as importantly you need to push yourselfto be a stronger person psychologically.The problem is that Olympic weightlifting just isn't likeother sporting activities. It's combining two things that a

smart person wouldn't have combined: Heavy weightswith massively complex technique. Crazy!Most sports are one or the other.

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Golf is technical ... Powerlifting has heavy weights.The Pole Vault is about finesse ... Strong Man is mostlyabout "bruting" it out.Olympic weightlifting (especially the Snatch) is just ascomplex as the Pole Vault, but with weights that areheavy enough for a Powerlifter. What this means for YOU is that you'll always bestruggling to keep your great technique - the techniqueyou worked SO hard to drill in at light weights - when theweights get heavy. It's something that happens in my gym everyday. A liftercame to me a month or so back, they spend a lot of timedrilling with light weights, an empty bar, even just a PVC

pipe. They built up confidence in their ability to performthe movements correctly all the while building up theirsquatting strength.The day comes to start adding weight to the bar, andguess what happens? They freak out.You see, lifting light weights correctly is about technique.Can you do it? Do you know what to do? Are you able tomove the bar correctly without having to THINK?

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Lifting heavy weights correctly is about not getting in yourown way. When fear sets in, it turns you into a moron.Your brain gets over-active, you start thinking about every

little thing that can go wrong, and you psyche yourselfout. The form that you worked SO hard on disappears ...and you miss.What is obvious is that you have to work hard on big liftslike squats to get strong. What is less obvious, and takestime to learn and make intuitive, is that you have to workhard to overcome your own fears that WILL hold you

back. Mediocre weightlifters NEVER learn this. They spend theirentire careers stuck at a low plateau, progress halted longago, because they never put in the (very) hard work ofovercoming their fears and learning how to lift HEAVYweights with great form. Great lifters did.Work HARD. Not just at the strength stuff, or the technicalstuff, but at the mental stuff.

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Sin #4Believing that Weightlifting isJumping with a Bar In Your

HandsThe way most people are taught how to do the Olympiclifts is sometimes referred to as the Jump and Catchmethod. You start people at roughly the knee position,then simply tell them to drag the bar up, and jump ashard as they can, then catch it.This is exactly how I used to teach the lifts I waswrong. This is a horrible method of instruction. And I'm

embarrassed that I used it for so long.The problem with this method is that it sets people up fora myriad of disgusting bad habits that are then extremelydifficult to break them of. Weightlifting is NOT jumping with a bar in your hands. Itis distinct from jumping.Yes, sometimes we'll use words like "jump" to forcepeople to use their legs rather than their arms to movethe bar. But as helpful as this tool is for people who are

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RANK beginners - who still haven't learned that liftingheavy weight off the floor is a lower body activity, not avariant of the biceps curl - it doesn't change the fact that

it is wrong.There are a few key differences between jumping andsnatching/cleaning. The primary one is that jumping is aquad-dominant activity and the Olympic lifts are glute-dominant activity. The quads play a role. And, like in ajump, you end up extending forcefully at the hip andknees. But the way you do them is quite different.The confusing bit is that getting very good at the Olympiclifts makes people much better at jumping! But ONLY ifyou do it correctly.How can that be? How is it that learning how to do anexercise that I just said wasn't like jumping can be so

helpful in getting people to jump higher?Because doing the Olympic lifts correctly will build MOREstrength and power in the muscles that are used most forjumping. Doing the lifts in a vain effort to mimic the jumpcauses you to use far less weight than you normally could(with proper technique), minimizes the explosive powerthat could have been generated, and therefore puts less

stress on the muscles and nervous system.It is the same reason why sprinters learn to squat anddeadlift on their heels - correctly - rather than on theirtoes. Yes, when you sprint, you are on the balls of your

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feet. That doesn't NOT mean that you'll be a bettersprinter if you learn to deadlift while on the balls of yourfeet!There are many similarities between jumps and Olympiclifts. They are complimentary. Getting great at one willcertainly bleed into the other. But make sure you go outof your way to learn how to do the lifts correctly, as they'dbe done by a weightlifter, if you want to see the greatestcarryover to your vertical.

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Sin #5

Pulling Rather Than Drivingthe Bar

I'm about to backtrack, here. I said I don't want you to"jump", but that doesn't mean I don't want you tomaximally use your legs!It is a sad thing that the pull in weightlifting is called "thepull". It should be called "The Drive". The reason is thatthere is this horrible psychological thing that happenswhen you tell someone to pull on a bar - they overusetheir arms and back, and underuse their legs and hips.

Make no mistake, the Olympic lifts may not be exactly likejumping, but they are a hell of a lot more like jumpingthan they are like curling! What I prefer is to tell someone to Drive the heels into theground as forcefully as you can, for as long as you can. At

the top of the "pull" (going from the Hip Position to fullextension) you're legs and hips should be driving at fullforce and max speed. Drive your heels DOWN!

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I don't want you thinking about shrugging, either. That'san upper body thing that is for later when you are moreadvanced. All you need to be focussing on for now islearning how to properly use your hips and legs.An Olympic lift is basically an odd combination of aRomanian Deadlift (Hamstrings), a Hip Thrust (Hips/Glutes), and a Jump (Quads). All of the rest is minorstuff. If you can combine a powerful and full Hip extension witha powerful and full knee extension, and time it all justright, you've got yourself one kick-butt lift. The rest isicing on the cake.Learn to drive the heels into the ground, don't pull the bar

up.

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Sin #6Infrequent Practice

Unlike so many of my colleagues in the Strength Coachingcommunity, I don't have it out for CrossFit. In fact, I actively try and cultivate a relationship withpeople who do CrossFit because these folks have ahealthy respect and love of Olympic weightlifting. Andbecause these are some HARD working people. I'venever had a CrossFit athlete come in and whine and cryabout the workouts being too hard ever. They hit thegym and they work their tails off. I respect that.However, with that said, CrossFit's style of training is aclassic example of the type of training that is designed tocause people to not get very good at the Olympic lifts. The problem? They don't do the lifts enough. CrossFit isvery random, it's that way by design, and that's totallycool. It's a great conditioning system if you're into that

kind of thing. But, that randomness makes learning hard. No system oflearning can thrive on randomness. Instead, learningthrives on consistency and repetitiveness.

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Practice, practice, practice

You're goal is to LEARN something new, not just toworkout.Now, I don't want to pick on CrossFit. The fact is, moststrength and conditioning programs don't attack theOlympic lifts nearly enough. (If at all!!)When you are learning the snatch and the clean, you needto do them at the beginning of EVERY workout. And youneed to do these workouts a good 3 to 5 days a week.(I've gotten results with people doing as little as 2 days aweek, but it's rare, and the progress is slower.)Again, learning the Olympic lifts is like learning alanguage. If you don't practice Spanish but 1 or 2 days aweek (if that) then you will never learn how to speakSpanish. You might learn how to ask where the bathroomis, and how to order some extra hot sauce, but that'sabout it.If you want to be better than mediocre at this stuff, then

for a while, be serious about practice. I tell people the Olympic lifts are more like Tai Chi or KungFu than they are like Weight lifting (2 words). Whenpeople think about weightlifting they think about getting

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stronger. It's true, of course, that you'll get stronger. Butthe Olympic lifts are more than that.They are NOT like riding a bike. You can't just get into itfor a week and learn how to do it, and then rememberhow to do it for the rest of your life. It's going to take a lot of time and effort and persistenceon your part to get this stuff down. Now, like I said before, they aren't the hardest things inthe world to learn. You can and will learn how to do theselifts if you put your mind to it. But, it won't happen by magic. You have to put the workin. And you have to put that work in OFTEN.

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Sin #7Being Too Serious About It All

The reason we're all doing this in the first place is becausewe find it so darned fun. Never forget that. You'll go through periods where you'll be extremely

frustrated. You'll fail a lot. (I like to say that if you aren'tfailing, you aren't trying.) You'll suffer, trust me. But thatdoesn't mean that you can't laugh and have a great timethrough it all. Most of us will never be great national champions, letalone world champions. We have to have other reasonsfor doing this. To quote myself in my book, Samurai

Strength:"Learning How to Snatch Makes You a Better Person"

Sound crazy? Well ... I'm serious!The work you put into learning how to do the Olympic liftswill improve your body AND your mind. We know what itdoes for the body. But you may not yet be aware of whatit can do for your mind.

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- You'll get better at dealing with stress. - You'll learn how to control your fear response. - You'll learn how to quite your mind.Imagine what life would be like if you could tell your brainto stop over thinking - and it actually listened to you?That's what happens in a successful snatch or clean withheavy weight. You MUST be able to turn your mind off,make it quiet, calm, so that you can allow the body to dowhat it was trained to do. These are skills you learn along the way to becoming abetter weightlifter. In fact, many lifters don't even realizeit's happening. But it is. At first, you'll learn to have great technique with an emptybar, but not be able to keep it up when you put just a few

pounds on it. Then you'll get to a point where most of thetime you're lifts look good at 60%, but anything heavierand the form gets ugly.Eventually, you can make lifts look good at 80%, then90%, then 95% ...What's happened is the lifter became better able tocontrol their own mind. It no longer gets in the way.If you can have perfect technique - without thinking aboutit - with and empty bar. Then you should be able to have

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great technique with heavy weights ... but ONLY if youdon't get in your own way.You will. For a very long time, you will get in your ownway. That's totally natural. Don't beat yourself up about it.But slowly, you'll get better and better able to stay out ofyour own way. You'll learn to trust your instincts and yourtraining. Believe me, that kind of personal growth extends out toevery area of your life.Now go lift something heavy,Nick HortonBlog: www.TheIronSamurai.comWeightlifting Team:www.PDXWeightlifting.com Book: www.SamuraiStrength.com