Olympic Lifts

Donny Shankle takes you on a guided tour of the darkest place in weightlifting and explains how to get out.

Coming out of a clean quickly is a trained action. You can squat all you want to get stronger, but if you are not refining your skill at the clean, then your strong legs are not being put to use.

When viewing a weightlifter in the bottom of a clean, you should be able to draw a line… Continue Reading

Bill Starr recommends a host of exercises to build a strong upper back and neck.

For those athletes who participate in contact sports, such as hockey, lacrosse, football and soccer, having a strong neck is an absolute must. It can mean the difference between getting a stinger in the neck after a head-on-head collision or being carried off the field and into the emergency room.

The sad… Continue Reading

Two-time Olympian Chad Vaughn details four areas of focus if you really want to add weight to your snatch and clean and jerk.

Most athletes dive into the Olympic lifts without considering what really allows someone to lift the heaviest loads and move efficiently through high-rep workouts.

I have four keys to lifting the heaviest weights and moving well in the snatch and clean and jerk. They… Continue Reading

Alongside CrossFit Media’s Carey Peterson, two-time Olympian Chad Vaughn dissects his 315-lb. clean and jerk via slow-motion footage.

“Really the same for the snatch,” he says of his set-up. “I’ve just locked myself in here. I’m looking at the tension in the back, the back-angle maintenance, the shins coming back out of the way.”

With the shins vertical as the bar passes the knees, the clean becomes easier, says… Continue Reading

Pull it higher or pull yourself under? Bob Takano explains how to get under heavy bars fast.

There are two components involved in getting a bar overhead or up to the shoulders from the ground.

The most commonly conceptualized component is to lift the weight up to the required height. The second component is to lower the body under the bar. In the sport of weightlifting, both components are combined simultaneously by… Continue Reading

Chad Vaughn repeatedly tells Kayla Baumgardner to get comfortable in the bottom of her overhead squat.

Vaughn, a two-time Olympian, can tell being so low is an unfamiliar position for the 22-year-old, who is scheduled to compete at the Northern California Regional this year.

“You’re gonna have to get where you can hold tight in that bottomed-out position,” advises Vaughn, part owner of CrossFit CenTex in Belton… Continue Reading

Bob Takano recommends five drills perfect for anyone learning the snatch and the clean and jerk.

If we think of drills as exercises or activities performed to learn and refine technique, then it is appropriate to discuss those exercises, but it’s more important to know how and when to implement them into the technique training of a weightlifter.

It is perfectly natural and normal for many coaches to address their own… Continue Reading

In B.C., Canada, 71-year-old Dieter Stamm invests in the sport of weightlifting and the young athletes he coaches.

It’s a Saturday morning at Semiahmoo High School in White Rock, B.C.

It looks like an ordinary day at a weightlifting club. A dozen or so athletes, aged 9 to 25, are cleaning and snatching in a very unspectacular, almost beat-up weight room. The white walls are nearly barren, the weights… Continue Reading