Weightlifting is acknowledged as a crucial workout for building and toning muscles, as well as improving endurance and explosive strength. Yet, not all weightlifting is Olympic in nature.
So what exactly is Olympic weightlifting? Is it a good workout? Are there any disadvantages to it? We are here to answer if you are bombarded with all these questions.
In this article, you will learn about the following:
- Olympic weightlifting
- Pros and cons of Olympic Weightlifting.
Pros And Cons Of Olympic Weightlifting
What precisely is Olympic weightlifting? It is a weightlifting competition governed by the rules and guidelines of the United States (and the International) Olympic Committee.
The goal of competitive weightlifting is to lift more weight than your competitors, but there is more to it than that.
The amount of weight attempted changes according to weight class, which differs between men and women.
All lifts must be accomplished according to Olympic standards, and two or three judges determine if a lift is successfully completed or failed.
Let's talk about the pros and cons of Olympic weightlifting!
Pros Of Olympic Weightlifting
1. Transform your body
A snatch or a clean and jerk is a full-body, exciting, challenging exercise that works your legs, glutes, back, abs, shoulders, and arms simultaneously.
You burn a lot of calories in a short period throughout your workouts. Olympic lifts are an excellent technique to reduce body fat, build muscle, increase strength, and maximize your strength training time.
2. Increase your strength, power, and speed.
Snatches, clean, and jerks have some of the highest power outputs in sports. Power, a combination of strength and speed, is the main factor in allowing humans to run faster and jump higher.
The most effective technique to increase power and speed is to add Olympic lifts into training.
3. Boost Work Capacity
Olympic lifts are versatile, bringing several beneficial changes to your body depending on how you include them into your routines.
Olympic lifts can increase strength, speed, and power, improve high-intensity workout endurance, recover faster, and manage more training.
With enhanced work capacity, you may exercise more each session and reach your health and fitness goals more quickly.
4. Protect Against Injury
Olympic lifts are full-body movements that target the shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles, promoting joint flexibility and stability.
Managing a load across the ROM of all these joints is crucial to training the body for the high forces encountered in athletics and various activities of daily living.
A prior injury strongly predicts future harm; thus, using Olympic lifts in training and developing flexibility, strength, and stability will significantly reduce susceptibility to injury.
5. Increase Bone Density
Strengthening bones is especially important for women to avoid osteoporosis and bone fractures.
Olympic lifts generate high stresses on the legs, spine, and arms, which is precisely what the body requires to promote bone formation and density.
6. Enhance coordination
Olympic lifts are full-body motions that require precise coordination, rhythm, and timing. Developing body awareness and coordination benefits both sport performance and daily activities.
7. Improve Sport Performance
The Olympic lifts require an athlete to exert force into the ground by a quick and synchronized "triple extension" of the ankle, knee, and hip, similar to how sprinting and jumping, which are essential components of most sports, work.
After playing the sport, Olympic lifts offer the highest carryover to directly enhance sports performance in sports where strength, power, and speed are vital.
8. Improve Range of Motion
While some people relate heavy weight lifting with being stiff and bulky, nothing could be further from the truth. Olympic lifters are among the most mobile and flexible athletes in the Olympics.
9. Develop Dynamic Stability
People rarely need strength when stationary in sports or life, so it's necessary to stress the body in the gym to reflect that.
Olympic lifts give strength and stability around major joints at a fast speed of movement, which allows the body to be stable in daily activities and sports. Weightlifting exercises are genuinely functional.
Cons Of Olympic Weightlifting
1. Wear And Tear
All sports, especially contact and collision sports, place great strain and pain on the body's joints.
Football, baseball, rugby, volleyball, basketball, and wrestling are all sports that wreak on an athlete's wrists, elbows, shoulders, and spine.
Olympic lifts do the same thing; they jolt these joints. The catch of a clean jerk and snatch is incredibly strenuous on the body, and it's not uncommon for these joints to become gunky, bruised, and beaten while performing these lifts.
2. Transfer
The purpose of Olympic lifting is to power production, and they do a fantastic job of it, especially in professional athletes.
Unfortunately, Oly's movement is strictly a sagittal plane movement. This is acceptable for this specific activity, but athletics requires athletes to generate force and movement in various planes. Plane-specific motions are necessary for success on the field.
Instead of devoting 10-15 minutes to doing 6x3 of an Oly variant, practising power exercises in various shapes and patterns is preferable.
You may get 2-3 sets of KB swings, Med Ball variations, S/L variations, Transverse variations, and so on in the same amount of time.
3. Time
The time it takes to teach and learn is the basic argument against Oly's. Olympic lifts are, in reality, a sport, complete with all of the details and complexities that come with them.
Athletes competing in Olympic lifts must spend years learning and mastering the movements.
Instead of wasting time trying to enhance a lift by a small amount, why not add an exercise to provide the athlete with a fresh challenge and stimulus?
Wrap Up
Few exercises engage multiple muscle groups in complex movements that improve speed, balance, and strength throughout a wide range of motion– Olympic weightlifting is one of them.
But this exercise has its limitations and disadvantages, and you must consider its pros and cons before incorporating it into your workout.
Start with moderate motions rather than fast movements. This is possible with light weights and proper form.
We hope this article helped you with Pros And Cons Of Olympic Weightlifting.
