Figure18

Olympic Lfiting

Getting Cut With Olympic Style Lifting

When someone mentions olympic lifting, thoughts of huge weightlifters come to mind... Not figure competitors! Make no mistake about it... Olympic style lifting is the most demanding, calorie burning workout you can perform.

Olympic style lifting teaches you to use your body as a unit to lift heavier than normal weights. The energy expenditure is tremendous. This is what you need to lose body fat... Large amounts of energy expenditure! When you group the exercises correctly, this type of training will decrease the need for extra cardio because of the high number of calories burned during these workouts.

Women's Weightlifting Video

I always hated Physics

Olympic style lifting does involve a bit of a learning curve, because most people are use to training using single or multi-joint movements with limited momentum. Olympic style involves the largest muscles of your body and teaches you to use momentum to increase the amount of ‘work’ you do (in physics: work = force x distance)... And the more work you do, the more calories you burn!

Basic olympic style lifting, for the purpose of losing body fat, is fairly easy to learn (classic/competition lifting takes years to master). It is very important to start out slowly. Most of us have been trained to lift very strict and 'by the book.' You are actually teaching your body/brain new movements patterns, and this can take weeks to accomplish.

The one arm snatch is a modification of the Olympic style snatch. Momentum is used to lift the dumbbell overhead. As the dumbbell

is moving upward you will drop quickly into a squat. From the squat position (with the dumbbell still overhhead) you stand up. It is similar to the Olympic lift but done with one hand (watch video of

the Olympic snatch).

Not very many people teach olympic lifting techniques, football and track coaches may be your best resources. Anyone in the Buffalo, NY area (competitor or trainer) interested in learning these exercises can contact me and I will gladly show you how to perform them safely, in a way that will burn body fat and take your training to the next level. (personaltrainer1024@hotmail.com)

In the upcoming weeks I will break down and explain each of the lifts and their variations.

Terry Stokes, figure coach

Competition Figure Training

There are only two olympic lifts, the

‘clean and jerk’ and the ‘snatch.’ BUT each lift can be modified and trained in segments using barbells or dumbbells. The combinations are endless. The key is to use weights that allow you 8 - 15 reps. Workouts should be performed in a circuit type fashion (pure olympic lifting calls for maximum-weight lifts, we never perform maximum lifts). The idea is to use these movements to increase heart rate by performing multiple repetitions.

There is never a need to use excessively heavy weights!