HOW OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFTING SKILLS TRANSFER TO SPORT PERFORMANCE
Introduction
Olympic weightlifters are known for their technique and impressive strength and explosive power. It’s no surprise that weightlifters are among the highest vertical jumpers and most powerful athletes.
But did you know that Olympic weightlifting skills also carry over, or transfer, to sport movements and basic skills?
These explosive lifts became the driving force behind my rise in world rankings in track and field. By training with elite lifters and studying motor learning I discovered how to leverage these lifts to substantially impact skill development in sport performance.
For decades I’ve used specialized variations to improve coordination and movement mechanics, sharpen movement knowledge and perceptions, and minimize plateaus.
In this post, I’ll share ways to use these indispensable coaching tools to help athletes learn faster, train smarter, and gain a competitive edge.
Olympic Weightlifting Skills
Olympic weightlifting is a competitive sport that requires impressive lifting technique and explosive strength. The goal is to lift maximum loads in two events, or skills: the snatch, and the clean and jerk.
Olympic Weightlifting Skills
Athletes in other sports train with simpler variations to develop strength, speed, and explosive power. Learning these lifts also carries over, or transfers, to similar movements in basic skills like sprinting, jumping, and throwing/striking—the foundations of sport skills.
The Transfer of Learning Principle
The transfer of learning principle states that similar qualities shared between skills transfer, dissimilar qualities do not.
For example, the clean pull from the floor is a great lift to improve vertical jumping because the body movements they share are similar. Strength and explosive power further boost jump height. However, the arm actions are different, so they will not transfer to jumping.
Transfer also works within skills. Coaches use the progressive-part method of first teaching simpler variations, like the hang clean and clean pull) to teach correct technique in the full clean.
Why Transfer Works
Transfer works because training hardwires movements into an athlete’s long-term memory as a generalized motor (movement) program (GMP). Once learned and stored in the brain, athletes can recall the same program for similar sport movements, but with the latitude to make adjustment as needed.
So, when athletes develop and store the GMP for the clean pull in motor memory, they can also use it for skills like snatch pull, power clean, power snatch, and vertical jump.
Sprinting movements are stored in motor memory.
The same motor program can be applied to jumping forward, off one or both feet, and for other skills with similar qualities.
It’s important to learn correct technique and movement mechanics because errors are programmed into motor memory and transfer to sport movements, too. And errors are much harder to correct once they’re well learned.
4 Ways Lifting Skills Transfer to Sport Performance
Explosive lifting skills can impact: (a) fitness abilities, (b) coordination, (c) movement knowledge, and (d) perceptions in athletic performance
Fitness Abilities
Fitness abilities are physical qualities like strength, speed, coordination, flexibility, balance, and combinations that you can target. These abilities are inborn qualities that make athletes more capable of performing skills.
The Olympic lifts and variations are skills that develop speed-strength qualities and other fitness abilities that transfer to sports with the same fitness demands.
In sprints, for example, explosive and reactive strength can improve jump and sprint performances, balance, flexibility, and posture.
By lowering the bar to the floor with lighter loads (less than 85% max), athletes can gain more strength from eccentric contractions and improve dynamic balance and coordination.
Coordination
Coordination is the goal that separates athletes from fitness exercisers.
The muscles of coordinated athletes work together smoothly and efficiently with just the right force, speed, direction, and timing, so little effort is wasted performing skills.
Experts concur that knowing the roles and actions of muscles is virtually useless in sport performance. Simply exercising muscles based on the movements they are capable of making will not improve coordination or even develop muscles in ways they work in sports.
To maximize performance, training must also target coordination, and weightlifting exercises are a great way to do it. They are, in effect, instructional tools that (a) teach basic movement patterns and (b) add variation, both of which speed up learning and performance.
A. Teach Basic Movement Patterns
Sprint speed improves with longer, faster strides and shorter touchdown times.
I’ve used the split jerk and variations to target speed and movement mechanics to limit deviations that take away from driving forward. Pulling from the floor combined with split jerk variations enhance explosive power for faster starts and longer strides. Any lifts with quick foot movements (hang clean, power snatch) help develop shorter touchdown times.
Jump height or distance depends on how fast an athlete is moving at takeoff. Pulling movements from the floor to full extension (clean pull, snatch pull, power clean) teach jump mechanics boosted by explosive power (increased rate of force development) to accelerate the jumper to maximum speed at takeoff.
Clean pull from the floor to full extension.
The “double knee bend” or “scoop” in weightlifting simulates how an athlete “gathers” by re-bending the knees before the final triple extension and takeoff. Slow strength lifts, like the dead lift, use the same muscles, but not the same coordination.
Throwing for distance depends on the speed, angle, and height at which an implement like the shot put is released. Here, too, the explosive sequence of movements and quick touchdown times help accelerate an implement to maximum speed. The thrower can increase height of release by rapidly accelerating off the ground.
With coordination, it feels easier to perform skills and lift more weight with less effort.
Plus, you can learn coordination faster than you can gain strength, so it doesn’t take long to feel real improvements.
B. Add Variation to Promote Learning and Transferability
Athletes learn skills faster when practice and training activities vary rather than mindlessly repeating the same movements.
Variation is essential for acquiring skills and transferring coordinated movement patterns between skills.
Explosive power and coordination in rugby.
Olympic weightlifting derivatives offer endless options for variation in exercises, movement ranges, speed, weight loads, grip width, and more.
Variation within a range of movement:
1. Improves motor memory and teaches athletes to adjust skill execution under varying competitive situations.
2. Promotes strength gains. When muscle groups work together smoothly with lighter loads, fewer motor unit are activated, leaving more available for activation within muscles for heavier loads.
3. Limits plateaus and prevents boredom, so athletes make steadier gains over time.
Movement Knowledge
Movement knowledge is an athlete’s understanding of how their body can move. Learning these concepts in childhood is gives teaches basic movements and sets the stage for selecting meaningful cues for similar movements stored in memory.
But weightlifting can help. Even when lifting movements and sport movements are somewhat different, they may share the same general movement concepts.
For example, I often associate the “slow-to-fast” rhythm in the power clean to the same concept in throws and jumps. It helps them understand to start slower and accelerate to maximum speed on release of takeoff, rather than start too fast and slow down.
Similarly, I use the lifts to reinforce the concept of using the lower body to generate force before the arms in throwing and striking skills.
Perceptions
Perceptions are an athlete’s interpretation of what they see, hear, and feel. Experienced athletes know how to perform skills, and their perceptions accurately match their movements (called perception-action coupling). Less skilled athletes are not so perceptive.
For example, a sprinter may perceive that their feet are pointing forward, but they’re really pointing slightly outward, it slows them down. But if they become aware of and train with correct foot positioning in the split jerk, it often transfers to sprinting.
Typically, as athletes gain awareness of their movements, they will improve mechanics in skills where they have similar misperceptions.
Takeaways
Now that you can view training exercises as skills that impact sport movements, you have some great tools to get better, faster results than if you limit your lifts to only strength building.
Together, these lifts can help you accelerate learning, build strength and explosive power, minimize plateaus, and prevent boredom.
Using the transfer of learning principle as a guide, you can now target sport qualities with similar ones in Olympic weightlifting skills. And you can apply this principle to sport practice, drills, and conditioning exercises, too.
To optimize transfer, be sure to vary the exercises, ranges of movement, weight loads, and more over a training period.
It’s important to teach correct technique and safety. Catalyst Athletics is a great resource with instructional videos, articles, and more. I highly recommend getting certified with USA Weightlifting (Level 1).
For more on the transfer of learning, variation, power training, and applications, two of my favorite texts are:
Motor Behavior: Connecting Mind and Body for Optimal Performance
Motor Learning and Control for Practitioners
Please check out more posts about how to build better athletes faster and get an edge on the competition.
