Most women would give anything for the weighing scale to show a reading of 48kg. Most of the world would associate everything but a strong, ripped gold medal-winning weightlifter with a woman weighing 48kg. But Mirabai Chanu is not most women and has made a habit of surprising most of the world. She did exactly that in Glasgow as she broke three records on her way to clinching a Commonwealth weightlifting gold — her third consecutive gold since she won the first at Gold Coast in 2018. The 31-year-old, weighing a mere 48kg, snatched 85kg, a Commonwealth record, and clean and jerked 105kg, another record. Beyond Chanu’s golden streak, Indian weightlifters — both men and women — have won six silver medals and one bronze at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Such success on a global stage has got the gym folks (usually obsessing over Hyrox these days) enthusiastically discussing Olympic lifting at length once again.
No matter the sport, at the elite level all athletes and sportspersons have to perform Olympic lifting as part of their training regimen as it helps build strength, explosive power and makes the athletes muscles, tissues and joints resistant to injuries. No wonder England’s 800m specialist Keely Hodgkinson and India’s hurdles queen Jyothi Yarraji perform cleans and squats regularly. Anyone scrolling through social media has come across videos of Virat Kohli performing the cleans.
Footage from the gyms of any football club will show the footballers performing deadlifts, squats, cleans and shoulder presses. A strength training coach who works with India’s Olympic, Commonwealth and Asian Games athletes says throwers usually lift heavier than most and perform cleans with weights most people would likely never be able to even deadlift. Apart from helping athletes become stronger and perform better, Olympic lifting is great for Hyroxxers gunning to improve their timing and also for everyone aged 35 and above as it is a form of strength training, which helps build and preserve muscles at an age when humans start losing muscle due to advancing years.
While in a weightlifting contest the only two lifts that athletes like Chanu perform are snatch and clean and jerk, the two compound movements can be broken down into different parts. You must learn each part individually before attempting what Chanu and other weightlifters do on their way to the podium, says Ragini Rampal, a weightlifter who competes at the national level in Australia.
Rampal suggests starting with back and front squats before progressing to the jerk, snatch pulls, deadlifts. After mastering these basic and accessory movements, she suggests working on your jerk dips, snatch dips, muscle clean, muscle snatch, push-press and push jerk. Olympic lifting is an umbrella term involving movements such as deadlift, push-press, split jerk, hang clean, front, back and overhead squats, snatch balance and more. “One also has to work on the starting position, where to grip the bar, how close to the bar one ought to stand, the right hinge at the hips, positioning of the chest and shoulders and other such minor details. These are important because this sport requires every bit of power you possess… all these small details help you generate the power required to move those heavy weights,” says Rampal.
Since snatch and clean and jerk are extremely technical exercises, which have been an integral part of CrossFit right from the beginning, about 90% of your time is spent in training the accessory movements which build the requisite skill and ability to perform the two big moves, says Abhinav Kumar, coach and founder of Namma Crossfit in Bengaluru. “Only after your performance on the accessory movements are refined, you attempt the full movement to test your skill,” he says.
Rampal’s advice is to improve your strength on different blocks of movements such as deadlifts, squats, pulls and press. “The aim is to get stronger in each individual block, which all comes together to help you lift heavier at the end of it,” she adds.
Most elite weightlifters have a goal that they are chasing and hence typically train five to six days a week, often twice a day, working with very heavy weights. The weights that one lifts depends on the lifter’s one rep max and their goal. For example, if the lifter weighs 48kg and can push-jerk 105kg like Chanu, she would typically need to back squat about 130-135kg, front squat 125-30kg, deadlift 180-190kg and perform clean pulls with 130-150kg, explains Rampal.
However, those turning to Olympic lifting for fitness or as a new challenge do not have to lift anything close to those terrifying loads. Typically, people start out on a PVC pipe and spend hours working on technique before progressing to an empty barbell, says Kumar. “Once you can perform the movements with proper technique with the empty barbell should you go on and start adding weights. Training this way reduces the incidence of niggles and injuries and the full movement is performed very sparingly while still building your strength,” explains Abhinav, adding, “Special attention must be given to technique and intensity and do not be rushed into lifting too heavy too soon.”
Olympic lifting requires a whole lot of neuromuscular coordination and muscular involvement, which makes it a more well-rounded fitness routine compared to any other weight-based training programme, adds Kumar. “Since weight lifting emphasises overall fitness, you will realise that it leads to increased muscle mass and a drop in body fat. It also vastly improves general athletic capacity so that you can perform better in your weekend sports. Since you make significant gains in muscle strength and flexibility, you also become less prone to injuries,” he says.