If you’ve been tuning into the action at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France, you might’ve found your way to a weightlifting event and wondered: How does this sport even work? Sure, weightlifting at the Olympics is simple on the surface. Spandex-clad superhumans throw loaded barbells overhead in the blink of an eye. The strongest...
By the numbers, weightlifting is thriving: The 2023 World Weightlifting Championships hosted more competitors than in any year prior. A few weeks after that, Bulgarian prodigy Karlos Nasar set social media ablaze with his 223-kilogram clean & jerk world record at the IWF Grand Prix II. An Instagram post documenting the lift has since racked...
In many ways, the sport of weightlifting is like skipping rocks: If you aimlessly chuck a rock out into the water, it’ll hit with a distinct plunk and sink right to the bottom. But if you get low and sling it correctly, that same rock will skim and bounce across the surface as though it...
The barbell starts motionless on the floor at every weightlifting competition and ends up at arm’s length overhead. That’s the game; get an object from point “A” to point “B” as quickly and efficiently as you can. Oh, and make sure that the bar is as heavy as possible as well. However, training for success...
If you’re on the hunt for a new way to improve your weightlifting game, the muscle snatch is an absolute game-changer. The muscle snatch can help you build explosive leg power, teach you how to be a powerful and aggressive vertical puller, and reinforce solid snatching mechanics to boot. The tremendous amounts of strength and...
The first time you ever saw someone doing a clean probably blew your mind. Most free-weight exercises are slow and controlled; take a bar (or pair of dumbbells) from here to there with a nice, consistent tempo. The clean, though? Over in the blink of an eye. And that’s without even mentioning how bizarre the...
Strength is strength. Fortunately, there’s a lot more to it than that. Human beings have competed in tests of strength since, essentially, the dawn of time. From crude rock-lifting competitions to the Olympic Games, strength has been systematized, economized, and categorized. Two of the most prominent disciplines in the world of strength are powerlifting and...
For weightlifters, they’re inseparable. Pitting the snatch and clean & jerk — the two competitive movements in the sport of Olympic lifting — against one another is, in many ways, an exercise in futility. After all, you wouldn’t strictly compare a knife against a fork; in many cases, they work better as a pair. That...
For a sport that tests only two competitive movements, Olympic lifting training involves a surprisingly broad array of different accessory and supplemental exercises. Weightlifters work to boost their strength in the snatch and clean & jerk by practicing those lifts specifically, but also rely on other tools to become stronger, faster, and more precise in...
Congratulations are in order; you found your way to weightlifting. Whether by seeing someone slam and stomp in your local gym or by scrolling through your Explore feed, your eyes fell upon someone performing the snatch or clean & jerk. Maybe you were entranced from the get-go, or perhaps you’re cautiously curious at best. Regardless,...
