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Olympic Lifting
At Victor Community Fitness, we include Olympic lifts in our fitness programing. Allow us to explain why...
What is Olympic Weightlifting?
Olympic Weightlifting is an elite sport involving precise muscle coordination, strength, speed and technical challenge. Similarly to powerlifting, this style of weightlifting focuses on loaded barbell movements. The goal being to successfully lift the heaviest weights possible for your skill level.
There are 2 Olympic lifts: The Snatch and the Clean & Jerk.
What are the benefits?
1. Increase strength and lean muscle mass.
Olympic lifting places a focus on fast-twitch or type-1 muscle fibers, which research suggests have the greatest potential for growth/hypertrophy.
This makes Olympic weightlifting a great option for people looking to build strength and develop an ahtletic build while still fostering speed and agility.
2. Helps improve your technique for other major lifts such as the deadlift and power clean.
When you train using compound movements (aka multi-joint exercises) you are working a large variety of muscles which translates to more strength and ability across a diversity of movements. Clean & Jerks and Snatches are a perfect example of this as they involve a series of steps for completion.
3. Maximizes results while simultaneously saving you time.
Because compound movements work such a wide range of muscle groups, the potential for caloric burn is higher AND you are able to develop full-body strength within only one movement. Low on time? Spending even 15-30 minutes working on a compound movement offers full-body benefits.
4. Olympic lifts offer the benefits seen with endurance training even with lower repetition training.
Olympic lifting has been shown to decrease resting heart rate and increase maximal oxygen consumption (aka VO2 max).
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