Olympic Lifting For Team Sports
The Olympic Lifting Question For Team Sports.
Incorporating Olympic lifting into GAA, football, rugby, and other team sports is a long-term project. You must accept that some of your players can’t, won’t, or shouldn’t go near these lifts.
That said, if you can integrate them into your programme, the benefits in speed and power can be significant.
If you are not proficient in Olympic lifts, do not attempt to coach them. Instead, focus on alternative exercises and move on. My best advice for athletes is to seek out a qualified Olympic lifting coach. The same applies to aspiring strength and conditioning coaches—learning from a specialist is invaluable (https://defygravity.ie/).
Don't get these bars for Olympic lifting.
I would almost never have team sport athletes lift from the floor, and I strongly recommend using the right equipment. Cheap 30mm Olympic bars are terrible for these lifts—avoid them altogether.
When coaching younger players on hang cleans or hang snatches, the best starting point is the front squat. The front squat mimics the clean catch position, helps athletes become comfortable with the Olympic bar, and familiarises them with essential gym practices—using J-hooks, racking weights, and stripping bars.
Many will be surprised by how restricted they feel in the catch position initially.
In recent years, I’ve introduced heel raises to help athletes achieve better squatting positions. I see no issue with this—weightlifting shoes are essentially fancy heel raises anyway. Achieving an optimal front squat position takes patience, mobility work, and time, but it is worth the effort.
This is a key position for the front squat and can be achieved with patience, mobility work, and time.
Keep your reps low (please don't do high reps on Oly lifts) practice a tonne with broomstick handles and do your stretching and chances are you could be snatching or cleaning your way to faster sprint times (maybe).
Over time they will hang clean pretty well, getting kids in the gym young to build good habits is the key.
Things I have noticed with Olympic lifting variations with teams that may help you -
Chiefly I coach hang snatch and hang clean - I coach the Harry Leech inspired way.
1, Warm-up is crucial, skip this at your peril. Think about a tonne of practice with dowels, light training bars, and just general mobility. The looser and warmer you are the better before you attempt the Olympic Lifts.
A simple routine of stretching on the wrists, lats, quads, and T-spine can help Olympic lifting technique.
2, Recording the lifts helps you coach a tonne. Sending your athletes good videos on technique helps too.
A TV screen or an Ipad can give your players great feedback on their technique and issues.
3, Your athletes will be incredibly "arm" dominant. This is a habit built up from their "curls and sit-ups" days. You'll say loose arms, or your arms are like ropes 1 million times.
4, Good equipment helps 100%.
5, A mirror in small doses helped me coach my athletes big time. Don't let them use it all the time though.
6, Chalk adds a "cool" factor and reduces slippy bar syndrome which will aid technique greatly, liquid chalk is only ok. In a team setting, you'll have ten pairs of hands on one bar, the sweat will produce lots of slippy bars, so chalk might help you coach a good bit.
7, Getting your athletes in good solid runners is the best you can hope for, if they buy weightlifting shoes you'll see massive improvements, encourage them to buy them. In fact, proper runners for gym training, in general, is a huge bed bug of mine. I constantly make my athletes buy a decent pair of runners just for gym use.
A chart I hand all my players - poor runners kills technique
8, Don't over coach, let them make mistakes - but let them make them with a lightweight. Think about John Wooden, Do this, Don't do this, Do that.
9, When you're coaching have a light bar nearby to show technique, Olympic lifting is not a good idea without a warm-up (especially with my mobility), don't be tempted to just jump in coaches! I have a dodgy neck as a result. Buy some cheap wooden dowels and do the Olympic lift warm-up
10, Be patient - good technique takes time. If the session descends into chaos be sure to have a fallback exercise. Simple things like Dumbbell jumps, Hex Bar Jumps, DB Snatch can be a nice fallback.
11, You will say keep the bar close to your body 1 million times. A good thing to try is to hold a gym mat in front of the player when they lift (with a lightweight) and make them keep it closer to their body.
Simple set up - Bars waiting to go, different weights on the bars, kids in a line waiting for their turn. Add some mobility work in the waiting time.
12, Always ask yourself, did that lift pass the crap test, if it looked crap it was crap, if it didn't it wasn't. Remember, these are team sport athletes, not elite Olympic lifters so allow some leakage.
13, You'll never have enough time to coach them, be strict with your time in the session. I budget for 20mins including warm-up, it will take around 3-4 weeks for your athletes to like them.
There’s one more bonus to coaching Olympic lifts—athletes are often fascinated by them. It’s one area of S&C where simply watching a video on an app or YouTube isn’t enough.
If you, as a coach, are proficient in these lifts, it also earns you respect—and respect is crucial in coaching. I regularly record my adult players performing the lifts and send them feedback. They love it, and before long, good athletes start moving impressive numbers.
While choosing exercises just because they look cool isn’t ideal, for more experienced athletes, Olympic lifts can introduce a new challenge and focus—something they genuinely enjoy.
Summary:
I am a huge fan of Olympic lifting variations for my athletes—I’ve seen them transform individuals into undeniably more explosive athletes. However, I fully acknowledge that some strength coaches consider them a waste of time for team sport athletes, and I’m completely fine with that perspective. The reality is, you can develop power without them.
Modalities like Hex Bar Jumps, Dumbbell Jumps, Plyometrics, and Complex Training (to name just a few) can all enhance power—often with less complexity. That said, I personally enjoy the challenge of coaching Olympic variations. I also know that if an athlete walks into my weight room for the first time and executes them well, they’ve clearly had an excellent strength coach in a previous life.
I hope you found these tips useful. To be clear, I’m not an Olympic lifting coach—I’m simply an S&C coach who teaches Olympic lifting variations to my more advanced athletes.
Happy coaching.
Coach Hare