Stronger Athletes

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Decide For Yourself

September 2 "When you are an anvil, hold still; When you are the hammer, strike your fill." -George Herbert

If tone of this article sounds repetitious...it is. We feel that to start our 2nd year off we should lay down one of our fundamental stances early and often. For those who follow our website regularly we hope you understand. For those who are just "browsing" we hope you stick around and help us spread the word about safe, productive and efficient strength training.

StrongerAthletes.com cannot emphasize enough that coaches should take all Olympic type of exercise out of their program whether it is off or in-season. These types of lifts are dangerous and unnecessary. An important part of a proper training program is to prevent injuries.

In his article, "Improper Training", Dr. Ken Leistner states, "The purpose of an off-season weight program is to reduce the incidence and severity of on-field injury, not produce injury itself or leave the player prone to injury during play." A well said statement.

We get many e-mails from coaches stating that the bench press ands squat , and deadlift are the exercises in which injuries occur. If done slowly, not in powerlifting manner the lifts are much safer than performing a lift in a ballistic manner.

The ballistic nature of the Olympic lifts are what we feel make the lifts dangerous. However, many of these coaches say that the Olympic variation lifts do not even involve momentum. They are very persistent in their beliefs. Come On! Quit fooling yourself and be sensible. We believe many of these coaches were taught this way and think that it is the only way to train. This is unfortunate.

Now, we mean no disrespect to these coaches and particularly the Olympic lifting athletes. We enjoy watching the sport of Olympic lifting. We just do not believe that the quick lifts belong in strength training program in other sports other than Olympic lifting itself.

Many coaches, especially at the high school level, have these Olympic type of lifts in their program and do not know why. To say that it works for Nebraska or some other school is not a good enough response. Take a look at our Teams Page and you will see very successful teams that do not do them. The intent of this article is not to question the intelligence of coaches with respect to strength training but to inform them to research the negative effects of Olympic lifting for sports and ask yourself: Is this lift worth the risk? Most teams that perform these lifts perform the slow controlled movements such as squat, deadlift, and shoulder press etc... Could it be that these lifts are developing power and explosiveness in our athletes of is the power developed from the quick lifts exclusively. The point is that if all top teams that do these Olympic type of lifts were to take them out of their program, they would still be just as successful.

In conclusion, StrongerAthletes.com is attempting to educate as many coaches as possible to a style of training that is as successful as any Olympic lifting based program. We have been very successful thus far and appreciate all the support we have been getting from strength coaches, athletes, and other individuals in the field.