How Often Should We Snatch and Clean and Jerk?

By djpope

August 9, 2015

chad vaughn, Clean and Jerk, frequency, mike cerbus, olympic lifts, olympic weightlifting, overuse injury, snatch, volume

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Frequency of lifting is obviously a very important variable in your programming.  The research in improving strength shows us that having higher volumes and frequencies of lifting is more beneficial for improving strength then lower frequencies and volumes.

However, many people won’t be able to handle this high volume.   Given variables such as:

  • Limited time to devote to training
  • Mobility restrictions
  • Poor genetics for tissues tolerating higher volumes of work
  • Stress and lowered recovery rates coming from areas of life besides training (family, career, lack of sleep, diet)
  • Past history of injury

It becomes very challenging to improve with the olympic lifts and tolerate higher volumes of lifting.

I spoke with olympic lifters Chad Vaughn and Mike Cerbus to find what frequencies are optimal for steady progress while avoiding overuse injury in novice to intermediate lifters.  This is a huge variable I constantly educate my patients about when they come to see me in clinic.  Every lifter will be different and chances are that the adult lifter will have to train differently then the younger athlete.  Check out the video below and respond with your experience below in the comments section.

It’s 10:00am and I’ve already done 5 snatch sessions,

Dan Pope DPT, CSCS

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