There are so many technical details in Olympic Weightlifting that beginners can easily feel confused and get lost, and sometimes people will even have controversial points of view for some aspects! When you watch movement videos from top athletes carefully, they often have their own technical styles.
Technique is important for sure, however, if you only focus on those 'appearances' to learn the technique, it won't be an efficient way. For example, some athletes will slightly jump backwards during the snatch, but clearly it's not the purpose, so understanding the theory behind this should always be your first step. That's why through years of coaching experience we have built our own BCDR model, which covers the most fundamental elements and can help you to have a basic- and correct- understanding of Olympic Weightlifting.
B- Balance
Balance is the number 1 most fundamental and important thing in Olympic Weightlifting, since we stand on the ground, move on the ground and live on ground through the force of gravity. So, balance is about your roots and feet, the gateway links you and the most powerful thing – Mother Earth. For most of the time, people can understand the importance of the 'core', but please notice balance is something even more important.
The bones that hold the whole body weight and also the weight of bar to the ground are called talus and the talus spread the weight through feet arches and heels. And balance is on balls of feet, never on your heels.
- In Chinese Olympic weightlifting, you always put your balance on the balls of feet.
- Heels are for support of the skeleton, never where the drive comes from.
C- Core
Your core is basically a big ballon which consists with 3 spaces: chest, stomach and pelvis.
Firstly, all of these cavities must be aligned so the power generated from lower body can be transmitted up with efficiency. Secondly, the ballon shape core must be pumped with air, so it can hold the inner tension to protect you from the potential risks of lower back & knees injury.
D- Drive Down
There is no driving up in Olympic weightlifting, always and only driving DOWN. The most common mistake for beginners is they try to pull the bar up, before the lower body drive, then it disrupts the force of transmission.
It's key for people to really understand what triple extension is and to let the body remember before even grabbing a bar.
R- Rhythm
Rhythm is another key element in Olympic Weightlifting, but sometimes can be neglected. For strength training in Olympic weightlifting it mainly includes squats, deadlifts and shoulder presses, for these we recommend 3 beats down/ 1 beat up.
Besides, for different purposes of the movement, the rhythm will be different and also play an important role.Take the "Panda Pull" as an example, the difficulty in learning it is definitely the rhythm, it’s different from the Snatch Pull, which is 'Bong Pa', so that’s why we always teach clients from the pace of the panda pull 'Da Da' and let them start from the launch point when they manage the panda pull there, then we can add the deadlift part which has the first pull into it, then make it good for a full snatch.
Recommendation
Gaby says: from my point of view, the most efficient way for beginners to start the weightlifting is to first understand these key elements, then dive into movements and technical details during the training. It can help to understand those technical movements in a deeper way or you could easily analyze your movement by using this model. That’s why during our training session, we always spend time on explaining our BCDR model before entering any specific movement training.
For in-depth understanding of our training program, see our Venus weightlifting programming.
