Olympic Weightlifting For Basketball

As a basketball coach or player, you could not genuinely believe that this applies for you, but hear me out. While studying to obtain my certification in the Olympic lifts, my instructor showed me an image of an Olympic lifter jumping over a bar that was 50 inches or even more off the ground. That is quite a impressive feat for almost any athlete, let alone some guy that was less than 6 feet tall and built like a brick house.

For most people, Olympic weightlifting is observed every four years while watching muscle-bound Olympic athletes wearing something which resembles a powerlifting singlet moving huge amounts of weight over their head while grunting and screaming to the applause from the crowd.

Coaching basketball for over nine years and playing the game for even longer, I will attest to the fact the single thing any and all basketball players really might like to do is jump high enough to dunk a basketball. Contemplate it, just how many basketball players spend their spare time during practice trying to jump up and grab the rim? More or less these, but just how many can definitely jump high enough to consistently throw the ball down? Not as many. Obviously, basketball is more than simply dunking the ball, but to be able to jump high and run fast will give any basketball player an extreme advantage. Olympic style weightlifting can not just have them the explosive power that is necessary for basketball, nonetheless it may also provide them with the strength and conditioning that is unrivaled by traditional bodybuilding methods.

There are numerous advantages to presenting your athletes perform the Olympic lifts just like the snatch and the clean and jerk. Traditional body building lifts just like the bicep curls are good for the beach muscles, but they don't have the added benefits that Olympic weightlifting does. It's important for an athlete to attempt to use as many muscles that you can when they train. Bicep curls are specific to 1 body part. The Olympic lifts necessitate an athlete to recruit numerous amounts of muscle fibers inside their system to move the weight from the floor to an overhead position. The nature of this movement is highly intense and essential for almost any athlete. Furthermore to achieve this, it's imperative that the athlete lift the weight as quickly that you can through the entire movement.

The speed at that the Olympic lifts are performed has its own benefits. First, it escalates the player's metabolic drive that'll assist in developing a leaner, more efficient athlete, essential for a basketball player. The sort of speed that the Olympic lifts demand may also make the athlete more explosive while reproducing the jumping motion that basketball players need on the court. Olympic lifts, when done correctly, require an athlete to attain triple extension, the ankle, knee, and hip all extending at exactly the same time. Triple extension also happens while jumping. If an athlete is attempting to jump high, he then should be at his top speed as his ankles, knees, and hips simultaneously extend. Olympic lifts directly mirror this action because of the speed that is required to pull a heavy bar through the triple extension portion of the lift.

Other than the explosive nature of the Olympic lifts, there are many other advantages. The correct technique that is needed to perform these lifts forces the athlete to utilize his muscles in the correct sequence, from his core to his extremities. Many people are talking nowadays about how exactly important it's to teach the core. For the most part, this translates into, "Do more crunches or balance yourself on a huge rubber ball ".Your investment crunches, and use the rubber ball to play kick ball as the Olympic lifts help to stabilize your core muscles much better than any crunch or balancing act can ever do. Another benefit to the Olympic lifts for athletes is the fact they decrease the danger of injury by increasing your body's agility and ability to just accept the force of the external object, in this case, the weighted bar. As a result, the Olympic lifts increase flexibility in the hips, ankles, and wrists and promote shoulder stability. Finally, whereas traditional weight training programs focus of specific areas of the body, your entire body gets exercising when performing these lifts. This increases an athlete's conditioning and decreases their amount of time in the gym. Training economically is vitally very important to today's athlete who usually plays more than one sport and has almost no time to strength train. The Olympic lifts provide the very best results at all amount of time. Not to mention the increased strength and size that the athlete will develop while moving the weights through the full flexibility that the clean and jerks and snatches demand.

It ought to be noted that I am certainly not advocating an Olympic lifting program for basketball players or some other athlete. What I am suggesting is that basketball players and other athletes incorporate the Olympic lifts to their current weight training exercise regimen, preferably while the fundamental exercise on each given training day. It will also be noted that the Olympic lifts do demand a large degree of technique to be able to avoid injury and perform them successfully. However, this would certainly not deter any coach or athlete from doing them. There are lots of videos, clinics, and coaches out there that could instruct on how to perform the Olympic lifts properly.

So, if you should be trying to take your strength training to another location level and you want to have the athletic benefit of jumping higher and running faster, start to incorporate the Olympic lifts into your strength training program. Not only can you see the benefits mentioned previously, but they are actually more pleasurable than considering yourself in the mirror while doing 100 biceps curls every time you hit the gym.