Olympic Weight lifting Tips

Learning from a WeightLifter

Coomonwealth medallist Neil Taylor gives some tips on hot coach the Olympic lifts. Neil has recently been appointed as Performance Manager for South Wales with Welsh Weightlifting. I know Neil from our days working together at the RFU. Here are his tips.

I have been performing the Olympic lifts since the age of 11. My coach at the time kept it simple, didn’t over complicate the movement and allowed for errors early on. Here are some of my Olympic Weightlifting tips.

With his expertise he helped me lift MY way and not the way the books said. 30 years down the line I have watched those lifts turn into a menu of biomechanical myths and mind numbing terminology.

KEEP IT SIMPLE.

In my opinion it is always easier to teach the Power Snatch first, the pulling phase is the same as the Power Clean and the lift a little less problematic. (Becky Brown in pic).

• Demonstrate the lift without a verbal description then ask athlete to perform the lift and observe their interpretation of that lift, they may be near perfect, they may be not, treat each one on how THEY lift
• At the start position instruct your athlete to push the chest out and through whilst pulling the bar off the floor this will encourage correct lifting posture with the back being slightly in extension
• Depending on your athletes’ training age you may wish to break the lift down into stages.  Start with the first pull by deadlifting the bar to the waist position and returning it back to the floor, encourage the athlete to push their chest through to retain good posture.

Clean Pull

Repeat this until your comfortable with what you see, be patient

• Once confident with the first pull,  move to the high pull.  It is important at this point for your athlete to work on pushing the hips forward and extend up on to the toes. (James Marshall in pic).

One coaching tip you may wish to use here is to pull the bar up to chest height rubbing finely against the navel area, this will encourage the athlete to keep the bar close to their body

• Move on to the full lift when you feel the athlete has mastered the above and never be afraid to revisit the basics.
• A great tool to use is the video camera but be aware of gaining consent from the parents or guardians of your athletes should they be under 18 years old
• Compliment the athlete on their good lifting points as it is important to finish lifting on a feel good note, people deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong.

Try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom.

Neil Taylor: Commonwealth games medallist. RFU Weightlifting Coach.

If you like this, then read more on

• Force, power and acceleration 
• Coaching cues 
• How to get stronger
• or come to our Weightlifting club in Devon