Programming for Weightlifting (Part 2 - How Often Should I Train?)

The simple answer is 'as often as you can'. If you look at all the most successful Weightlifters, you'll notice they all have one thing in common, they train a lot. The more often you do something, anything, the better your body will be  adapted to performing that task efficiently and effectively. Somebody who lifts once a week has almost 7 days for his body to forget the movement patterns he spent a few hours learning one day. A person who lifts 3 days a week only has a day or two between each session to forget, a person who trains every day has almost no time to distance themselves from the movement, and a person who trains multiple times a day? Well you can work it out.

Now, for a beginner, or somebody who plans on having a life outside of lifting weights; training 12-14 times a week is a little excessive and difficult. However it is a good target to aim for and to keep in mind when you think you're training too frequently.

3x a week is the absolute minimum you should be training the Snatch/Clean and Jerk. And at that low a frequency, pretty much every session will need to be with maximal or near maximal weights, or very high volume (lots of setsxreps). Now, if you add in sessions on the days between those Maximal days, you can play with the loading of weight a bit more.

Different types of training

There are basically 4 different ways to train the Snatch and Clean + Jerk

Maximal Loading - Mimicking the overall goal of the lifts, to lift as much weight as possible and increase strength in the lifts
Repetitions - Increasing your stamina and ability to routinely perform lifts with proper technique
Technique - Hitting the correct positions and technique without worrying about weight
Speed - Increasing your ability to move quickly in certain patterns

Maximal Loading

Quite simply, this is lifting as much weight as you can lift succesfully and it will fulfill the bulk of your training. As a weightlifter your goal is to lift weights, and the best way to train this skill is to lift weights. This loading is not always training to your absolute limit. It may be 5-10kg off your best, or it may be the maimum amount you can lift for a set of 2 repetitions. But the emphasis is on loading the bar with enough weight that you are approaching your physical limit. Of course, if the weight is SO great that your technique is falling apart then you need to take weight off the bar again, because you are no longer training the correct movements with heavy weight,  you are training improper movements in ways that you cannot hope to reproduce effectively every time.

Repetitions

Repetitions/Reps/Rep Work is quite familiar to anybody used to lifting weights, especially those inclined to do so for the purposes of body building. Strength sports, and weightlifting in particual generally avoid higher rep ranges however, as the weight required to perform those repetitions is not normally of a significant enough weight to actually have any benefit to getting stronger. As such, anything over 3 reps for the competition lifts is generally considered to be quite high rep work.

That's not to say that higher repetitions have no place in training however. As mentioned, Bodybuilders use higher rep ranges to stimulate muscle growth. And if a Weightlifter is looking to gain weight in 'sensible' areas for weightlifting, then rep work can be used to induce hypertrophy.

Rep work also increases your cardio vascular stamina in a way that is specific to weightlifting. It won't do much to improve your stamina in each single lift, because the lifts are so fast that there is no real reason to increase that ability. However it can allow the lifter to be less exhausted/out of breath after each lift. Which can be quite useful when going for heavier attempts, it's difficult to concentrate on snatching correctly when you can't breathe properly yet.

They will also strengthen your tendons and connective tissue, which can be just as important in weightlifting as the muscles themselves. The Elbows, Wrists and Knees which take most of the loading in this sport are not huge robust joints, so strengthening them is a very sensible idea.

Your ability to keep good form after multiple reps is useful as well, for much the same reason that the stamina issue can effect following lifts, being able to comfortable repeat the correct technique is essential.

Also higher rep sets tend to lead to fatigue during the set, causing you to slow down and become less precise. This, combined with the lighter weights you're forced to use in a higher rep set, can encourage poor technique, ingraining bad habits.- PAS

Technique

This is a bit of a strange name for this type of training. As every lift should be performed with the attempt at perfect technique. However that can be difficult when there is the factor of large amounts of weight fighting back against you as you attempt to do things properly. So dedicating a session to purely hitting the correct positions and getting the correct feel for the movements can be very useful. Now, the amount of weight actually used in these technique sessions can vary quite wildly depending on the purpose. If you have a problem keeping your back tight when pulling from the floor, you don't want to use so much weight that your back cannot handle it. But you also do not want to use so little a weight that there is no resistance whatsoever. Otherwise you are just training your back to keep straight against no resistance, which is no good when it comes to actually lifting the weights. Generally the weight used should be enough that you feel comfortable and are hitting the correct positions, but light enough that the resistance is not too great for you to hold these positions. It may be best to start light and slowly work your way to the point that you feel your technique is faltering, and then either reduce the weight and perform more repetitions, or stick at that weight and concentrate on holding perfect technique for that 1 rep, and do that for multiple sets. I would be inclined to drop down and slowly work back up to around the point that you feel your limit was.

Speed

This is quite simple really. The goal of these sessions is to perform the movements with as much speed as you can manage with the purpose of increasing your speed in the actual lifts. Very basically, you just perform whatever the movement is, and do it quickly. But you must take care not to alter your technique in doing so. A common example would be attempting to increase your speed under the bar in the snatch,
but doing so by cutting your extension/pull short which will impede your ability to lift the bar high enough to actually utilise your  improved speed under the bar. For squats you will attempt to explode out of the bottom with as much force as possible (You should be doing this anyway, every set, every rep).

Weights used in speed work are generally quite light, anywhere from just the bar to roughly around 60% of your 1RM is quite common. Specific variations of the lifts can be used to emphasise speed too. Things like High Hang Snatches, Power Cleans/Snatches, Drop Snatches and many more.

So, with those 4 training types, you've already got 4 basic ways you can train with each day being a different version of the same basic template as shown previously. If you were to increase say, your Maximal days to 2 a week then you've already got a solid 5 day training regime.  I'll talk about other Exercises in the next article, with which you add even more variety to your routine.