Olympic Weightlifting Strength Manual Paperback Book

by Louie Simmons

I am writing this book on the development of special strengths to help raise individual lifts, specifically the snatch and the clean and jerk. The value of the top strength has been forgotten. If strength did not matter, then there would be no need for weight classes. But, indeed, there are weight classes and the weights are always larger in the next higher weight class. Every discussion turns to technique in the classical lifts and special pulls. Great emphasis must be paid to technique in the early phases of training, hopefully, starting at age nine and up until 13-years-old. Basic specialization should occur at ages 14 to 15, specialization at ages 16 to 18, the phase of special- ization at 19 to 20, and nally, the high performance stage, beginning at 21-years-old. The Westside system is basically from the former Soviet Union along with our own special exercises for powerlifting. Ninety-nine percent of the training advice comes from the translations of Andrew Charniga Jr. and his collection of weightlifting yearbooks plus many others. I paid great attention to the training of the strongest lifters from the Dynamo club. In an article by I.N Abramovsky in the 1985 yearbook entitled Dynamics of a Weightlifter, he states the most important quality of a weightlifter is strength. While the article is about moving up in a weight class to achieve new records, our top all- time female lifter has broken more than 30 all-time records in the same weight class. This shows that you don’t have to gain weight to become stronger if your body structure is correct for your class. -Louie Simmons

Flexibound

Published January 1, 2017