Powerlifting and olympic lifts??? Oh, yeah!

 As a powerlifter you have to practice the powerlifts because that is how you compete. The law of specificity. Your entire program is built around them (squat, bench press, deadlift). But it is wise to borrow sometimes from other sports and see if it can improve your skills.

As I am getting older (I am 47 now) I can feel that I can get stiffer in shoulders, upper back and hips more easily than when I was 25. Recently, I have decided to include some variations of olympic lifts into my programming, especially in offseason when you can allow yourself to experiment with other lifts/exercises to see if they benefit you.

Benefits of the olypic lifts for a powerlifter are significant: 

Increased power and speed

Because olympic lifts are fast and dynamic they change the power curve. You rely on technique, muscles, momentum. If you learn, for example, how to perform the snatch properly and fast and slowly work up to some significant poundages most likely your speed and power on your squat and deadlift increase as well. There is a high correlation. And we know in order to lift big weight you need both, strength and speed.

Increased flexibilty

Please do not believe the nonsense that static stretching increases muscle bellies. It does not. If you were born with a short biceps, well, sorry, but you going to have a short biceps all your life. What can be changed though, is not the length of the muscle belly but the flexibility in your joints. But it has to be under load. Look how flexible olympic lifters are. Olympic lifts force you into very flexible positions under load therefore permanently increasing you flexibility. No more super stiff hips, upper back, shoulders. Troubles getting under the bar on squats because of stiff shoulders? Well, try 2 months of push press behind your neck or drop snatches and watch your shoulders become loose and flexible (and stronger).

Increased local muscular hypertrophy

Variations of olympic lifts are excellent for this. For years I believed heavy deadlifts and shrugs are the answer for big and strong upper back. Nothing has put meat on my upper back as much as the snatch-grip high pull. Not even close.

Here is an example of a 3 day strength program with some incorporated olympic lifts or their variations.

Monday

snatch-grip high pulls 4 progressively heavier triples to 3RM

squat 4 sets of 3 with 80%

GHR

core

Wednesday

deadlift 4 sets of 3 with 75-80%

bench press 5 sets of 3 with 80%

behind neck push press 4 progressively heavier triples to 3RM

barbell lunges

Friday

clean and jerk 5 progressively heavier doubles to 2RM

front squats 3 sets of 3 heavy

push press 3 sets of 3 heavy

DB rows

P.S. In the 40's and 50's of the 20th century it was very common people competed both in powerfilting and olympic lifting.

Now go do some snatches :-)