How to Do CrossFit Olympic Lifts

Mixing CrossFit's hybrid fitness approach with the explosive power of Olympic lifting produces incredible gains in strength, power, speed and endurance. There is virtually no athlete who won't benefit from CrossFit's style of Olympic lifting by using the following technique.

Instructions

    • 1

      Begin with the "broomstick" clean and jerk by placing a broomstick (or any other kind of reasonably thick stick) on the ground. Reach down into a deadlift position with your back straight and clean the stick to your chest. Sink down into a quarter squat and raise up as you push the bar overhead, catching it in semi squat position. Then stand upright.

    • 2

      Practice the snatch with a broomstick by starting in a deadlift position. Sink into a deep squat as you raise the broomstick up overhead in one motion that leaves you with your arms straight up and slightly behind your head. Stand up from the squat to finish the snatch.

    • 3

      Move on to unweighted barbell repetitions of the clean and jerk and snatch. Take some video of yourself and post it to the CrossFit forums so seasoned CrossFitters can critique your form and give you some important pointers.

    • 4

      Work your Olympic lifts into the CrossFit "Workout Of the Day" (or "WOD" on the CrossFit website) to train your body to do the hard and heavy Olympic lifting in the middle of a difficult full-body workout.

    • 5

      Do isolated Olympic lift work to follow the Rippetoe approach to CrossFit Olympic lifting, which entails building a solid foundation for the style of lifting before moving on to more advanced forms of the workout.

    • 6

      Use the Olympic lifts to do high-repetition, no-break workouts to get you to a fatigued, metabolic conditioning training state and push your entire CrossFit program forward.