explosive lifting for sports by Harvey Newton olympic weightlifting plyometrics

Take a look around the athletes at any Olympics. You'll see there's a trend for increasing muscularity in almost every sport. It's no surprise to see well muscled javalin & discus throwers, or sprinters but today even women middle distance runners are built like middleweight boxers! And have you seen the Sprint Cyclists lately? They are bulit like Robocop! It's obvious that many athletes are hitting the iron (and, er the nandralone, cough, I mean it was a nasal spray for an allergy honest.)

When it comes down to arguing if weightlifting is effective in increasing performance in other sports there are three distinct schools of thought.

School Number 1. Yes. Explosive (also known as Ballistic) weightlifting does increase performance in many sports where speed, strength and power are needed. It's now commonly accepted practice amongst strength & conditioning coaches to prescribe olympic style weightlifting to their track & field athletes, wrestlers, rugby players, american footballers etc etc.

School Number 2. No, it's bloody dangerous. This school of thought believes that weightlifting is good, but only if done in a slow and controlled fashion. They scoff at any idea that lifting a weight faster makes you a faster sprinter or better rugby player for example. They champion getting stronger all over via resistance training and converting these strength gains by practising the athletes given sport.

This school of thought is championed by notables such as Dr Ken Leistner, Jamie Labelle, Ken Hutchins, Matt Bryzcki etc etc. They believe that lifting weights ballistically can tear your muscles and connective tissues to shreds and provide ample evidence to support the theory. They also believe that 'explosiveness' is genetic. You either have it or don't have it. They believe the best Olympic weightlifters were born not made. To quote Dr Leistner, "One can argue all day long about the "explosiveness" the lifts develop. This is like saying that playing basketball makes you 7 foot tall....". This school of thought also says that momentum is doing much of the work in an Olympic lift, not the muscles.

School Number 3. No, it doesn't work because weightlifting is not sports specific. For example, doing the clean and jerk is not the same as doing the breastroke, and lifting loads won't make you a better swimmer and the best bench presser in your rugby team may not be the best player. You've probably all known examples of this from your own gym - you know, the guy with no muscles, who can't bench sh*t, and yet throws everyone around like a ragdoll. Or the neighbour who's never seen the inside of a gym in his life, pot bellied, smokes 40 Bensons a day and yet can outlift you when it comes to shifting furniture, heavy boxes, etc.

In wrestling/MMA circles, there are many that believe that bodyweight exercises and gymnastics are far superior ways of developing 'mat strength'.

This school of thought is relatively small amongst modern professional athletes, but there are examples - take for instance Kim Collins, the lightly built 100m sprinter from St Kitts, who won the 2003 World Championships. He's well known for not weight training and yet he blitzed a lineup of heavily built runners, including Dwain Chambers, the massively built favourite.

As you can guess, the author Harvey Newton is firmly in school number 1. And he sets out a compelling case for explosive lifting, as well as addressing, briefly, the counter arguments. Newton puts forward a strong argument for Olympic weightlifting, and why he feels it's the best type of training to increase performance in sports. The contentious issue of free weights versus machines and single sets versus multiple sets is also discussed. No prizes for guessing what Newton thinks here.

Newton then goes on to define what exactly is strength and what exactly is power and how they can be tested and increased. The important subject of acceleration is also covered and how it's vital for success in sports such as football or wrestling. Following that is a nice little chapter on plyometrics and then its down to the nitty gritty. The exercises.

Here Newton is brilliant. The many exercises are gone over in fine detail. Great little touches like the right fingers to use (and those to relax) in the hook grip, and how to abort a lift safely. When it comes to each lift, they are photographed perfectly with a series of stills and the explanations are crystal clear. This really is great coaching. Easy to understand. Easy to put into practice. And if you still don't get it, apparently there's an accompanying video available. It's the biggest and best chunk of the book and yes, this bit is as good as Dreschler if not better.

Next is designing a good program. Again Newton makes it easy. He sets up different (but very similar), weightlifting programs for various sports including American football, football, track & field, weightlifting, and wrestling. My only slight concern is that you only get the one do-it-all program, and nothing for say, beginners, experienced and advanced weightlifters.

The best thing about this book is it's clarity. Olympic style weightlifting can be an intimidating activity. Newton takes the fear away, by breaking each technique down into simple parts. There's no blinding you with pseudo-science. If you are looking to add olympic weightlifting to your training then Explosive Lifting for Sports is a great place to start.

The Good :.

A book about weightlifting for sports, rather than just for weightlifters or bodybuilders
Easy to follow routines for athletes of many sports including wrestlers
Very well written, balancing the cons of weightlifting as well as the obvious pros.
Some of the best technical instruction ever
Great photos
Excellent value for money
There's a companion video available.

The Bad :

ziltch really. Not nearly as comprehensive as Dreschlers but much easier to digest.

Conclusion

This book is most excellent. Brilliant instruction on weightlifting for athletes. Definitely, well worth buying.