The Olympic Lifts (Clean & Jerk, and Snatch) are some of the most explosive, technical and exciting movements in the athletic arena.

According to CrossFit founder, Greg Glassman, the value of the lifts outstrips their much-promoted development of strength and power. Those who struggle to learn the clean often suffer from a lack of sufficient speed, flexibility and ability irrespective of how much strength they possess. Refinement of the moves call for exacting standards of coordination accuracy and balance which often outstrips the ability of most strength specialists.

His observation that directly proportional to the load you can clean (for example) are the benefits in terms of strength, power, accuracy, flexibility, speed, accuracy, agility and balance; amazing gains from a single movement.

However his second, unique, world-changing, visionary observation was that your cardiorespiratory endurance and stamina are directly proportional to the reps and loads you can clean.

Greg also goes on to state that you don’t need to be able to do the lifts super-well to get super-benefits.

This is a complete exercise which incorporates a “super-useful” core to extremity motor recruitment pattern, along with learning how to generate and transmit large and sudden forces.

We incorporate the olympic lifts into our day-to-day CrossFit programming, as well as offer specialist masterclasses for those looking to learn and develop their skills.

Our Olympic weightlifting masterclasses are led by Andrew Stemler and Steven Shrago and are worth 4 CPD points if you are a member of the register of exercise professionals at level 2 and above. They are , however, aimed at ordinary people, just like you.

We regularly practise the lifts as part of our weekly class structure, and for certain, they are practised every Friday as the substantive part of those lessons