Youth Sports Weight Training - Olympic Lifts

Casey Bass: What in the world am I doing? And what is it to do have with kids. Now, stay tuned find out now, on Clubhouse Gas. Coach Lou George: You've three types of Olympic lifts; you have the Snatch, the Clean and the Jerk. Today we're going to demonstrate the Clean. Think about Cleans, Jerks and Snatches which are called Olympic lifts, they are to help you to become more explosive there, full body exercises that are, will help you any sports that you play. Now there's a myth that there's out there females do not do Olympic lifts. Well, that's wrong. Females, we definitely have at Top Dog Sports, females that do Olympic lifts and they all are doing them properly to help them become more explosive athletes. So, what am I going to demonstrate now, how to do a proper Clean? First thing, you always want to start with your feet, shoulder width apart, toe straight ahead, start with your heels flat, now you want to go into a squat, alright you want to go down to full squat and bring the bar as closely to your shins as possible. Now, with your hands, you want to place your hands right outside, hands on right outside your thighs, and right outside your feet that are shoulder width apart. Now, when I explode up, I'm going to come straight up, explode straight up, the bar is going to travel right close to my body as possible, then I'm going to shrug at the top and then I'm drop and catch the bar underneath of it, come into a full, front squat and standing back up. Now, a main thing you want to do with the kids, make sure they do in proper form, alright. Feet, shoulders width apart, toe straight ahead, exploding up ready, come in right backup, alright. This right here, what we call our Rack position. I'm explaining that, explaining what that is, to you again. Rack position is when you hold the weight here, okay, keeping it up here at the finishing point of your clean, alright. I am going to do, one more. Alright! Getting the full body exercise, I'm using my legs. I'm exploding straight up, I'm shrugging with my shoulders and I'm catching the bar at the top. Ready, 1-2, yup, explode it all the way up, good. Now the different progressions that we do to lead up to our power Clean, do you like to do front squats especially, with our younger kids, teaching them how to hold the weight into that rack position, going down into a front squat and backup. That's what I'm going to demonstrate next, here. Shoulder width apart still, going down, coming right backup, 1, from here, coming backup, 2. Now, that's important because if they can't get into a front squat, it may not be possible from them to get all over into Power clean. Second thing, another progression working the way down, is to drop the shrug part. Lot of kids, when they are doing shrugs, they're going here and then, doing with the elbows. Well, that's not what you want to do, keep the bar close to your body explode straight up. Getting here, explode up, right there back down, come up explode right backup, come in right back down. That will be our second progression. After that we'll go into our full power clean which is this. I'm down, coaching cue that I'll use, Jump, Shrug and Drop. So, I'm here jump, shrug, drop, catch it, coming all the way backup. Now, its important to cleans, not only, because this would help you become more explosive but is good for flexibility and full range of motion and to prevent injury in any sport that you are playing. You can take, what we call dowel rod, or even a broom stick at home and work on your front squats and your cleans. Now, you don't have the weight that we have, so you may have to do more reps. The main thing is after you get the proper form to do it in an explosive manner, explosive meaning, as quickly as possible with the correct form. You also may have dumbbells at home, you would take 2" bit dumbbells here, explode up, rack it, same way you would do with the bar. Casey Bass: Well, Lou thanks! Lot of great of information, now you are out of breath, I know how I feel on a regular persuade and get out of breath. That could it for us today, if you want to some information about Coach Lou, Coach Crissy, all the great folks here at Top Dog, check down below in the video description and we'll see you right back here next time, for another great edition of Clubhouse Gas.