Value of the Olympic Lifts.

Firstly, I am not questioning the value of the olympic lifts, far from it, they play an integral role of many conditioning programs. What do question though is who they are valuable to.

Olympic lifts are considered the cornerstone of a strength and conditioning coaches aresnal, it is a mandatory element of the assessment, and appears in most job descriptions.

On Friday I conducted some strength and conditioning coaching assessments with my year degree students. In this practical they had to coach both the back squat and either the clean or snatch. Many of the students have struggled to pass this element, which includes elements for both their technique and the coaching of the technique.

This lead me to think that if these students, who have been schooled in these techniques for months and still have not mastered them, how does this affect who we give them to as part of their training.

I also am lead strength and conditioning coach for the college athlete development program. In this program the majority of athletes have never seen a weight let alone performed an effective snatch. Their lack of competence doesn't change the training objectives, therefore I have to think of different ways of achieving the same goals. In doing so I have adopted a motor program orientated schedule, whereby the different sections, which have a valuable training affect in their own right, are mastered individually, gradually becoming more complex. It is quite feasible that an athlete wont complete a single olympic lift in the two years on the program.

My question is this what is of more valuable a well defined and encyclopedic knowledge of the olympic lifts or the ability to give an athlete an exercise that works for them?

What do you think?