New Lifts

by Atomic Athletic on Friday, March 9, 2012 at 4:36pm ·

I love new lifts.  I love changing up my lifts.  In fact, some of you will notice that I seem to focus on some new lift just about every month.  

Guess what?

You are correct.  I look at a new “competition” lift every month.

 I also have some foundation lifts.  The basic ground work of my routines is solidly in the world of Olympic lifting, but I love to change up a few things now and then.  This is where the USAWA (All-Round Weightlifting Association) comes in.  Their rule book has more lifts than anyone could really concentrate on in a lifetime.

New lifts are great because they force you to think in new ways.  For example, 15 years ago I did a series of interviews of Norbert Schemansky.  One question asked about some of the lifts he did outside of strict Olympic weightlifting.  One of the lifts he casually worked on was the crucifix lift.  

I thought the crucifix was a very strange lift for him to train.  After all, no competitive organization like the USAWA existed at that time, the 1950s, and no one kept real records for that sort of thing, so why do them?  First of all, they were fun and Norb did some pretty big weights with it.  So it became a cool local gym challenge.  Secondly, it helped his pressing.  Norb could Clean & Press over 400 pounds on a regular basis.  He claimed that it helped, so who am I to second guess the IWF's “Lifter of the Century”?

The key to new lifts is to keep a solid foundation.  I talk to lifters every day and the ones who seem to succeed have one thing in common.  They all have a solid foundation of strength, but they also do everything they can to keep from going stale.  In that regard, I try to pick “new lifts” that don't stray too far from my foundations.  For example, for this coming meet (tomorrow in Ambridge, PA), I have been working on the one hand dumbbell swing, and the the hack squat, but I still do snatch based moves as well as working my Olympic Clean & Press and the crucifix.  I have played around with, but not spent much time or energy on the Pullover & Press, which is one of the competition lifts this weekend.  I am not a bench press guy and I have realized that my technique with the competition style pullover really needs the help of a coach who has a clue.  I have always loved the pullover, but that competition style is very different.  I am going to use this meet as an opportunity to get some technique training from experts in this lift.

Enjoy those new lifts.

Live strong,

Roger LaPointe