Should You Do Olympic Lifts Over 40?

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

I am 40 years old and have trained Olympic Lifts the last 20 years. I like to do them, and they are great for power training.

But my training goal is health and longevity, and I am not sure Olympic Lifts meet this goal.

Power training is very importen for health and longevity, but do you get enough power training from normal strength training (squat, press, deadlift etc.)?

Is the risk of injury too high with Olympic Lifts when you are over 40?

Barbell Medicine do only have two training templates with Olympic Lifts (Titan and Olympic Lifts), why not have Olympic Lifts in the other training templates?

Jonathon Sullivan from Greysteel made a great video about this.
Do you agree with him?

2

BDK.

Thanks for the post and thoughtful question. A few thoughts here, organized into a list so I don’t get carried away…

  1. I do think some direct training for high velocity strength (i.e. power) is likely to be beneficial for trained individuals.
  2. Untrained folks seem get enough improvement in high velocity strength from traditional, low velocity strength training.
  3. Athletes in sports that involve jumping, running, kicking, throwing, and other high velocity movements would also likely benefit from direct high velocity strength work.
  4. Olympic lifts are one way to train high velocity strength, though there are many others. Doing traditional exercises with lighter weight so that they can be moved at higher speeds, plyometrics, and so on all do about the same job depending on the outcome(s) being tested. We “only” have two templates with Olympic lifts as mandatory elements because there are other ways to train for power.
  5. Olympic lifts do not seemingly have a higher risk of injury than other forms of barbell training.
  6. I do not think age is an independent risk factor here. Existing data suggests that those > 30 have a lower incidence of injuries than those under 30 for example.

I think restricting power training to Olympic lifting is in error, as is suggesting they’re too technical or risky for people to learn. Depending on someone’s preferences and resources (equipment, coaching, etc.), I may lean one way or another towards keeping them in vs not. In your case, you’ve been doing them for 20 years and likely enjoy them. You don’t have to keep doing them, but you also don’t need to stop doing them if you don’t want to.

2 Likes
3

Jordan: I appreciate your good answers!

How would you add snatchs and cleans to the Strength & Conditioning Template? Or would you just go with your Titan Template?

4

The General S/C 2 template has olympic lifts as an option in there. I’d do that, 3-day version :slight_smile:

5

So in the General Strength and Conditioning II 3-day Excel file I go to Exercise selection block 1 and change Trap Bar Deadlift with Clean or Snatch?

Or how exactly are you going to do it?

6

Yes, all of the “speed” work in this template has Olympic variants as options. That should work for a little exposure. If you want more, you could replace one of the supplemental lower body lifts.

1 Like