I would guess that most fitness coaches who work with soccer players don’t use Olympic Lifts. This might occur for a variety of reasons (not competent in teaching, don’t see the need, difficulty of players coming in and out with varying degrees of gym experience, etc). Some of these reasons are real and legitimate. Others not as much. Right now, I’m 3 months in to working with the Vancouver Whitecaps FC and I haven’t done any Olympic lifting. The main reason is because I took over 2 games in to the season and I felt it would be inappropriate to teach almost 30 athletes a complex, new movement in-season. That said, I’m a HUGE fan of the Olympic lifts and I’ve used them in the past with my soccer athletes from elite age group players all the way to professionals. A handful of our current players have used Olympic lifts with me in the past while on other clubs.
Instead, I’ve taught the players to squat with depth safely and to maintain appropriate postures in exercises like RDLs, medicine ball multi-throws, and Kettlebell swings…all of which tend to transfer well when we do eventually teach the Olympic lifts. We’re using weighted and unweighted plyometric activities and kettlebell swings as a replacement for the training stimulus I’d normally use Olympic lifts for.
That said, I’ll be waiting until next year’s pre-season period before going through teaching progressions for the Olympic lifts because we simply don’t have the time now to gain enough competency to be safe and beneficial. The players ages, training and injury histories and experience in the gym all vary greatly. We likewise don’t have the facilities (we’re in a temporary training facility while a new space is being built) to be logistically feasible and safe.
When training professional players and teams (or high level for that matter), you have to treat them like a friend’s Ferrari. You recognize that they’re designed to go fast and push to the limit but also understand that scratches and dents wouldn’t go over too well. Hard training isn’t good enough. Smart hard training is better.
Mike Young
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I enjoyed this post for its realism of working within the professional environment. Will you be looking to use Olympic lifts with everyone or are there some players whom you will not be looking to teach Olympic lifts too, for a variety of reasons I guess. The reason I ask is that team sports squads are typically comprised of a wide range of ages, experiences and abilities and as such one size doesn’t fit all. It is also about being able to field your best team each week. Would love to know your thoughts on this.
Thanks
Nathan
I wrote the post a year ago and this year I’ve been able to get the number of guys on the team who I have Olympic lift up to 12 guys from about 5 or 6 last year. Of the remaining 17-18 guys, I would like to teach about half how to do the lifts but it isn’t realistic or safe now that we’re in season. The remaining guys would not be worth teaching the lifts to for a variety of reasons or would pose too big a risk.
If you’re already teaching deep squats, hinge/hip extension with swings, RDLs, etc., and doing plyo variants, I don’t see the value in adding Olympic lifts for soccer players. It’d be better to just focus on increasing load to what you’re already doing.
It seems more value would be gained in saving the OL training time and effort and put that into improving their posture, mobility, joint stability/flexibility, and exploring various recovery/regeneration techniques. Or even improving their durable VO2 max with more cardio variants for those players which are aerobically deficient.
Good points however I don’t see the need to omit them as they can be a safe and highly effective means of developing power and strength in a time efficient manner if taught correctly. I know many have difficulty teaching them but I find that I can get someone to competency (where they will benefit and not hurt themselves) in a power clean within 3 sessions. Obviously, their technique can still improve but in the cost-benefit analysis, it’s worth it for me personally to take the small amount of time to teach the athletes that are capable to do Olympic lifts…especially when the teaching progression has a training effect as well (so it’s not like we’re ‘wasting’ days just learning).
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