As a competitive Olympic lifter and university strength & conditioning coach, I was frustrated when my athletes couldn’t execute barbell Cleans.
Most of them had restricted shoulders, tight lats, and cramped wrists from too much benching and not enough rehab work.
(This was back in the mid-to-late 90s when restoration work was practically uncommon.)
So, barbell Cleans became barbell High Pulls.
Or dumbbell Cleans.
Plus, doing more sets - anything more than 5 - with the Olympic lifts practically guarantees your technique declines.
And that’s a perfect set up for an injury.
And no one wants one of those.
Especially not an athlete training to prepare for competition .
I remember seeing the “Kettle-Stack” advertised in the back of a Muscle & Fact - uh, Fitness - left on my desk.
I made a plan to investigate further.
When I transitioned from University Strength Coach to Personal Training Business Owner, I faced the same issue:
Teaching the Olympic lifts (O-lifts, as some call them), was a “juice that wasn’t worth the squeeze.”
Too technical and clients had to trust the process.
So, back to the dumbbell versions of the O-lifts.
Then, I saw the Dragon Door ad for kettlebells in 2001.
I bought my first set in January 2002 and started using them with my clients shortly thereafter .
We all loved them for their short, effective brutality .
Higher rep versions of the Olympic lifts did miracles for people’s physiques.
They got leaner, faster.
They got stronger, more flexible , and better conditioned.
Plus, they were hard , so they were mentally engaging.
In fact, I still train one of my clients from 2001 today.
Now she’s in her 50s, the 16kg is a warm-up, and the 24kg routinely goes over her head.
Back in the early 2010s, I wrote a lot about Olympic lifters' physiques primarily coming from Snatches, Cleans, Overhead work, Squats, and Pulls.
Sure, it’s true that the Chinese - some of the most muscular lifters in the world - do some bodybuilding.
Usually ( based on some expert opinions), it’s in the form of around roughly six sets of 10 reps AFTER all their key lifts for a session have been completed.
“See, Geoff! They didn’t get all that muscle from ‘ merely’ the O-lifts!”
No, they didn’t.
But they did get most of it - especially from Olympic lifting assistance exercises.
“Oh yeah, how can you be so sure?”
Because that’s how I got much if not most of mine:
Squats, Deadlifts (a form of a “Pull”), Presses, Bench, Rows, Cleans, and Power Shrugs up until age 22.
Then, I dieted down to 200lbs from 252lbs, and still kept the Squats ( with more depth - and lots more )...
Pulls ( tons of them! )...
And Overhead work.
Nothing develops your upper back faster than Snatch Grip High Pulls from above the knee!
And high frequency Squats?
Full body growth!
Not just the legs!
Which is how I got back up to 230lbs in my late 20s.
So, if your goal is to revolutionize the way you look, feel, and perform, you can’t go wrong by using the “Hybrid” variations of the Olympic lifts found in the kettlebell exercises.
Especially the double kettlebell exercises, which, I’ve found over the last 20+ years, is where much of the true transformations lay.
Exercises like:
Double Clean
Double Press
Double Push Press
Double Jerk
Double Front Squat
Double Clean + Press Exercise
Double Clean + Push Press
Double Clean + Jerk
Double High Pull
Double Snatches
They’re just so challenging on the body.
Your body literally cannot resist improving when you perform these exercises routinely .
Start with a few .
Learn the techniques.
Build your strength first. Then your muscle .
And in most cases, your stamina and even fat loss will “just happen.”
You practically work all the muscles in your body at once.
(You haven’t “lived” until you experience the muscle ache you get the next day after high repetition / high volume Double Cleans or Double Snatches.)
Plus, using the double kettlebell lifts is a great use of time.
You can accomplish A LOT of work in just a short session - if you know how to organize your training correctly.