Should You Include Olympic Lifts In Your Softball Workouts?

Obviously your softball workouts should improve your speed, agility, strength and power. But what is the best way to do that? So many teams use Olympic lifts in their program to develop these attributes. Like every other kind of training, there are pros and cons to adding Olympic lifting to your softball training.

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Olympic lifts require strength, flexibility, speed and coordination. These are the characteristics of today's great athletes. Unlike traditional lifts, like the bench press and squat, Olympic lifts are very technical and require a fair amount of practice to learn the technique. The question is whether or not the benefit outweighs the time spent learning the lifts.

It sort of depends on your time frame and goals. If you are setting up your softball workouts for the offseason, and have plenty of time, then learning the Olympic lifts can be a beneficial addition. If you are in the preseason, there simply is not enough time to learn Olympic lifting technique and implement them into your program.

If you are in the offseason, and do have the time. then which Olympic lifts should you add to your softball workouts? Here again, this is a matter of opinion. Some coaches will say that snatch and the clean are the only lifts you should use. The problem with this idea, is that olympic lifting is a sport. There is no reason to perform the full lifts unless it has a direct carry over to the softball field. Remember that is the key in exercise selection, it has to make you a better softball player, or it is a waste of your valuable training time.

When you take a closer look at the Olympic lifts you will see that they are a few different movements combined together. And in Olympic Weightlifting competitions, it is required that you do them as a sequence in a single lift. However for your workouts there are no such requirements. You can pick and choose the portions of the movements that increase your athletic ability without learning to sequence these highly technical movements.

Best Olympic Lift Variations For Softball Workouts

1. Snatch High Pull
2. Whip Snatch
3. Clean Pulls
4. Snatch Pulls
5. Front Squats

As you can see I listed movements that didn't require the "catch" phase of the Olympic lifts. The catch is a difficult movement, and can cause wrist problems. Learning to catch the weight does nothing to improve your softball performance, so it is not worth the risk. These Olympic lift variations will increase your explosiveness on the field. Add them to your workouts, and watch your performance increase.

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