The use of Olympic lifts in the training of football players appears to be quite common. According to the coaches these lifts are used mainly to develop explosive power. Once the athlete has attained more explosive power the coaches believe it will then be transferred to the execution of the sports skills or performance on the field.
Can this, however, be substantiated in theory or in practice? Or is it a myth that has been perpetuated since it was discovered that the Olympic lifts are explosive in nature? To my knowledge, there has never been a study proving that doing the Olympic lifts will make the athlete more explosive or perhaps even more importantly, improve his performance on the field.
There is no questioning of the fact that doing the Olympic lifts may make the athlete more explosive. But there is no proof – in theory or in practice – that this explosive power will transfer to execution of other skills. In fact, science tells us that it may be just the opposite!
The reason for this is that transfer is very specific when it comes to execution of skills. Transfer, as a general factor, is not specific to execution of most sports skills. This has been proven by Russian sports scientists and coaches.
Because transfer of explosive power occurs as a general factor, it does not mean that it applies to specific execution of a specific skill. It is quite often to the contrary. Only when execution of the skill duplicates what occurs in execution of the particular Olympic lift – in regard to neuromuscular pathway, type of muscular contraction, range of motion in which strength is developed, etc. will there be a positive transfer.
With this definition and explanation in mind, we can say that positive transfer can occur in a jumping action since the forces, direction, etc. generated in most Olympic lifts, especially in the clean portion, are very similar to what occurs in jumping. As a result basketball and volleyball players may find the Olympic lifts to be of value.
However, football players, except for receivers and some defenders, may find little transfer or benefit from doing the Olympic lifts. They will get more benefit from doing specialized explosive leg exercises and plyometrics that employ the shock method, than they will from the Olympic lifts.
Specialized exercises can be created in a manner to duplicate what the athlete does in execution of a specific skill that is involved in gameplay. These exercises will then have great positive transfer and the athlete will show improvement in performance.
It should also be noted that coaches who use the Olympic lifts in the training of their athletes, have not looked closely at the total training of world-class weightlifters, especially Russian weightlifters, from whom this practice of using Olympic lifts originated. If they did they would find that the Russian weightlifters did extensive work on supplementary exercises and plyometrics in addition to doing the lifts.
They did not rely mainly on doing the sport exercises. In fact, they tried as much as possible to stay away from doing the total lifts to prevent stagnation and boredom. They did many exercises to strengthen different aspects of the lifts and then incorporated them into the total lift.
Thus, to get maximum benefit from the training it may be more advantageous to look at supplementary exercises that duplicate specific aspects of the skill execution for inclusion in the training. This will produce greater improvement than only relying on more development of explosive power as a general factor. For positive transfer to occur the exercise must be specific to a particular sports skill or portion of a skill.
For more information on the training of football and other athletes see Build a Better Athlete and Explosive Plyometrics.