Why I Love Olympic Weightlifting

I love this image. I found it when I was looking for pictures to use in my PowerPoint for a conference presentation on bodybuilding and affect. However, as those in the know will know, this is not a bodybuilding picture. This is someone doing Olympic weightlifting. There are differences. Big ones. Huge ones.

If anyone asks me about the intrusion of a weightlifting picture into a bodybuilding presentation, I may crumble and admit, ok, you got me, I know this is not bodybuilding, I know it is weightlifting, I know there is a difference, and although I am meant to be presenting on bodybuilding, in truth my heart feels like it has flown to weightlifting. At least on Sunday mornings.

What happened is this. As much as it is a contested term, I do have a soft spot for what is known as functional training; and as much as most of my approach to weights can be called bodybuilding, I also disidentify or distance myself from bodybuilding pure and simple. Yes, I want the muscles – and I will fight anything that sounds like it will give a fingerhold to sarcopenia – but I am always looking for something more and other than mere muscle. I want skill. And I want power.

Not power in the Lacanian sense of trying to fill an ineradicable lack, or in the psychopathic sense of Trump or Putin. Power in the physiological sense of being able to engage strength explosively and effectively in a specific way or direction. Power that will keep me keeping on.

With this in mind, I recently found myself hankering after trying to convert the kettlebell versions of exercises like snatch, clean and press, and so on, into their barbell versions. I tried it in the gym. It felt good. I went home and searched for YouTube tutorials on these moves, and thought ‘oh holy Christ – this is another level of technical; I can’t do this on my own’. So I asked around, found a class. (A chance encounter in a predictable conjuncture, as Gabriela Méndez Cota puts it in her latest Substack.) And I tried it. And. I. Loved. It.

Why did I love it? I think this image says it all. There are many other images like it online, but I saw this one and it hit home. Look at it. It looks like she’s flying. She’s lifting that weight up, and she’s taking off at the same time. That’s what it’s like. At least in one moment. There are around three moments in the upward portion of any weightlifting lift. Up, hip contact, under, extend. These all have to be controlled explosions in their own right. It feels fantastic.

And afterwards, when I’m walking home, it feels like I’ve been flying, and like I could fly again, right now.

Perhaps this is a bigger deal for me than for others. I smashed my ankle a decade and a half ago; dislocated my foot, smashed tib and fib in several places each – most annoyingly, right across my malleolus. This is all screwed and plated back together. But since that day, I have been operating with a dry joint. Bone on bone.

Over time, the intense pain that this can produce, and the days of ache and immobility have been a factor in my decisions to quit a lot of things that I love/d: running, sparring, BJJ. It prevents me from trying many new things: racket sports, hiking, climbing, dancing; stuff like that. Any fast change of direction, any terrain in which the ground is not going to be exactly where it was during my last few steps, or any activity in which someone wants to twist my foot or knee in nasty directions – these are all off the agenda for me now. I admit that, and yes I feel sad.

But: Enter Olympic weightlifting. Clinically controlled environment. Rubberised floor. No aggressive training partner. All variables determined and decided by me. And, crucially, it allows me to train for explosive power.

There is a saying, that I was told was a Chinese proverb, but one that I steadfastly refuse to look up and check, because it speaks a truth wherever it comes from. We die from the ground up.

We stop jumping, dancing, running, walking. Our bodies atrophy from the ground up. Translated into contemporary terms, we lose power. We lose fast twitch muscle fibre and we lose the ability to use what little remains.

I have been searching for something that will train my ability to explode off the ground without causing me intense ankle pain. I think I have found it.

So, I am in love with Olympic weightlifting. Does this mean I am renouncing bodybuilding, kettlebells, or walking away from all of that? I doubt it. This feels more like an addition, an expansion, an increase – one that reciprocally transforms the value and status of the others.

Honestly, it’s great. And that’s all I want to say today. No clever theory – but trust me, that will come. No cultural criticism. None of that. Just this: If you have not tried Olympic lifting, I recommend you try it.

This image, not so much.