As a aspiring Olympic lifter and college strength & conditioning coach, I was annoyed when my athletes couldn’t do barbell Cleans.
Most of them had tight shoulders, tight lats, and tight wrists from too much benching and not enough recovery work.
(This was back in the late 1990s when rehab work was practically unheard of .)
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 deteriorates .
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 reminder to investigate further.
When I transitioned from College 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 soon after .
We all enjoyed them for their intense, quick impact .
Higher rep versions of the Olympic lifts did great things for people’s physiques.
They got leaner, faster.
They got stronger, limberer , and better conditioned.
Plus, they were challenging, 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 (according to at least one source ), it’s in the form of around 6 sets of 10 repetitions AFTER all their major 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 - and 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 cut down to 200lbs from 252lbs, and still kept the Squats ( going deeper this time - and lots more )...
Pulls ( plenty of them!)...
And Overhead work.
Nothing develops your upper back faster than Snatch Grip High Pulls from above the knee!
And high frequency Squats?
Complete muscle development!
Not just the legs!
Which is how I got back up to 230lbs in my late 20s.
So, if your goal is to transform the way you look, feel, and perform, you can’t go wrong by using the “Hybrid” versions 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 changes lay.
Exercises like:
Double Clean
Double Press
Double Push Press
Double Jerk
Double Front Squat
Double Clean + Press
Double Clean + Push Press
Double Clean + Jerk
Double High Pull
The Double Snatch
They’re just so challenging on the body.
Your body literally cannot resist transforming when you use these exercises routinely .
Start with a limited amount.
Learn the techniques.
Build your strength first. Then your mass .
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 higher rep / high volume Double Cleans or Double Snatches.)
Plus, using the double kettlebell lifts is time-efficient .
You can accomplish A LOT of work more info in just 20 minutes - if you know how to organize your training correctly.