Coach Lovelace participated in a two-day USA Weightlifting Level One Certification Course put on by USA Weightlifting. The instructor was Roger Nielsen, who served as the USA Weightlifting Olympic Coach for the 1992 and 1996 US Olympic Team. The course focused on the three basic Olympic lift movements, snatch, clean, and jerk, in addition to the power clean, power snatch, and squatting variations.
Olympic based lifting movements have four primary functions when used for sports performance purposes. They are ground based which means your force must come from the ground (or mat). Any position where a wrestler lifts or drives his opponent would be ground based. Second, they are time efficient, which means they work on multiple muscles in the course of one lift. From start to finish, a wrestler uses multiple muscles and movements throughout the duration of a move, Olympic based lifts are specifically designed for this purpose. Olympic based movements also drastically improve one's coordination and an athlete's ability to put together a series of movements, just as in any wrestling match. Finally, Olympic based movements build a strong core, which is the foundation for any athletic movements, especially in Wrestling.
Over the course of the two-day instructional program, Coach Lovelace not only participated in the lifting movements, but also coached other participants as they performed the lifts. The instruction was the best in the US and it would be the equivalent of Dan Gable helping a wrestler with their double leg.
DGS Wrestlers have some exposure to Olympic lifting as they have incorporated a Clean progression into their program for the past two years. Throughout the 2012-2013 season, we will not only incorporate the snatch and jerk into the strength program, but we will use the guidelines put forth by USA Weightlifting for Olympic lifting in Sports performance.
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