Real talk, trying to train the squat, bench, deadlift, clean and jerk and snatch simultaneously can be a bit of a pain in the ass. Right? So today we’re gonna talk about how to train weightlifting and powerlifting at the same time effectively.
Hey, I’m Alex. I am a professional strength and conditioning coach. Been doing that for about a decade. I’ve coached well over 160 athletes, ranging from recreational through to senior international level. I’ve also been head coach of Yorkshire Barbell Club and a tutor for British weightlifting since 2018.
I’m gonna take you through the big issue that you’re probably facing, and then my 4 golden rules for combining weightlifting and powerlifting training and making it actually work. Let’s jump in.
The Big Issue – ‘The Time/Energy Tightrope’
In my experience, most of us end up on what I call the time/energy tightrope, and it looks something like this…
- Either the weightlifting practise ends up taking SO much time and SO much mental effort that when you get to your strength work, you just feel drained and you don’t want to attack it
- Or your strength work ends up taking so much effort and just creating so much physical exhaustion that you just can’t do any quality weightlifting practise, or you do a bunch of strength work thinking it’s going to help, but it doesn’t carry over to your weight lifting and you’re just sort of left wondering, like, what the F* am I wasting my time doing?
Sound sort of familiar?
My golden rules for weightlifting and powerlifting training at the same time
1) Weightlifting Movements First In Each Session
The first one is in each session. It’s really important that you do the weightlifting practise first. It’s more technical. Okay? Like, I know it feels like you need to be more warmed up for it, which you sort of do. Weightlifting is more technical. It’s a very technical sport. You need to be fresh for it. You need your nervous system to be fresh.
You can’t do proper weightlifting work after you’ve done a bunch of heavy squats and deadlifts and bench or push press. I promise you, it just doesn’t work. Like, if you’re an experienced lifter, if you’ve been doing both for a long time, you might be able to get away with some light weightlifting practise later in the session. But honestly, if you want quality weightlifting practise, you gotta do it first. So that is the first rule. That’s rule number one.
2) Approach weightlifting with a very different mindset (Not gym work)
Rule number two, this is the really big one. I see. And that is that you need to approach weightlifting and power lifting with a very different mindset. Okay. Your weightlifting movements, your snatching, cleaning, stop thinking about them as gym movements. It sounds a bit weird. But, like hear me out on this. Think of them more as gymnastics movements. Think of them like learning a handstand or a backflip or, you know, some kind of cartwheel or aerial.
Think of them more like that and you will make WAY more progress. Like, what I mean by that is stop thinking so rigidly with your weightlifting in terms of sets and reps and percentages, and…
start thinking way more in terms of how can I train to master this movement pattern so that my body moves as fluidly and as naturally as possible?
If you make your focus, that your lifts will go up significantly more than if you make your focus sets and reps and this exact number, I promise you.
And, guys, you are the absolute worst for this. Most women tend to train weight within far smarter than most guys. I’m just saying it, guys, I think it’s our egos a little bit. We just want to shove weight on a bar and fling it above our heads, but it works to a point, and then you’re going to hit a plateau and it’s going to suck real bad because you’re going to get stuck there.
And then you’re going to have to drop the ball back down to relearn your technique and sort out all the crap that you should have done right the first time.
So start thinking about weightlifting more like gymnastics. Plan your sessions more like, okay, weightlifting, 20 minutes. I’m going to do 20 minutes of a variation of snatch, and I’m going to let the weight fall where it may could. The weight could be 50% today. It could be 70 or 80%. Hey, it could be 90% if I’m moving really smoothly. But my goal is just to move nicely, to create good quality movements during that time frame and to get as many good quality loaded reps as possible. Start thinking about weightlifting like that, you’ll get way better performance.
3) Two to Four exercises per session at most
Third golden rule. I would do one or two weightlifting variations and then one or two strength variations per session. I see a bunch of people trying to do way too much per session. It just distracts the focus. Okay, so one or two weightlifting variations, then one or two strength variations that might be.
Okay. You go in, you do some light hang snatches, and then you do some cleaning jerks from the floor. That might be three to five sets of each of those. And then your strength work might be some squats followed by some push press, right? Three to five sets of those, maybe three to five reps at that kind of one to three reps in reserve kind of range for your strength work. That’s it. That’s your session…
- Hang snatches 10 minutes, light technique practice at 50-70% 1rm
- Clean and jerks – 4×2 @ 80%
- Back Squats 3×5 @ 2 RIR
- Push Press 3×5 @ 2 RIR
Okay. You’re talking four movements total. If your session is like 17 movements long, you’ve got seven or eight movements. There’s too much going on. I would much rather you simplify and come in and do two movements than I would you do five or six and just do them all kind of half-arsed. Right.
4) Periodise Your Training
Rule number four is periodize your training, okay? So if you’re a complete beginner if you’re not very strong, if you’re not very good at weightlifting or powerlifting yet, you can probably do both of them side by side with loads of intensity and make great progress in each. Okay, I can’t do that anymore, and I’m betting a bunch you can’t either.
So if you’re coming to weightlifting and you already have a good strength base, like, if you’re someone that’s squatting two times body weight (just to roughly standardise it for everyone) it’s going to create fatigue. Right. Which means that it’s going to impact you a lot more.
The same goes as if you’re good at your weight lifting. If you are technically proficient and you are lifting a high percentage relative to your strengthen, it means you don’t have much strength reserve. So every lift that you do is going to be more relatively fatiguing.
My Personal Example of Being Too Weak / Not Having Enough Strength Reserve
An example of this is when I hit my first 140kg clean and jerk. I was front squatting at the time about 150kg for triples, so I had almost no strength reserve. I was very technically efficient, but I just didn’t have enough leg strength. So every rep that I did felt like I was basically dying. It was like every cleaning jerk was so hard and so exhausting.
Periodization as solution
You’re going to have a period or a phase where you focus more on weightlifting followed by a period or a phase where you focus more on your strength training and your powerlifting. What this looks like in practise is, okay, so in a weightlifting focus phase, you’re going to do relatively more volume of weightlifting. So that means more sets of more time spent weight within and you’re going to do relatively fewer sets of your strength movements. So fewer squats and deadlifts and bench press, but it doesn’t mean that you’re going to do none.
Okay, so let’s say that normally you were doing, I don’t know, say, 15 sets of bench press per week. What you would do is you would drop that down to maybe say, okay, I’m going to do like maybe seven or eight sets of bench press per week. So you’re still going to be maintaining your strength.
That strength isn’t going anywhere. You’re not like completely sacking off. You’re doing enough strength training to maintain your strength numbers, to maintain your power lifting numbers, which then frees up enough recovery and enough mental resources, enough physical resources to focus on doing more sets of snatch. More sets of clean and jerk, maybe some more pulls at like, you know, percentages, that kind of stuff. It’s gonna free up your time and energy to do that.
And the same works in reverse. If you really wanna push your squats and deadlifts and bench press, then let’s say you were doing, you know, ten sets of weightlifting per session, five times a week. So, like 50 weightlifting sets, you’re gonna drop that right down and do 20 or 25 sets, enough to keep your weightlifting sort of fluid and ticking over so that you’re not forgetting how to do the movements, but you want to free up all that bandwidth, all those recovery resources, so that you can pump way more sets into the strength work, so you can add more squat sets, add more bench sets, add more deadlift sets and actually recover from them.
Wrapping Up
That’s it for today – I highly, highly recommend you take those four rules on board and you’ll be able to train both of weightlifting and powerlifting way more effectively at the same time.
If you want a bit more access to me, then I actually have a coaching community for athletes and lifters, that you can join to improve your performance and achieve new personal bests in your lifts, using the exact same systems I’ve used to coach 160+ athletes, pro teams and talent pathways.
❗You can also Try one month for FREE
You’ll get access to:
📜 Programmes for Weightlifting, Powerlifting and Hypertrophy with 2-5 day p/w variations, + sport-specific Conditioning programs – All designed by me, updated every 6 weeks ($500)
🏋️♂️ Technique reviews and actionable feedback on your lifts ($300)
📲 Access to me for all your training questions + Live Q&A’s ($350)
🌎 A community to drive you forwards, hold you accountable to the hard work, and build lifelong friendships with (Priceless)
🥑 BONUS 1: Sports Nutrition Guidebook ($45)
🧊 BONUS 2: Recovery Management Strategies Handbook ($45)
🎁 End of Year GIVEAWAY: Something special (>$500) ONLY for people on the inside
TOTAL VALUE: $1740. Now just $97/month
🤝 Try one month for FREE
🚨 Click to join and start hitting PBs ⬇️
So it’s a win-win, you try it out, and either you get loads stronger and massively speed up your progress – OR, you decide it’s not for you, but you get a bunch of free programmes, guides etc that are yours to keep forever.
Hope to see you in there
’til next time
Alex
