09/08/2026
Two of our younger athletes, both eleven years old. Jacob’s hitting a power jerk with great form, and Grant is hitting a couple power position cleans, in season I might add. Thank you guys for making me look good.
People ask why we teach lifts this technical at this age. Here’s why:
1. Kinesthetic awareness. Learning to do complicated lifts like this that require a lot of technique and coordination teaches the athlete how to move their body, how to control their body, especially quickly and under load, much like in sport. The coordination benefits are massive.
2. Mobility. Loading their body through full range of motion in their shoulders, upper back, hips, knees, and ankles is huge for maintaining and developing good mobility for these athletes at a young age.
3. Power and relative strength. Everyone talks about the power benefits you get from Olympic lifting. Yes, that’s huge. Relative strength, that’s big too.
4. Controlled aggression. This one is underrated. You can’t do these movements slow. You have to commit to the movement, do it as fast and explosively as you can, and fine tune it over a lot of reps. There’s a massive benefit to learning how to be explosive and aggressive but control it. You have to have a cool mind. It can’t be uncontrolled aggression. Massive for sports, especially contact sports, but any sport in general.
5. Everything else gets easier. Learn to clean, jerk, and sn**ch at 11, and whenever you move on to any other strength movement, because these lifts require such technique, speed, and coordination at such a high level, other lifts and movements just feel super simple and easy.
This is what long term athletic development looks like.
