How To Build Muscle Without Sacrificing Your Olympic Lifts
Most weightlifters think they should train the same way elite athletes do.
Snatch. Clean and Jerk. Squat. Pull. Repeat.
I disagree.
If you want to train like this, that’s fine. You’ll probably get pretty good too.
But if you’re like me, you’re probably a hobby weightlifter, and hobby weightlifters can train however they want!
We don’t have strict competition schedules. We don’t have to worry about performing at Nationals and turning right around to perform at Pan-Ams, and before you know it the American Open is just around the corner.
This freedom allows us to change our training focus however we see fit - whether that’s to focus on better mobility, improving your squat, or the topic of our conversation today - building muscle.
In this article I’ll break down how to focus on building muscle without losing your olympic lifts like I do in my OlyBuilding2.0 Program.
We’ll cover…
How long you should spend on bodybuilding to see results
How to program olympic lifts during a hypertrophy phase
How to program strength exercises during a hypertrophy phase
Which muscle groups to prioritize for aesthetics AND performance
How to program bodybuilding work without losing your olympic lifts
We cover this topic in depth on episode 32 of the Last Set Best Set Podcast, which you can watch on YouTube at the bottom of the article, or listen to here!
How Long Should Olympic Weightlifters Spend On Bodybuilding To See Results?
Most weightlifters are doing 1 or 2 lazily-chosen accessory exercises with half-ass effort, and expecting to build muscle.
This will not get the results you want.
In my opinion, weightlifters need to do some kind of hypertrophy (building muscle) training all year round.
But once or twice a year, I recommend taking between 6 and 12 weeks to prioritize hypertrophy.
Six weeks is just long enough to see some improvements in your physique, especially if you are a younger lifter. And twelve weeks is plenty of time to not only build muscle, but a noticeable amount of muscle.
But why is it important to include a hypertrophy phase in your weightlifting training?
First, it will help improve your olympic lifts. Muscle moves mass, and more muscle moves more mass. You can certainly go a long way making tweaks to your technique to get .5% better at the snatch, but if you had 3-6kg of additional muscle mass, weights just go up easier.
Second, it’s an easy way to prevent burnout. Bashing your head against the wall day in and day out doing the same lifts is going to drive you crazy at some point - and the constant heavy lifting wears you down, especially the older you get. Focusing on building muscle gives your body the time to recover from heavy training, and by the time you finish a hypertrophy phase, you’ll be rabid at the gates ready to start pushing your numbers again instead of not really feeling up to it.
Third, it’s nice to look like you lift. My coach used to say weightlifters don’t look like you expect weightlifters to look. Most of the time they look like normal people with slightly bigger traps. If you’re like me, looking the part is important too.
How To Program Olympic Lifts During A Hypertrophy Phase
You cannot expect to train your olympic lifts hard AND push your bodybuilding training too.
During a hypertrophy phase we want to actually prioritize building muscle.
When you prioritize one focus, you’ll need to de-prioritize another focus.
I recommend pulling back on your olympic lifts during this phase, specifically avoiding going heavy or really high volume training.
There’s two ways I like to do this.
Method #1: Technique and Positions
First is to take this training block to focus on improving your technique and positions in the olympic lifts. This is ideal for newer lifters who are still working on developing consistent technique. My favorite way to do this is with the use of variation complexes which you can learn more about in this article. Variation complexes are a combination of one variation of the olympic lifts designed to focus on one aspect of your technique, followed by the competition lift. Some examples are…
Low Hang Snatch + Snatch: Great for learning the how the legs and back work together in the pull.
Pause Jerk + Jerk: Great for reinforcing a vertical dip and drive position as this is the most common cause of missed jerks
Power Clean + Clean: Great for focusing on a full extension and meeting the bar
The goal of these variation complexes is to use the variation to feel a specific aspect of your technique AND apply it to the main lift immediately after. I’ve found this useful for helping learn technique faster, and it helps make sure that you actually get the benefits of the variation to actually carry over to the lift that matters most.
In my OlyBuilding2.0 program, I use these variation complexes as a movement primer to get some technical practice in, then follow that up with full snatches from the floor for a few sets before moving into our strength work for the day. Here’s an example from day one of the program.
Snatch + Low Hang Snatch: 4x2@65%
Snatch: 2@70%, 70%, 72.5%, 72.5%, 75%, 75%
This is ten sets of snatches, but it can easily be done in a very short period of time and leave plenty of room for your bodybuilding work, while still being incredibly effective training.
Method #2: EMOM’s
Another method I like to use for more experienced weightlifters is to use EMOM or On-The-Minute Training.
If you’re not familiar, EMOM stands for “Every Minute On the Minute”.
In this style of training you’ll start a running clock and perform a set at the beginning of every minute, and rest the remainder of that minute.
Some people may also say to rest exactly one minute between sets. It doesn’t really matter what you do, here. If you want slightly more rest between sets, then rest one minute between. If you’re ok with slightly less rest, then do them at the beginning of every minute. The benefits are still the same. You can learn more about the benefits of EMOM/OTM Training in this article here.
In the first OlyBuilding Program I released, I used a simple four week progression for the EMOM’s.
Week 1: 1 Rep every minute for 15 minutes at 70%
Week 2: 1 Rep every minute for 12 minutes at 75%
Week 3: 1 Rep every minute for 8 minutes at 80%
Week 4: 1 Rep every minute for 5 minutes at 85%
This allows you to get a LOT of work done in a short amount of time while still keeping the quality of each rep high because of the fatigue to feedback ratio, which I outline in the article above.
Most importantly, it’s a simple way to get your olympic lifts done so you can focus on the priority - building muscle!
How To Program Strength Exercises To Build Muscle For Olympic Weightlifting
When it comes to building muscle for olympic weightlifting, we can’t ignore the hypertrophy benefits of compound lifts.
As a weightlifter, you’re probably doing squats, pulls, and presses already.
But most of the time, these are programmed with the goal of getting stronger, not building muscle.
This means they’re normally programmed in the 1-5 rep range with very heavy weight.
Don’t get me wrong, this will build muscle. But think of it more like building muscle as a byproduct, rather than the main goal. You might be getting 85% strength gains and 15% hypertrophy gains with heavy squats in the 1-5 rep range. With a different approach we might be able to flip those numbers, or at least meet in the middle.
We know that people build the most muscle in the 5-30 rep range, as long as the weight used for the set is heavy enough to take you to or near muscular failure. This is a pretty big range to work with here, but here’s my recommendation - stick in the 5-10 rep range for compound lifts if you’re trying to build muscle AND strength.
This rep range is low enough that you can still develop strength qualities while also building muscle. You can do higher reps than this, it’s pretty fun in my opinion, but not a necessity and probably won’t make you a much better weightlifter.
My go-to method for strength work is to use a Top-Set Drop-Set approach, which I go into more depth in this article here.
Here’s a sample squat session from day two of the OlyBuilding2.0 Program.
Pause Squat:
1x5 heavy ~70%
2x5 moderate ~60%
AMRAP at 55%
This might not look like much, but the real killer is the AMRAP set.
If you’re not familiar, AMRAP stands for “As Many Reps As Possible”.
Rather than programming a specific set of reps, I can guarantee that every lifter will get the same benefit.
If I program two people a set of ten at 55%, one might barely squeeze out the tenth rep, while another could breeze through all ten reps with no problem. One person got an effective set, and one barely got a warm up.
By using an AMRAP set, I can guarantee that both lifters in this scenario will take the weight to a rep range that forces them to or near failure, and therefore get huge hypertrophy benefits.
Then, throughout the 8 weeks the top set and drop sets weight will increase, and so should the AMRAP set. I like to set a target rep to aim for. If you can do 12 or more reps, then the next week let’s add 5% to the weight and try again. This helps make sure that freaks of nature who can hit 37 reps aren’t just getting cardio out of this, and those that suck at high reps don’t just increase the weight and barely get 6 reps.
Now, you don’t just need to do this for squats, but for all compound exercises - especially ones that take large muscle groups through full range of motion. Strict Press, Bench Press, Deadlifts, and Rows or Pullups all benefit from this approach!
P.S. If you want to see how I program squats for three different goals, then check out this video where I break down three different squat programs for olympic weightlifting!
Which Muscle Groups Should Olympic Weightlifters Focus On For Aesthetics AND Performance?
When it comes to building muscle for olympic lifting, there’s six main areas weightlifters should focus on.
I’ll go through each in order of importance for performance in weightlifting, and make some recommendations to adjust if you want to focus more on aesthetics.
Back
The back is the most important muscle group for performance in the olympic lifts.
A strong back will help…
Support heavy weight overhead
Hold positions in the pull for the snatch and clean
Prevent tipping forward in the squat
It’s pretty rare to see an elite weightlifter who’s back isn’t absolutely jacked. That’s because weightlifting uses the back in every lift. But it’s also because these weightlifters understand the importance of building muscle here.
Some key exercises for building a strong back are…
Horizontal Pulls: Dumbbell Rows, Barbell Rows, Cable Rows, Ring Rows, Chest Supported Rows, and Pendlay Rows
Vertical Pulls: Pullups, Lat Pulldowns, and High Cable Rows
Pullovers: Dumbbell Pullover, Cable Pullover, Barbell Pullovers, Straight arm Lat Pulldowns
Lower Back: GHD Hip Extensions, Jefferson Curls, Zercher Deadlifts
You don’t need to do all of these exercises, but I recommend keeping at least one of each in your training.
P.S. If you want to see my top seven back exercises for weightlifting, check out this video here.
Legs
The next most important muscle group for weightlifting is your legs.
Strong legs help…
Stand up heavy squats and cleans
Create speed off the floor in the pull for the snatch and clean
Increase power in the drive for the jerk
Getting strong legs is pretty simple. There’s just a few exercises that you need to focus on…
Quads: Back Squat, Front Squat, Split Squat, Lunges, Leg Extensions
Hamstrings: RDL’s, Single Leg RDL’s, Hamstring Curls
I recommend prioritizing hamstrings in your bodybuilding as normal weightlifting will cover lots of work for the quads. But adding in one single leg variation like a split squat or lunge can help take the muscle closer to failure, and leg extensions can do this to an even higher degree if you have access to a machine.
For most people, choose one main exercise for the quads and for the hamstrings, and one secondary exercise; either a single leg variation or a cable isolation variation; for the majority of your lower body training.
Core
The next most important muscle group for weightlifting is the core.
The core encompasses not just your abs, but your lower back and obliques.
The core does a lot for weightlifting, mainly…
Transferring power from the legs to launch the bar
Resisting the downward motion of the bar
Stabilizing your body in the split jerk
There’s a ton of exercises you can use for the core, but only a few I come back to time and time again…
Flexion and Extension: GHD Sit-Ups, Decline Sit-Ups, Hanging Leg Raises
Carry: Front Rack, Overhead, Bear Hug, Farmers
Lower Back: GHD Hip Extension, Zercher Deadlift, Jefferson Curl
Isometics: Planks, Hollow Holds, L-Sits
In my opinion, heavy carries are essential for weightlifters. I recommend doing at least one carry exercise per week all year round, and more if you like. Now carries won’t build much aesthetic muscle, especially in the abs. So if you want to focus on that more, then I recommend focusing more on flexion and extension exercises like the GHD Sit-Up.
P.S. If you want to see my top five core exercises for olympic weightlifting, check out this video here!
Shoulders
While strong shoulders are important for weightlifting, they're not as important as you might think.
The shoulders don’t do much during the main lifts besides support weight overhead in the snatch and clean, but your back should do the majority of that.
That means the shoulders are largely a muscle group to improve your aesthetics. In fact, big shoulders are one of the easiest ways to look bigger fast.
You really only need two exercises for bigger shoulders…
Presses: Barbell, Dumbbell, Seated/Standing
Raises: Front Raises, Side Raises
Your program should already have Barbell Presses which is plenty to target the front delts. Which means you likely only need to add in Side Raises to complete your shoulder workout. The good thing about these is that they recover quickly and can be trained multiple times a week.
Whether they need to be trained that often is really up to you, otherwise stick with 1x a week.
Chest
Every bodybuilder's favorite muscle group to train, and every weightlifter's biggest weakness!
Most weightlifters don’t bench because it’s not a part of the sport, and while I understand the reason, this doesn’t mean you should neglect such a large muscle group.
A strong chest can help you stabilize heavy snatches, especially for longer arm lifters. But more importantly, a big chest looks cool.
There’s three main exercises you can do to build your chest…
Press: Bench Press, DB Bench, Machine Chest Press
Incline Press: Incline Bench press, Incline DB Bench
Fly: DB Chest Fly, Cable Chest Fly, Incline/Flat
I recommend picking at least one press or incline press exercise, and one fly exercise if you are only training chest once a week. If you are training 2x a week, then you should do one incline exercise press, one flat press, and fly’s twice a week.
Arms
Finally we have arms.
Least useful for the olympic lifts, but still necessary. Most useful for aesthetics, or at least that’s what most people think.
While most people love to focus on the biceps, the triceps actually make up a bigger portion of your arm than the biceps do. So a sneaky way to look like you have bigger arms is to focus on triceps over biceps.
Here’s a few of my favorite exercises for the arms…
Triceps: Katana Extensions, Cable Pushdowns, Skull Crushers
Biceps: Incline Cable Curls, Incline DB Curls, Standing DB/Cable Curls
I recommend doing at least one tricep and one bicep exercise per week, but if you want to really see growth, then hitting these multiple times a week is key. I’ve found the arms respond well to higher frequency/volume, so feel free to go up to around 3x a week if you want.
How To Program Bodybuilding Exercises Into Your Olympic Weightlifting Program
Now that we know the key muscle groups and exercises to focus on, how should you program your bodybuilding work into your olympic lifting program?
There’s two main approaches I like to use…
Push Pull Legs
Full Body Every Day
Push Pull Legs
This is one of the most popular bodybuilding splits out there!
You’ll do one day focused on upper body pushing exercises like bench press, fly’s, and tricep pushdowns. Then one day focused on pulling exercises like pullups, rows, and pullovers. And finally one day focused on legs with exercises like squats, split squats, hamstring curls, and leg extensions. You can rest one day between each for a 3-day program, or you can do all three in a row, then rest, and repeat for a 6 day program.
I personally like this as a three day split, that’s what I used in the 3-Day OlyBuilding program.
Here’s how it’s laid out in the program
Day 1: Snatch and Legs
Day 2: Jerks and Push
Day 3: Clean and Pull
This split worked well for me and is perfect for a hobby lifter who’s got plenty of experience in the olympic lifts. The Olympic lifts were all done with an OTM/EMOM progression like I outlined earlier in the article.
If you wanted to train 6x a week your split might look like
Day 1: Snatch and Legs
Day 2: Jerks and Push
Day 3: Clean and Pull
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: Snatch Variation and Legs
Day 6: Jerk Variation and Push
Day 7: Clean Variation and Pull
Day 8: Rest
This approach allows you to hit the same muscle groups 2x a week instead of 1x a week, which will help lead to more muscle growth.
Full Body Every Day
FBED is what I do in most of my olympic lifting programs year round.
Every day you’ll do…
One Upper Body Exercise
One Lower Body Exercise
One Core Exercise
And each session you’ll rotate which exercise you do based on the olympic lift the following session.
If you’ve got heavy cleans the next day, then you probably shouldn’t do heavy RDL’s or Squats as your lower body exercise the day before, but you could probably do some light hamstring curls and be just fine.
If you’ve got heavy snatches the next day, then benching isn’t likely a good idea for your upper body exercise the day before, but you could probably do some pullups or rear delt fly’s and still be fresh the next day.
This approach takes a little more forethought into your exercise selection, but can help…
Give you more frequency with each muscle group
Make sure you aren’t too specifically sore to hit your olympic lifts the next session
Add more exercise variation into your workouts
PLUS, you can do this year round in your training!
Bodybuilding Sets and Reps
Now that we know our options for training splits, let’s dive into programming.
There’s three key factors to programming bodybuilding.
Exercise Selection
Volume
Progression
Exercise Selection
When choosing exercises to maximize muscle growth, use exercises that…
Easy to progress in weight
Easy to take to failure
Have low stability demands
Won’t be limited by other muscle groups
A barbell back squat for example is easy to progress in weight, has moderate stability demands, and can be taken to failure, but most people will be limited by their back strength before their legs are ever taken to true failure. However, a hack squat machine is just as easy if not easier to progress in weight, has even less stability demands, and your back won’t limit you here which means your legs can go even further to failure.
Does this mean you shouldn’t back squat to build muscle?
Absolutely not!
In fact, back squats are kind of a necessity for weightlifters, and we NEED to challenge our back to hold positions on a squat. But if you want to take your focus on hypertrophy to another level, then using a hack squat is a better option. (hint: you can do both)
Volume
As far as volume goes, I’ve mentioned that muscle can really be built anywhere from 5-30 reps, as long as the weight used for the set takes you to or near failure with whatever reps you choose. I’ve also mentioned that staying on the lower end of the rep range can help you build muscle and strength because the weight used for a set of 5 is much heavier than the weight you can use on a set of 30.
With that being said, I’ve found that you can’t really go wrong with doing one heavier compound lift in the 5-10 rep range, one single leg/arm exercise in the 6-12 rep range, and one to two isolation exercises in the 10-15 rep range.
An example of that for the Push Pull Legs Split might look like…
Split Jerk: 15 min EMOM @ 70%
Pause Bench Press: build to a heavy 5
DB Bench Press: 3 sets of 6-12 reps
Cable Fly: 3 sets of 10-15 reps
Tricep Pushdown: 3 sets of 10-15 reps
For the lower body that might look like…
Snatch: 15 min EMOM @ 70%
Pause Squat: build to a heavy 5
Split Squat: 3 sets of 6-12 reps each side
Hamstring Curl: 3 sets of 10-15 reps
Leg Extension: 3 sets of 10-15 reps
And an example of this for the Full Body Every Day Split might look like this…
Day 1:
Snatch: 5x3 @ 70%
Seated Dumbbell Overhead Press: 3x5-10 reps heavy
Banded Hamstring Curl: 3 sets of 10-15
Single Arm Farmers Carry: 3x 100ft heavy each side
Day 2:
Clean: 5x3 @ 70%
Pause Back Squat: 1x5 @ 70%, 2x5 @ 60%, AMRAP @ 55%
Bent Over Rear Delt Fly: 3x10-15 reps
Hanging Leg Raise: 3x10-15 reps
Day 3:
Jerk: 5x3 @ 70%
Pause Bench Press: 1x5 @ 70%, 2x5 @ 60%, AMRAP @ 55%
Single Leg Dumbbell RDL: 3x6-12 reps moderate
GHD SIt-Up: 3x6-10 reps heavy
Progressing Your Bodybuilding Exercises
The final thing to consider when programming bodybuilding work for olympic weightlifting is the progressions.
You’re probably familiar with the concept of progressive overload - adding weight, sets, or reps to an exercise over time to force the muscle to adapt and grow.
We want to do that with our bodybuilding work as well.
This can be done in a number of ways, most people commonly choose progressing the weight, and this is probably the right choice in most instances.
Adding weight to the bar each week and keeping the sets and reps the same will work, and is guaranteed to build muscle. But some exercises take more than a week to add weight to.
Exercises like Skull Crushers may take four weeks of training to go from a 30lb DB to a 35lb DB. In this case I like to add sets or reps each week. Start with three sets of an exercise on week one, and then add one set each week as long as you are able to recover just fine.
You can also progress the exercises themselves!
An easy example of that is in our core work. We can do single arm carry’s for four weeks, and progress the weight or sets each week. Then in the next four week block, progress the exercise up to double arm carry’s. This will naturally allow you to use more weight and therefore, get progressive overload.
Another example is to use Ring Rows in block 1 and progress sets and reps, then 1-Arm DB Rows on block 2 and progress weight, and then chest supported rows on block 3 to maximize the weight you can use.
As long as you’ve got some kind of progressive overload in your program, you’ll make gains.
And when in doubt, keep it simple.
Do more hypertrophy exercises, go heavy, and train near failure.
That’s it!
And if you want a program to follow that’s focused on building muscle and maintaining your olympic lifts, then make sure to check out the OlyBuilding2.0 program here, or the 3-Day OlyBuilding 1.0 Program here!