Olympic lifting: why am I getting so big?

[WCC]

Hi,

Back in late March I made the decision to transition from powerlifting to Olympic lifting.
I did powerlifting on and off for 4 years. Bench press went from 100lb to 237lb. Squat went from 132lb to 315lb. Deadlift went from 220lb to 473lb. My bodyweight went from 143-155lb. I was lifting well over twice as much as when I first started, but my bodyweight had only increased by 12lb.

Fast forward 5 months: my C&J has gone from 165lb to 242lb. My snatch is still absolutely awful but it has gone from 110lb to 165lb. My front squat is a lot stronger and my clean pull and snatch pull have both increased by over 50%. What's shocked me is that I currently weigh 180lb. I've gained 25lb of lean mass in 5 months doing Olympic lifting of all things... WTF??? FFS I was deadlifting close to 500lb and I had the physique of an endurance athlete. I didn't even have legs. Now I have trouble fitting into jeans and everybody's commenting on how big and ripped I'm looking. How did this happen?

Has anybody else on here experienced anything similar? I figure there must come a point where I'll stop growing but will continue getting stronger (otherwise all elite weightlifters would look like pro bodybuilders).

Thanks.

[ivanhoek1]

Frequency? You're probably training longer and more often.

[TheFuarkingBoss]

Are you training more or less?

[WCC]

Frequency is much higher, yes. I'm training 6 days per week now instead of 3-4. Training sessions are also longer.

[itsagoodday]

Going from a bodyweight of 155 to 180 does not mean you gained 25 lbs of lean mass. Nobody gains 100% muscle, that weight is going to include a mix of muscle / fat / water / GI bulk. It also means you're eating in a surplus, so check your diet. You were 155 lbs @ 5'10" which is LIGHT, sounds like you're finally giving yourself enough food to grow for a change.

[grouchyjarhead]

It's probably frequency combined with eating more. Olympic weightlifting sessions are lots of leg and back work, which many agree are the two most productive places to focus on to grow mass as well.

Sounds awesome actually.

[KyleAaron]

Frequency is much higher, yes. I'm training 6 days per week now instead of 3-4. Training sessions are also longer.

Do more work, get more results. Surprised?

Well done, keep going.

[DCSpartan]

I wish I had your problem . . .

[WCC]

It's probably frequency combined with eating more. Olympic weightlifting sessions are lots of leg and back work, which many agree are the two most productive places to focus on to grow mass as well.

Sounds awesome actually.

To be fair it does make me a lot hungrier than powerlifting. Energy expenditure is a lot higher in the Olympic lifts though, so that's to be expected. I don't eat like a bodybuilder though.
I'm starting to think it might be a genetic thing. My gym has an OL club; I've spoken to the head coach and a few of the lifters and none of them have gained a significant amount of mass from this kind of training. The powerlifting club on the other hand... different story altogether.

Do more work, get more results. Surprised?

Well done, keep going.

Haha, thanks. I knew I was going to get that response from someone!

What you're saying makes perfect sense, but that's just the nature of Olympic lifting... it requires/allows for higher volume and frequency. The snatch, C&J, their variants and even the assistance lifts (I'm including the Oly-style back squat here) are nowhere near as hard on the body/CNS as the power lifts. In weightlifting you train at 90-100% intensity every session; working uo to a sh!tload of doubles and triples on every exercise you do. No 'light days' unless you're injured.
But this is because of several factors: You're lifting considerably less weight; the rep range is even lower, there's much less time under tension and little to no eccentric resistance. Hence my surprise at having gained so much mass.
Prior to weightlifting I was doing 5x5 routines, which are well known for getting people big. I can't imagine any expert prescribing a hardcore Olympic lifting program over a 5x5 one to someone who wanted to bulk up.

[dutchie1]

Hi,

Back in late March I made the decision to transition from powerlifting to Olympic lifting.
I did powerlifting on and off for 4 years. Bench press went from 100lb to 237lb. Squat went from 132lb to 315lb. Deadlift went from 220lb to 473lb. My bodyweight went from 143-155lb. I was lifting well over twice as much as when I first started, but my bodyweight had only increased by 12lb.

Fast forward 5 months: my C&J has gone from 165lb to 242lb. My snatch is still absolutely awful but it has gone from 110lb to 165lb. My front squat is a lot stronger and my clean pull and snatch pull have both increased by over 50%. What's shocked me is that I currently weigh 180lb. I've gained 25lb of lean mass in 5 months doing Olympic lifting of all things... WTF??? FFS I was deadlifting close to 500lb and I had the physique of an endurance athlete. I didn't even have legs. Now I have trouble fitting into jeans and everybody's commenting on how big and ripped I'm looking. How did this happen?

Has anybody else on here experienced anything similar? I figure there must come a point where I'll stop growing but will continue getting stronger (otherwise all elite weightlifters would look like pro bodybuilders).

Thanks.

You got alot stronger and in doing so, your muscles had to get bigger aswell. You also commented been hungrier from weightlifting and eating more, ofcourse if you eat more you're going to get bigger. Don't know how tall you are but 155lbs is not alot of weight. Im pretty sure you look alot healthier weighting 170-180 aswell

[KyleAaron]

Prior to weightlifting I was doing 5x5 routines, which are well known for getting people big. I can't imagine any expert prescribing a hardcore Olympic lifting program over a 5x5 one to someone who wanted to bulk up.

Dan John suggests barbell complexes, like deadlift --> clean --> front squat --> jerk ---> row. Starr's original routine was clean, back squat and bench press. A number of high school programmes would be something like clean --> front squat ---> press. It's not "pure" WL but it includes the movements.

The reason the quick lifts aren't more widely-prescribed isn't because they're not effective, it's because they're harder to perform and coach. For example in Starting Strength, basically nobody following the routine on their own does the cleans, and they're omitted even by many Starting Strength coaches if the person is older, beat-up, or a physical idiot it'd take months to get it right. So we prescribe something you can do, and will be more likely to do.

Now, once you've spent 3-6 months lifting, you've not only built a base of strength but also more confident with handling the barbell. You are more likely to be able to do a decent clean after having worked up to a 140kg deadlift than after a 60kg deadlift. And the deadlift will make your clean go up anyway. So okay, at the start you can just deadlift.

And yes, you can go to higher percentages more frequently on the quick movements than the slow ones. Most WL programmes though, for competitive lifters, have them spending most of their time around 70%. But these are 100kg guys who can jerk 150-200kg, which is not most of us. Doing 60-100kg just takes less out of you than 150-200kg, even if the 60-100kg is your max.

This is why with my lifters, if they push the slow lifts for a while and are getting tired and grumpy, we give them a cycle or two of the quick lifts. It's less weight so it's a break physically, and they get to focus on technique stuff a bit more so it's mentally refreshing.

If you had been doing just the quick lifts for a while and then switched to sq/bp/dl you'd probably find you grew, too. A friend of mine lifting since 1971 visited last week and he talked about training his son, how he'd bench press until he got stuck, then close-grip until he got stuck, then incline press until he got stuck, then press until he got stuck - back to bench press, it was stronger. "Same but different" is a powerful thing. And really, despite all the drama between gurus and their followers, powerlifting and weightlifting and properly-performed bodybuilding are all "same but different."