I think it is worthwhile to review why doing heavy doubles is such an effective repetition number for training the snatch. This should be especially meaningful for Masters lifters, age 60 years and older, who are wary of performing too many heavy singles for fear of overtraining or injury, but nonetheless need to prepare for intense competition lifting.

It is important to realize that a lift that requires a combination of nuanced technique and dynamic power and that mostly relies on the quick metabolizing of ATP/ Creatine Phosphate (CP) as its fuel source is a lift that should be rarely trained with high or even medium reps. High repetitions in the Olympic lifts take too long. Once you’ve spent most of your ATP/CP, which takes about five to 10 seconds of continuous full effort, you ought to be finishing the set. This is particularly applicable if you are in a competition cycle and lifting heavy weights. I doubt anyone has ever witnessed a discus thrower tossing discs one after another, and without rest, in a goofy set of five throws. Can you imagine how lousy that fifth toss would look? The discus throw also requires nuanced technique and runs on the same metabolic fuel system as the snatch.

Technique quickly degrades with any movement that relies almost solely on the super-fast acting ATP/CP metabolic system. An example of expiring ATP/CP is in the running of the 100-meter sprint. The start of the race is a max effort through about 40 to 60 meters or about half the distance raced. The remainder of the race requires holding form and relaxing through to the finish. This is because the ATP/CP stores are exhausted. The sprinter is decelerating during the second half of the race. Continuing to try to sprint at max effort after this point is futile and counterproductive. The same goes for longer sets of Olympic lifting. Once the metabolic system converts from the ATP/CP system, the performance standard is diminished.

Brevity in training sets is therefore essential. Singles and doubles are clearly the established rep number to use when training for maximum power development in the snatch (and clean and jerk). However, too many max or near max singles will eventually wreak havoc on a lifter, especially an older one.  There is a delicate balance between volume and intensity and between overtraining and injury. For older lifters with diminishing recovery ability, the extreme range of a max single may need to be relegated to competition. That’s a hard pill to swallow for grizzled veteran lifters used to lifting max weights on a regular basis.

Heavy Snatch doubles can be anywhere from 85 to 90+ percent of a lifter’s single max. Under normal conditions, an 85 percent first rep of a double is successfully completed nearly 100 percent of the time. The likelihood of missing the first repetition is very low. This is an important result. 50 percent of the volume of an intense double is nearly automatic. A successful first attempt seamlessly leads to a confident second attempt. This is not always the case when attempting a max or near max single, where confidence is sometimes marginalized by self-doubt. When attempting a heavy weight, you must be confident and hold nothing back. The second repetition of a double, supported by a successful first repetition, will most often be a confident attempt. With fatigue carried over from the first repetition, the second repetition will probably feel five to 10 percent heavier. Thus, the second rep of a heavy double could feel close to a max attempt.

The beauty of a heavy second rep is that although it might feel like a max single, it is not. It’s not as hard on your body as a max lift because it is less weight. However, you must maintain your best form to complete the lift. This is an ideal scenario for many lifters that simply wear down or overtrain from attempting too many max attempts. This would not eliminate performing some heavy singles, but it would relegate maximum singles to the competition platform.

This segues into a subjective observation. Maximum weight snatches are unique entities apart from lighter Snatches. Even 90 to 95 percent singles do not fully prepare a lifter for a 100 percent effort. There is nothing quite like attempting your personal best snatch in a competition and realizing as you first pull the bar off the ground that it feels more like a deadlift. It doesn’t always happen that way, but it does some of the time. The heavy feel of weight sometimes contributes to a breakdown in snatch technique as the lifter unconsciously tries to help the lift by raising his hips faster than normal and using more back to get the weight off the ground. This may make the critical third attempt in competition a technically inferior attempt. Performing heavy doubles in training can give you more attempts at weights that feel like they are max attempts. This will encourage psychological adaptation as well as physical adaptation to handle heavy loads with good technique.

As lifters age, they must match their workload with their ability to recover. Some top Masters lifters past the age of 60 only attempt maximum singles in competition. At some point, there is a recognition that max singles are just too hard on an older body to do them very often. No worries. Use heavy doubles for your power development and do singles with moderate loads to perfect your technique and increase your speed.