Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. An athlete is at a competition. The athlete is preparing for the snatch event and everything is going pretty well. They are getting into the groove in the warm-up sets, visualizing the lifts on the platform, and focusing on technical proficiency in the movements in the warm-up area. The athlete steps up to perform their opening lift and knocks it out of the park. Attempts two and three go equally well. Then something happens in that 10 minute space between the two events. Suddenly, the athlete’s energy levels seem to drop off a cliff, movements become sluggish, legs are filling up with lead as they grind out some clean and jerks in the warm-up area. What started as a phenomenal performance in the snatch did not want to replicate itself in the clean and jerk. If you’ve ever experienced this as an athlete or coach, it may be disappointing, but know that you’re not alone, and that there are strategies you can do to mitigate this psychological, and physiological, rollercoaster.
In all likelihood, the culprit for this sharp contrast in performance between the two events is the result of a mismanagement of the optimal range of arousal state for athletic performance. That is to say, the athlete may be overly mentally stimulated in preparation for the snatch, which leads to a crash that causes under-stimulation in the clean and jerk. When it comes to the performance of complex tasks, psychologists have long noted the curvilinear, or inverted U-shaped, relationship between arousal and performance: performance will increase with increased arousal levels or stimulation, but will reach a peak, and then start to decrease with increasing levels of arousal.

The mechanism of this relationship is in large part attributed to the presence of stress hormones or glucocorticoids in the body as it relates to physical performance. The accumulation of stress hormones can activate the sympathetic nervous system and increase readiness, motivation, feelings of wellbeing, as well as circulation, oxygen uptake, and testosterone production. But the accumulation of too much of these hormones will lead to earlier onsets of fatigue and crashing. Being an equally physical and psychologically demanding sport, Olympic weightlifters need to find the balance between too little stimulation and too much stimulation. For competitive athletes and coaches, what this means is effective stress management that can be sustain throughout the course of your competition.

For many athletes and coaches, myself included, that opening snatch can be a make or break moment in the competition. A good snatch opener can set the tone for the rest of the competition. Stress levels will skyrocket when that opener is not successfully posted. Therefore, athletes and coaches tend to place a ton of emphasis in the preparation stages for the snatch to really dial in that opening lift. What can often result, however, is a tunnel visioned approach to “getting on the board” but borrowing from the stimulation required to perform a big clean and jerk later on for some immediate pay-offs in the snatch. While this may be a legitimate strategy if we know that an athlete is paralyzed by the fear of missing a snatch, finishing with a snatch PR doesn’t mean much if the athlete is not able to replicate that performance in the clean and jerk, or even worse, bomb out on the clean and jerks.

So, I want to propose the following strategies to help coaches and athlete maintain optimal arousal throughout the course of the meet so that performance in both events is balanced towards an overall better outcome. These strategies are divided into immediate short term, i.e., things you can do during the meet, as well as long term, i.e., things you can do between meets to prepare.
 
Short Term - Mental Resets through Mindfulness Strategies

The number one thing coaches and athletes can do for themselves during the meet is to adopt mindfulness strategies in order to focus on the immediate present. That is to say, the athlete should not have to worry about anything other than what they’re currently doing. They shouldn’t worry about their opener, nor even their next warm up set. The athlete should visualize only the lift that’s in front of them. Here, the onus is on the coach to take on all of the stress the athlete might be feeling. If you’re the coach, it’s your job to worry about where the athlete is on the start list, the attempts board, where they are on the clock, and what other competitors are doing. If you’re the athlete, focus only on what you need to do in front of you, trust that your coach is taking care of everything else around you and that they’ll let you know what you need to do at any given moment. For more specific mindfulness techniques, check out my three-part mindfulness article series published in the three preceding issues of Performance Menu.

Carry this mindfulness strategy through after snatches are complete. It is very important to take a mental reset here. It doesn’t matter how snatches went, good or bad. What matters is the task at hand, clean and jerk. As such, focus only on the present and what you need to do, and let the coach what they need to do to help you get there.

Short Term - Sustained Nutritional Intake

Nutrition is such an obvious one that it almost gets taken as a given. However, one important point that needs to be taken into consideration are caffeine and carbohydrate intake throughout the course of the competition. I’ve known of too many athletes (I, too, am guilty of this) that take too much caffeine and pre-workout before their snatches that by the time they are ready for the clean and jerks, they’re already way too jittery and crashing from that initial caffeine intake. So, if you are an athlete that needs caffeine, make sure you moderate your intake throughout the course of the meet. As for carbohydrates, make sure that there is a steady supply of simple, easily digestible form throughout both events. I suspect with the number of packs of gummy bears I see in the training hall that most athletes have this one down pack. But it’s an important reminder nevertheless. Ideally, if you have the opportunity to refuel between the two events, you should take it, but again, ensure adopt a moderation strategy and don’t overfeed.

Long Term – Competition Simulations in Training

This one is pretty straightforward, simulate competition conditions as often as is feasible and appropriate for an athlete’s training cycle. Our mind gets really good at adapting to circumstances we are familiar with. If we simulate competition environments and settings, it decreases the likelihood that we will be over-stimulated during competition because the simulations we’ve run in training are like the dress rehearsals for what we might encounter during competition. This is also a great opportunity to practice mindfulness skills. The key to simulation is to try to replicate competition conditions as closely as possible. This includes, but not limited to, competition style bar-loading, apparel, timing between sets, nutritional intake. It also won’t hurt to create background distractions as you never know what the venue will be like when you walk in on the day of.

Long Term - Conditioning Work and Mental Training

The next thing you’ll want to do as an athlete or coach is to ensure you are doing conditioning work and mental training regularly in your training cycles. Mental crashes in competition are not a direct indication that the athlete has poor conditioning. However, an athlete can always benefit from better conditioning in order to elevate the mental threshold at which they tolerate peak stress or arousal. Finally, mental training, visualization, and mindfulness skills in regular practice will only serve to benefit the athlete when they are tested in competition.

By adopting these mitigation strategies, I hope that coaches and athletes will find them helpful to keep the athlete within an optimal arousal range throughout the course of the competition. In my experience, athletes often find this to be a jarring experience because they’ll often push through three-hour training sessions in the gym but then hit a brick wall an hour into a two hour session in competition. Crashing is not an indication of poor mental fortitude or physical conditioning, but it just involves better strategies required for stress management.