Training Methodologies: The Chinese System

The Chinese have come to weightlifting dominance in the post-2010 era of international olympic weightlifting. They have also performed well in gymnastics, swimming and track and field. 

The general Chinese training system is not too different from the American system. The Chinese train around 1-2x a day. They emphasis full ranges of motion and clean technique. They also use a variety of assistance exercises and drills in order to supplement their training.

Specific to weightlifting, the Chinese emphasise leg and back strength. They autoregulate their work for squats and pulls, and they end their workouts with some hypertrophy/bodybuilding work (like the Lu raise!).

Chinese weightlifter Li Dayin doing side bends (Credit: Weightlifting House)

This emphasis on squat and pull strength is why the Chinese prefer to squat jerk than split jerk. Aside from this, there is nothing really unique about the Chinese system of training. What really allowed China to dominate in weightlifting (and I'm sure some other sports) is their youth programs and their lack of anti doping. The Chinese have a huge sample size of young athletes, as they choose thousands of children from the whole country to be in their youth programs. Therefore, they can find the kids with the best genetics and train them from a very young age (like 6 years old!). Also, the Chinese do not enforce drug testing like the Americans or Australians, and so their athletes can stay on performance enhancing drugs for longer.