Novice OLY lifting

[IronMan]

Hi Rip,

I have a friend that would like to start training.

He watched the weightlifting at the Olympics and would like to start with that straight off the bat. Not sure what to tell him - which of these options (or any other option) would you recommend?

1. Get an Olympic weightlifting coach straight away?
2. Do a strength program (SS) first then learn the Olympic lifts?
3. Start OLY lifting immediately but run a strength program (SS) in tandem?

Also, how useful do you think the Olympic lifts would be for a soccer player? Would the power clean in your standard program suffice for the development of power in a recreational player?

BTW, the guy is a complete novice in terms of weight training.

[Mark Rippetoe]

In a perfect world, #2. But in a perfect world weightlifting coaches would base a novice Olympic program on strength, so #1 would be okay.

Foe a non-Olympic weightlifter, power cleans in a strength program are the best developer of power.