Continental Lifting
Posted on Monday, August 13th, 2018 by John Wood
‘Continental’ is a style of lifting where the bar is taken from the ground to the shoulders in any manner possible – usually in 2-3 separate movements.
The most common style is with the aid of a belt with a large buckle that which the lifter rests the loaded bar on before taking it up to the racked position for the press or jerk. Weightlifting Champion Norb Schemansky is shown here continentaling this barbell in order to train with a much heavier weight than he could have normally used.
The “short pull” from the belt builds strength in the ‘second pull’ in the Olympic lifts. It was this type of power training with maximum weights which contributed greatly to Norb’s success as a lifter..