A contrast in styles

I’ve recently thought about training for some Oly lifting competitions. Right now my goals are mainly for strength in the big 3, but eventually I’d like to use the strength and power I develop for cleans, jerks, and snatches.

I’ve been doing some reading recently on how some of the top Oly lifters in the world train, and it seems there’s a big debate between 2 ideas of how training should be organized. I admit, there are much more than 2 different ways to train, but the underlying philosophy behind these methods seems to come from 2 separate ideas.

On one hand, you have a group of coaches/lifters who think that specificity and repetition is the key to success. They prefer a small variety of exercise selection, a lot of repetition (high volume and frequency), and a lot of training intensity. On the other hand, there is a group which prefers to break lifts apart and work on small portions of each lift. They prefer a large variety of exercise selection and less repetition.

So which do you think is a better way to train?