Does Olympic weightlifting build strength?

[0ni]

It's also documented in "The Training of the Weightlifter" by Roman (pages 35-45)
Mark Rippetoe also agrees (see article in OP) and so does Louie Simmons
The Chinese also do a deadlift/shrug combo with 160% of their max clean... 2 days out from competition!

 

[bradsky]

At the end of the day, you want to get good at cleans, practice your cleans. Doing Olympic lifts will make you stronger at Olympic lifts. which will carry over to stronger dead lifts.

Doing dead lifts will carry over to Olympic lifts, but Olympic lifts will carry over more.

0ni has a point, Fadi has a point.

how can lifting a heavier weight at speed NOT translate to strength and/or power... Of course it translates.

 

[0ni]

Yeah, my sentiments exactly Bradski
As I was saying before, a lot of Olympic lifters don't do much heavy work at all apart from squats and could do with doing more strength work. I'm not saying that all olympic lifters should do 5x5.. that would be stupid - but more than a set of squats once a week at the end of training.

If you want a 140kg clean, it's going to be a LOT easier to get there if you deadlift 280kg and front squat 190kg. Nobody will argue against this and it's why Olympic lifters take steroids, not to get faster or improve their strength but to get stronger. Of course you should neglect the competition lifts to achieve this but having more than adequate maximal strength will get you there far faster. The Chinese will do formal strength training in all their teenage years and have massive squats, deadlifts and push presses by the time they are 17 and start training the Olympic lifts formally. The focus of their training is strength until they are described as "adequate" and then the focus shifts to the Olympic lifts. The result... 13 out of a possible 16 gold medals - and they didn't have a lifter in two of those weight classes

 

[PowerBuilder]

fadi, you are an amazing author.

We are very lucky to have a lifter who reached such a high level of athlete development.

 

[bradsky]

If you want a 140kg clean, it's going to be a LOT easier to get there if you deadlift 280kg and front squat 190kg.

or,

If you want a 140kg clean, it's going to be a LOT easier to get there if you clean 140kg.

Cut out the middle man.



it's like this;

The shot put

person 1 : trains nothing for 2 years.

person 2 : trains Press once a week trains shot put once a week.

person 3 : trains shot put twice a week.

who will be better at shot put I would say person # 3 by a slight margin.
But, then again both methods would probably work.

 

[Fadi]

but I disagree with your stance that increasing maximal strength doesn't increase maximal power.

How can you say that when I have already pointed out to you by giving you examples, that for a lifter to achieve net power output, either the strength, the speed, or both factors combined have to increase? I'm not arguing with you nor am I disagreeing with you that gaining maximal strength is important. The message that I'm trying to convey to you is to please not violate the power formula. By that I mean to say that you seem to have an obsession with gaining strength at the expanse of speed. Would it not be better to take advantage of an exercise such as a pulling movement with 10% over one's 1RM instead of dead lifting a monstrous weight that is (according to you) stands at 160% of the lifter's maximum clean?

You wrote about a deadlift/shrug combo. I have not heard of a dead lift shrug combo in all my years in Olympic weightlifting. What I have heard of and did regularly though, was an exercise called halting dead lifts. That is lifting a heavy weight (say 90% of one's 1RM) off the platform, then lowering the bar to just below knees levels, counting to 5 before exploding up with it finishing with a mighty shrug. That was done for few sets of between 3-5 reps depending on the time of the lifter's cycle. Again, here you see a combination of strength and speed, not one, not the other, but both.

It's unfortunate that a sport that cares not for power is called powerlifting instead of brute/pure/absolute strength lifting or similar. And a sport that has power at its centre is simply called weightlifting... but that's the way the cookie crumbles!

Maximum strength is the backbone upon which all other strength qualities lie and this is covered in the Science and Practice of Strength Training...

Granted, no argument from me but, who's talking about strength or rather absolute strength here in exclusion of speed? I certainly am not! Power is a combination of both strength and speed; why take one of the elements away?

Here's something you (and perhaps others) did not know about the way weightlifters think about their squats. We both agree that the squat movement is a pure strength movement. So how can weightlifters use such a movement when achieving power is their main objective? Simple, weightlifters are always taught to come out of a deep squat explosively, or as fast as they possibly can. One may ask, so what is so special about that? The special thing here is that weightlifters make a conscious decision to speed the ascent whilst slowing the descent. So even with a purely strength movement, speed is paramount to the weightlifter.

If you want a 140kg clean, it's going to be a LOT easier to get there if you deadlift 280kg and front squat 190kg. Nobody will argue against this

Says who?! I'm here to tell you that I could power clean 140kg and clean and jerk 160, but there was no way in hell I would have been able to even move 280kg let alone deadlift the bugger off the ground! Does that make me weak? I don't really know, but I do know that lifting a monstrous weight off the floor was never my objective, so I never trained for it, and neither did the other 9 elite weightlifters I was training with at the time.

The Chinese will do formal strength training in all their teenage years and have massive squats, deadlifts and push presses by the time they are 17 and start training the Olympic lifts formally. The focus of their training is strength until they are described as "adequate" and then the focus shifts to the Olympic lifts.

Oni, are you being serious Sir? Why are you ignoring what I’m writing and sharing with you? You talk about the Chinese lifters achieving what is described as “adequate” strength level. Wow, let’s forget about “adequate” for a moment and look at real life situations here Oni: I have already demonstrated to you that even the strongest of the strong, that is World record strong, not simply adequate strong… (Shane Hamman 458kg squat/ deadlift 335kg) but could not manage a 242.5kg clean and jerk!

Some may argue that we’re mixing oranges with apples here, i.e. power lifters with weightlifters. So here it is again Oni just in case you’ve missed it the first time ‘round. Antonio Krastev (a weightlifter and former world record holder in the snatch) had a best front squat of 310kg, (I want you to think about that huge weight of 310kg for a moment please Oni) but could not get up with 255kg and 257.5kg clean & jerks back at the 1987 Ostrava’s World Weightlifting Championships. Everybody knows that it takes brute strength to get up from a clean especially if a lifter has missed the “bounce”/momentum. Vasily Alexeev (the legend) on the other hand, a lifter who never squatted with more than 270kgs, had a best clean & jerk of 256kg. Now I ask you, what happened to that brute strength that allowed Krastev to squat with 310kg, did that strength suddenly desert him at the most crucial juncture in a lifter’s career, i.e. on the lifting platform where it really matters!? What happened to that 335kg deadlift (not my pulls, but your deadlifts Oni); what happened to that sheer strength of Hamman, why did not the measly 242.5kg feel (to quote you Oni) “a LOT easier”?


At the end of the day Oni, if you feel that to gain maximum power, one ought to focus on gaining maximum strength, then (I repeat), please apply that way of training to yourself and to the boys and girls who come by your way. I choose to choose the more balanced approach where the exercises I favour have the power factor (that is the combination of strength & speed) at their very core.

Have a great day Sir.


Fadi.

 

[D1cko]

Don't worry Fadi, you're getting through to rest of us

 

[Fadi]

how can lifting a heavier weight at speed NOT translate to strength and/or power... Of course it translates.

Agree, will get back to you in a sec Brad.

Now here's Oni's remark to what you have said:

Yeah, my sentiments exactly Bradski. As I was saying before, a lot of Olympic lifters don't do much heavy work at all apart from squats and could do with doing more strength work.

He agrees with you, only to go on saying that weightlifters don't do much heavy work apart from...

Now to get back to you first Brad. What you have said is perfect, and it actually sums up all that I have been saying regarding the pulling (and not the deadlift) movement as a way to increasing a weightlifter's power (again, that's the combo of strength x speed). So how can I say I agree with you and Oni says he agrees with you, yet Oni and I are seeing things a little bit differently from one another? I explain...

You see Brad, lifting a heavier weight at speed does very much translate into power as you have mentioned Sir. Now have you noticed the key word in your sentence Brad? The key word there is: speed.

Heavier weight? Yes, for sure (that's where the 10% over the lifter's 1RM above head lift comes into play). Speed? Yes again, for sure. Well then what's the problem? The problem starts when we begin to move above the 10% level Brad. Why is that you may be asking? It's because there is a cutting off point, where speed diminishes so greatly that the weightlifter pulling a weight would become the power lifter deadlifting the weight off the platform. Meaning? Meaning that by increasing the weight over and way above the 10% marker, we would have committed a violation of the law that governs power. We have practically eliminated the speed factor from our equation, that is: strength x speed = power.

So the main reason I have agreed with your statement Brad, was due to the fact that you were knowledgeable enough to insure a combination of strength (heavier weight) and speed/explosiveness. Your statement did not favour one over the other but combined them both, and that Sir is, = to power.

Coming to Oni's observation (or lack thereof... with respect of course Oni), he said that weightlifters don't do much heavy work. I'll make my response very succinct here Oni by saying that "heavy" is a very relative term in the world of Olympic weightlifting Sir.

Thanks Ausbb for the opportunity; allowing me to voice my opinion and share some of my experiences with the good people of this forum.



Fadi.

 

[trofius]

Both movements require power, mass x distance \ Time... Sure a deadlift is slower but heavier, still a similar amount of power required, but the values change for each parameter.

I think the dead lift will produce more strength, but produce a slower contraction which is counter to what is required in an oly lift ( I have seen dome balistuc desdlifts but) If you are able to produce speed from the floor it can only help your lockout a tad.

if i was focused on oly lifts that's all i would do, and i would keep all assistant work at a weight that allowed me to maintain that speed.

The speed of the oly pulls is what makes the technique easier.

Should also add they are not the same movement.

 

[Fadi]

Don't worry Fadi, you're getting through to rest of us

I needed that, thank you Sir.


Fadi.

 

[GHOSTrun]

The Chinese will do formal strength training in all their teenage years and have massive squats, deadlifts and push presses by the time they are 17 and start training the Olympic lifts formally. The focus of their training is strength until they are described as "adequate" and then the focus shifts to the Olympic lifts. The result... 13 out of a possible 16 gold medals

Don't the chinese/dedicated-above-all-else olympic lifters usually complete their 10,000hrs of oly training by the time they reach 15-16-17 years old, which is why they get those results...?

 

[wingman]

Don't worry Fadi, you're getting through to rest of us

He did the first time he posted in the thread,

 

[oldcorollas]

random examples, "both world records"
there are probably heaps better examples but idgaf. (yes different weight class but meh)

Leonid Taranenko world record 266kg clean and jerk
266kg past waist height in under 1second.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQZjC7cNbyE]Leonid Taranenko world record 266kg clean and jerk.WMV - YouTube[/ame]

BILLY Deadlift 343kg Raw at 109kg
it takes about 3 seconds to get to waist height
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgBCX4lsdZQ]BILLY Deadlift 343kg Raw at 109kg BW.m4v - YouTube[/ame]


assuming they are lifting to similar height (ie power is proprtional to weight/time)
Leonid = 266/1 = 266
Billy = 343/3 = 114

leonid has more than double the power....

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTzKX2g5WM0]World record deadlift 1003lb andy bolton - YouTube[/ame]
andy bolton, 455kg, about 3-4seconds... let's be nice and say 3seconds
455/3 = 151....
could Andy lift 266kg to his waist in 1 second? definitely (see below).. could be get it over his head?

andy bolton, 363kg 5 times. a bit over a second to his waist.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FHuglcCk8I]Andy Bolton Deadlifts 800 LBS 5 Times! - YouTube[/ame]

BUT.. the weight stops at Andy's waist, whereas Leonid, the bars has VELOCITY as it goes past his waist, and continues it's journey.



anyway, the point of the thread is stupid.
if weightlifting didn't build strength, then weightlifters would be weak.
does it build maximum strength? no,but who wants to have maximum strength, and not be able to jump around or walk up stairs

does weightlifting build maximum power? yes.

Ripptoe said:

So, here’s the deal: The snatch and the clean and jerk are not themselves capable of producing an increase in absolute strength over the long term, and are incapable of continuing to produce an increase in their own performance when trained in the absence of heavy squats, deadlifts, and upperbody strength exercises that constitute an absolute strength overload. In other words, programs that rely solely on the snatch, the clean & jerk, their derivative exercises, and front squats in the absence of regularly programmed increases in the basic strength movements do not produce international-level performances for athletes with less than elite genetics or the use of anabolic steroids. Furthermore, it is quite likely that an athlete cannot reach his absolute potential in the Olympic lifts until he approaches the same limit in training his absolute strength.

typical dumb american thinking
I counter that an athlete who does NOT have elite genetics, CANNOT reach the same elite level in weightlifting, by approaching their absolute limit of strength through heavy squats and deadlifts, PARTICULARLY when you are talking about performing in weight classes.

Ripptoe likes to pretend he is being "scientific" in his approach, but SS could probably be summarised in 5 pages without all the useless repetition

gah, it's so dumb... it's like the american "the car with the biggest engine will go the fastest", with no thought at all for efficiency of power production and rate of power delivery

 

[PowerBuilder]

Thanks to Oni's myopic view of weightlifting, I am a bit more wiser and exited about lifting.

 

[oldcorollas]

and again.. you reckon andy bolton could do this with 214 so fast and get it above his head?
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-nlhZ0RR4A]Behdad Salimi 214kg Snatch World Record - 2011 World Weightlifting Championship - YouTube[/ame]

I was going to say "why doesn't andy bolton just jump in and beat all the olympic weighlifters?"


and then I remembered

 

[wingman]

Oly lifting is more exciting to watch than powerlifting imho

 

[RyanF]

Fadi, with all due respect, you pointed out that when oly lifters squat, they make it a priority to drive up out of the hole as fast as possible...yet you seem to be missing the fact that this same approach can be used in deadlifts, and very often is. While I'm not saying that deadlifts are necessarily an ideal exercise for oly lifters to do, there's nothing to stop someone from focusing their heavy deadlifts on being done as fast as possible. Oni tried making this point earlier, although I don't think he articulated it as well as he could have -- a max deadlift may take longer to complete than a max clean or clean pull, but making a focus on speed can still very much be there, and is often required to get PR's. I repeat once again, a 1RM deadlift may take a long time to get from the floor to lockout, but the emphasis is very often getting to lockout ASAP. Every remotely reliable resource I've come across seems to agree that taking a long time to complete each rep is only bad for speed if the rep is artificially performed slowly. When the lift occurs slowly because it's physically impossible for the athlete to complete it any more quickly (ie when the athlete is doing the lift as quickly as possible but the damn bar won't go any faster), so long as it doesn't impact the movement pattern, it appears to be beneficial for speed at lighter weights. That's not to say that simply doing the lighter weights as fast as possible wouldn't be even better, and again it's not to say that deadlifts are ideal for weightlifters, but I have to disagree with the notion that they decrease power simply due to the rate of movement being less than that of a clean or snatch.

 

[0ni]

or,

If you want a 140kg clean, it's going to be a LOT easier to get there if you clean 140kg.

Cut out the middle man.



it's like this;

The shot put

person 1 : trains nothing for 2 years.

person 2 : trains Press once a week trains shot put once a week.

person 3 : trains shot put twice a week.

who will be better at shot put I would say person # 3 by a slight margin.
But, then again both methods would probably work.

Or you train shot twice a week and press twice a week
I'm not saying that you should cut back the Olympic lifts to focus on strength training, how many times must I keep repeating this?

 

[Fadi]

Fadi, with all due respect, you pointed out that when oly lifters squat, they make it a priority to drive up out of the hole as fast as possible...yet you seem to be missing the fact that this same approach can be used in deadlifts, and very often is.

Thank you for your observation Ryan. I have failed to mention that a weightlifter is very successful in driving up out of the hole only up to a certain weight. Meaning, after the weight on the bar begins to exceed a certain level, the weightlifter's attention would automatically shift to focusing on form... as one can lose form much easier with a heavier weight than not.

While we're at it, I can think of two other reasons for not choosing heavy deadlifts over heavy pulls.

1. The deadlift does not simulate the weightlifter’s pull in all its facets.
2. The extra heavy weight (that is argued for) would make it virtually impossible to maintain good lifting form.

Now some may wish to argue the second point. But I can only speak from my experience and the experience of other weightlifters when I say that even with only a 10% or so increase over one’s 1RM in the pulling exercises, the lifter can lose form. That is why even after years of training, the coach who seems to be just walking around in the lifting area doing nothing, is all about observing correct form.

Furthermore (and I’ve mentioned this before), Ivan Abadjiev got rid of the pulls even, for fear of the lifter getting in the wrong groove/path one rep after another.


Fadi.

 

[0ni]

Fadi: I will get to your posts in the morning as I don't have time right now
I think that the arguements about big deadlifts not being able to clean or snatch big weights is silly though as they do not train for this
That DOES NOT mean that strength training is not important for power development. People are being very black and white about this. I'm not saying that olympic lifts should be ditched for power lifts because that would be stupid - and there will of course be examples of people with monster squats that can't get up with a lighter weight.. but that doesn't mean that working on maximal strength isn't important - why do you think they worked on their maximal strength in the first place? for the lulz?

I also don't know of anyone than deadlifts or squats a max weight and doesn't try and move it as fast as possible. As louie simmons said - speed is subjective