Deadlift Stiffness (Taleb)

[klh]

Nassim Taleb told switched from deadlifts to cleans because deadlifting causes stiffness. I have also been doing that to avoid stiffness and injury. Does anyone else agree?

FWIW, we both do presses. Taleb bikes, and I bike and row for low-impact aerobics. We need long-term sustainable programs.

[Mark Rippetoe]

What is "stiffness", and why is it bad?

[Martin Shenfield]

I think I can safely say that nobody with a brain agrees.

[Peter Bex]

I don't understand. The program contains both deadlifts and cleans. If you do it as written, shouldn't that take care of both stiffness and make you stronger?

[Jason Donaldson]

Nassim Taleb told switched from deadlifts to cleans because deadlifting causes stiffness. I have also been doing that to avoid stiffness and injury. Does anyone else agree?

FWIW, we both do presses. Taleb bikes, and I bike and row for low-impact aerobics. We need long-term sustainable programs.

I've found that deadlifts have done wonders for sustaining my health and well-being, personally.

[Shiva Kaul]

What is "stiffness", and why is it bad?

Apparently Taleb is deathly concerned about arterial stiffness.

Nassim: (03:58)
I was a cyclist when we met last, which is about 15 years ago. I had a near miss with a truck, and then I switched to a combination of a lot of walking and some intense but short episodes of weightlifting, full body weightlifting. Then I started reading the literature and realized that weightlifting is not good for your heart. It's necessary, but on its own, it's not good at all. It causes aortic stiffness and other things. When you lift very heavy objects, your body adapts by doing things that are not helpful for long-term survival.

So we need to compensate. Instead of just walking, something a little more intense than walking but not very intense. So here you have a lot of aerobic exercise, low grade, and your occasional full body weight lift. Just a variation on what I was doing, but you have to follow the evidence. The literature is clear that weightlifting is not good for your heart because it causes adaptations that are not very good. It causes long-term heart failure. If you adapt by doing aerobic exercise, which is more naturalistic, then you get both.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Amazing, that an obviously intelligent man is so thoroughly partitioned.

[Shiva Kaul]

Supplementing lifting with some aerobic exercise isn’t objectionable. Replacing deadlifts with power cleans, as a 65-year old, would indicate a childlike understanding of strength training. (Or an unwavering belief in meta-analysis). But, a normie actually preferring the power clean is too rare to believe without proof.

[heinz83]

"weightlifting is not good for your heart because it causes adaptations that are not very good"

Well, that about sums it up.

[klh]

What is "stiffness", and why is it bad?

Taleb would probably reply in French with some obscure quote about how the Levantine Arabs invented powerlifting.

I presume he means that deadlifts cause delayed onset muscle soreness that interferes with flexibility and other exercise activities.