The Deadlift vs The Clean | Mark Rippetoe

[stef]

​The mechanics of pulling a heavy barbell off the floor is controlled by the interaction between the musculoskeletal anatomy of the human body and the weight on the bar. Briefly, the bar must be over the middle of the feet, and the shoulders must be slightly forward of the bar, with the hips high enough to facilitate this position, with the bar pulled vertically over the mid-foot off the floor...

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[GioFerrante]

Say you take a deadlift from 135 all the way to 500 lbs. That takes your clean from 50 lbs all the way to 300 lbs. So we know he can display way more power than before. We know the SVJ may go up 2 inches, if that. What is the reason for the SVJ not increasing substantially even though power output is way higher since the lifter is way stronger? I would have thought if a guy gets way stronger, and can display way more power, he should see a better bump than a couple of inches even at the same genetic endowment for explosion.

[Mark Rippetoe]

The Standing Vertical Jump is a measure of how many motor units you can recruit into contraction in about 0.2 seconds. It is not so much a display of strength as it is a display of neuromuscular efficiency, which is just not very trainable.

[SouthernLifter]

I do not come from the world of weightlifting, but what Rip says about the relationship between your deadlifts and your Olympic lifts is very obvious to me. I laughed out loud when a guy tried to "refute" Rip with a Youtube video by simply resorting to straw men and other fallacies. The Rip´s point is clear to me BUT, the question is inevitable: Do you think that high level WL coaches are just idiots who don't order their students to deadlift enough? OR does the WL athlete selection criteria make students with the most acceleration capacity take precedence regardless of their strenght production?

I generally tend to think the latter, especially considering the genetics seen in the lightweight categories. But the guy that makes me think is Talashkade; he's a fucking 170kg gorilla, rock-muscled and huge-boned, why doesn't this guy increase his deadlift and take his C&J up to 300 kg for the fucking time?

Because I don't think this guy has deadlifted enough; otherwise I would have shared a video demonstrating it, but his top "pure strength" lift is a 700lb squat. This guy has probably never developed his deadlift and therefore that's why his C&J is still stuck at the +-270 kg threshold, like all the heavyweights of the last 30 years (something unusual when compared to Another sports). I mean, I have reason to believe that guy never deadlifted 400kg, so he can't be considered "one of the strongest guys in the world" like weightlifting youtubers say all the time.

What do you think of all this? Is the guy not that good at developing pure strength (like powerlifters) or did his coach just not order him to do enough deadlifts?

[Farmer]

What is the reason for the SVJ not increasing substantially even though power output is way higher since the lifter is way stronger? I would have thought if a guy gets way stronger, and can display way more power, he should see a better bump than a couple of inches even at the same genetic endowment for explosion.

The way most people train, your example-lifter above gets heavier. Although he got considerably stronger, he got heavier, and has to propel that added mass upwards as well now.

You may find extreme examples of completely untrained obese coach potatoes, who then get strong, AND at the same time actually lost weight.
If they have some modicum of neural recruitment efficiency, their SVJs might go up quite a bit. But this is expected.

Also keep in mind most everyone trains their entire body, and most typical gym rats and bro-dudes and highschool males train their upper body quite a bit more than most. So all of the upper body mass you gain also hurts you in jumping, as its not contributing to downward force into the ground.

And then gravity is a square, and that's a real bitch when your body is airborne and you can't push against anything anymore.
You have to create a whole lot more more force, for each 1/2" of SVJ improvement....its not linear.

A guy could get stronger and heavier, but still show good improvements in 30m sprint, standing long jump, shotput throw....sure you are still working against gravity in many ways, but going straight up against gravity in a SVJ is real mother fucker.

[Matt James]

I do not come from the world of weightlifting, but what Rip says about the relationship between your deadlifts and your Olympic lifts is very obvious to me. I laughed out loud when a guy tried to "refute" Rip with a Youtube video by simply resorting to straw men and other fallacies. The Rip´s point is clear to me BUT, the question is inevitable: Do you think that high level WL coaches are just idiots who don't order their students to deadlift enough? OR does the WL athlete selection criteria make students with the most acceleration capacity take precedence regardless of their strenght production?

I generally tend to think the latter, especially considering the genetics seen in the lightweight categories. But the guy that makes me think is Talashkade; he's a fucking 170kg gorilla, rock-muscled and huge-boned, why doesn't this guy increase his deadlift and take his C&J up to 300 kg for the fucking time?

Because I don't think this guy has deadlifted enough; otherwise I would have shared a video demonstrating it, but his top "pure strength" lift is a 700lb squat. This guy has probably never developed his deadlift and therefore that's why his C&J is still stuck at the +-270 kg threshold, like all the heavyweights of the last 30 years (something unusual when compared to Another sports). I mean, I have reason to believe that guy never deadlifted 400kg, so he can't be considered "one of the strongest guys in the world" like weightlifting youtubers say all the time.

What do you think of all this? Is the guy not that good at developing pure strength (like powerlifters) or did his coach just not order him to do enough deadlifts?

If you watch Lasha lift, it's pretty obvious that the clean is not the limiting factor in his C/J. There's video of him doing clean pulls at 300 for an easy triple, who knows what his max deadlift is.

[SouthernLifter]

If you watch Lasha lift, it's pretty obvious that the clean is not the limiting factor in his C/J. There's video of him doing clean pulls at 300 for an easy triple, who knows what his max deadlift is.

I´d really like wanna know.

[Farmer]

If you watch Lasha lift, it's pretty obvious that the clean is not the limiting factor in his C/J. There's video of him doing clean pulls at 300 for an easy triple, who knows what his max deadlift is.

That^, and he is moreso known for his crazy high snatch results, which, I would think, would indicate he has crazy "pulling strength".

I guess he did say :

I do not come from the world of weightlifting

Furthermore, for most the pulling part (height of the pull) of the clean isn't the bottle neck for the clean itself, let alone for the clean AND jerk.
(it seems the "pulling strength" argument is more suited for snatch, but the technical aspects for snatch are so much more higher)

I'm guessing at the percentages here, but from my observations watching CJ at meets it seems ....

- 60% can clean it fine: but fails jerk

- 30% can pull high enough fine, gets under it, but: pinned in bottom/can't stand it up, or fucks up the catch with forward or backward balance.
(even say if they did stand it, could they jerk it successfully? maybe not)

- 10% can't pull it high enough, but if they could catch it right, could stand it easily maybe (say: insane front squat capacity)
(also again, say if they could, might fail the jerk? we don't know).

The clean is such a basic movement it really doesn't figure in much honestly.
Its the least technical, most forgiving balance wise, etc.
Its generally seen as a "foregone conclusion" that you should be easily making the clean aspect of your 1st (and most times 2nd) CJ attempt.
Where as snatch and jerk not so much at all.