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Skinny strong
Hey Coach Rip, interested in hearing your thoughts on this. Whats the deal with people who squat and deadlift well, but are of a lighter body weight, like lower weight class lifters or some of the athletes profiles for the Crossfit games? Its pretty common to see someone who is for example, 5'9", 160-180lbs, and can squat 400lbs and DL 500lbs, or Olympic lift high numbers. Could this simply be due to experience, meaning they have years of lifting experience and have built muscle memory, stronger connective tissue, more efficient muscle contraction plus very low body fat%? Honestly, this is not about seeing my abs, rather building the optimal strength to weight ratio for other sports I participate in. My initial idea would be to gain weight in order to achieve my lifting goals, and maintain those strength levels with Crossfit wods, but somehow come down in weight and be more efficient. I realize though that this could just take a very long time, for the simple fact of having experience under the bar. Thanks.
TMPHBITEU
It could take a very long time, due to the fact that CF wods as a system are not designed to maintain strength gained in a program designed specifically to produce strength. But how many guys do you actually know at 5' 9" and 160-180 that deadlift 500?
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Apparently every teen on bb.com can. Usually for reps too.Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe
Member
Yeah,
I would not say that it is "common" to see a 160-180 lb crossfitter deadlifting 500 lb. There may be a few, and they are highlighted and get a lot of attention at the crossfit games, but even then guys like OPT, Pat Barber, etc (who are in that weight category you mentioned) cannot DL 500 lbs. I am sure you could name a few crossfitters with numbers like that, but it would only be a few out of thousands of very fit and competitive athletes.
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fair, more common to see a 450lb deadlift from the aforementioned. Josh Everett comes to mind as one, I have not seen his deadlift numbers but based on his oly lifts, its likely. A quick search on YouTube shows some examples of pulls 220kg+ in the 77kg. class, a few in competition so it looks legit. My only contention is that if its possible at 77kg to pull 220kg, its at least worth exploring their methods.
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Anthony Bainbridge has a 565 deadlift, at a bit shy of 170 bodyweight, while maintaining utterly silly conditioning (500m row in 1:25.4, 33 round Cindy, for e.g.). But as well as working bloody hard, he's a freak of nature.
Worth noting that Anthony built his strength base over years of heavy work before diving into CF, and typically does one strength movement/day in addition to the mainpage CF WODs.
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This is easily settled. Look in the deadlift column in PPST. A 180 pounder would be elite pulling 550 which is in the range you cite. (Elite according to PPST meaning competing powerlifter quality, less than 1% of a motivated, hardtraining population can ever get there according to the text). Now you 1) want to get to elite-level strength, 2) want to get there while not really gaining much weight. Needless to say reaching this strength level is going to be hard enough without trying to make it even less feasible. In my book, if you want strength, it seems easiest to try to get to the highest level you can achieve without trying to simultaneously do something else that will work against you (or just settle for not getting as strong as you can get). Just my .02c
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thats what I figure, these "freaks" have been lifting for many years. I would still like to see how a lower weight class lifter trains to high numbers with a relatively low body weight.
TMPHBITEU
You think there is a secret low-bodyweight training method these guys use?
Member
Chris,
I know where you're at. I was set straight by Coach Rip on these boards.
There is no secret.
Crossfit is great at keeping the 10 fitness domains up, but it will NOT keep your strength at the highest level attainable by your body.
The thing I realized after 7 months of crossfit (being 5'7", measuring 8% body fat and 145 lbs) was that I wouldn't be able to make any more serious strength gains without moving to a pure strength program. I came into SS with a weak 245 back squat, an average 325 deadlift, and an average 135 press. I am now repping my previous PRs after only 15 sessions on SS.
I am now under no illusion that I can jump back into crossfit, get my body fat back to 8% and still have have the exact same PRs that I have right now with SS. I will have to take out some WODs during the week and replace them with strength work in order to keep a lot of the gains I've made with SS (But I understand that I might not be able to keep all the gains).
Elite crossfit athletes are just that, elite. But understand that Josh Everett doesn't stick to crossfit cycles alone, and that if he decided to work solely on strength and ditch crossfit WODs, he would see an increase in his lifts. Of course he would lose some of the skills in the other 9 fitness domains, but he would be stronger.
To answer you initial question, my optimal strength to weight ratio is different from yours... we should try to measure our strength to weight ratio against the averages (use logsitall.com to take an average for your body weight), b/c our bodies might not be able to reach the same levels as elite athletes.
J
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