Absolute Strength and Leverages

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

Ok, so different people have different leverages, everyone knows that. If someone has really short arms in proportion to their body it will probably be easier for them to bench well. If they have long arms it will be harder. Short arms, long legs will make it harder to deadlift, etc.

However, how much do leverages or height really have to do with absolute, functional strength (as in a sport other than weight lifting or powerlifting)? I know they make a difference, but is it really as extreme as some people make it out to be?

For instance, I’ve heard some people say “oh well a 300 bencher that is 5’4” isn’t as impressive as a 5’10" guy because the shorter guy
has less ROM, so the taller guy is stronger." However, isn’t the individual s
till moving it through their maximum range of motion (I’m not talking about guys with chests so big that they reduce the ROM by 6 inches btw)?

And especially with liters in different weight classes, like a 198 lb.er and a 165, the 198 guy is already going to be considerably stronger, but then you’re going to say that because the 198 guy has longer arms, legs, whatever, that the 165 lifters lifts are even less impressive? It seems to me that bigger people wouldn’t be able to do so much more weight if the difference in limb lengths was enough ti make over guy with a 250 bench "ok’ and another guy with a 250 bench “strong”.

Or, I saw this one the other day: " so and so is 6’3" with really long legs and squats 350. A 350 squat for him is like 450 because of his proportions."

Are leverages that important or do some people just use the fact that they help and exaggerate it to make them look better (guys with less optimal proportions for whatever exercise) or make less out of others accomplishments (ex: well we squat the same but his 500 squat is really only like a 400 squat because he has short legs and my legs are more normal)

I do feel like proportions help more in certain sports, like baseball. When a guy with long arms swings the bat the bat head is farther away from the rotation point and thus has a higher linear speed. Of course, a guy with shorter arms can still have the bat head go as fast as the other guy, but he’s going to have to accelerate more to make up for the shorter radius of rotation.

What do you guys think?

2

First of all, if someone has shitty leverages for one lift they might still have good ones for another lift. If you have shitty leverages for all three lifts, well tough, you might not become the best at powerlifting.

Regarding height, I once heard an experienced coach say that short lifters tend to become strong quicker but once the taller guy has built himself up enough it will even out. So basically, if you’re tall and weak, eat and lift until you’re a SHW and then you won’t be weak anymore. Blaming height for your weakness is stupid.

The strongest man I’ve ever seen in person is 6’4", he’ll be competing at the WSM finals this year.

3

I think there are enough excuses in the world.

You are going to be better at 1 or 2 lifts than the others.

4

I’m okay with tall guys shortening their range of motion to compare lifting strength with shorter guys as long as they let shorter guys dunk a basketball from a ladder or stilts. I think taller guys can have an advantage in certain strength events once they “fill out.” Many strongman events favor taller guys with bigger hands/longer fingers.

5

You have to love this debate. I think if you really want to nit pick about that you’re really talking about work. Work in terms of physics is force x distance. So technically the person with longer limbs/ROM is doing more work.

But if you really want to be that critical you can say that if two lifters are exactly equal in terms of body mass and limb length/ROM then the lifter that lift the weigh faster is the stronger.

The truth is there are some brutally strong people that are 5’4" and there are some brutally strong people that are 6’4". Like stated above, quit making excuses as to why your proportions limits your lifts. Quit slacking off, lift the bar and get stronger.

6

Pointless discussion is pointless.

7

Nobody’s making excuses for anything, I was asking what other people thought about the leverages argument because I’ve seen a handful of YouTube videos and forum threads elsewhere that have either talked about leverages to discredit a good lift or to make a mediocre lift better than it was.

8

Leverage is just an excuse to not be as strong as you could be IMO. I’ve seen people of all shapes and sizes complain about someone being stronger than them and blame leverage to look better. I have fantastic leverage for the deadlift and not so good leverage for squat and bench, but I have broken records in my organization in all three so I don’t think it is a very big deal. Just get stronger and/or bigger until leverage becomes a non-issue.

9

It’s just an excuse weak people use to explain why other people lift more than them. There’s any number of stupid things people use to justify lifting less:

  1. double overhand grip
  2. not arching when you bench because arching is cheating
  3. squatting ATG (which is funny because most people that claim ATG don’t even break parallel)
  4. not taking steroids (since everyone that’s stronger must obviously be on them)
  5. genetics
  6. lifting raw since everyone knows the top multi-ply lifters are weak as hell raw and can’t even raw bench 225

The list goes on and on. You don’t see a NFL running back wearing a 30 lb weight vest in games, so he can claim his yards gained were harder or better. Competitive athletes look for the best way to excel at their sport. Arm chair quarterbacks make excuses for why they aren’t an athlete.

10

I’d say you shouldn’t make genetics an excuse but there are some crazy people out there. I’m talking about the guys that bench 300+ the first time they do it or squat 400+ the first time they do the exercise. Still not an excuse though, you ought to just try and get as strong as you can (or to where you’re satisfied if you aren’t going to be a competitor).

Double overhand? I’ve never heard that excuse. Why would anyone double overhand a deadlift? I guess it’d be if someone’s deadlift really sucked they’d just do it and be like “oh well I can do 200 pounds more mixed grip, I just don’t like to use it.”

11

[quote]hungry4more wrote:
Pointless discussion is pointless. [/quote]

For real.
Why worry about anyone else’s leverages or whatever. It won’t improve your own lifting.

12

strong people never debate this.

13

To overcome leverage issues its simple.Bust your ass and get bigger and stronger.

14

I’ve heard the leverage debate and personally, I think it’s a subject that’s brought up when someone bigger and reasonably strong for their weight encounters someone who is smaller in overall size, yet is stronger than them in most of the lifts. I think it’s a way for said lifter to validate his own reasoning and his own strength without taking a personal ego hit and in some way or another, tell himself he is stronger than the other lifter. But the fact of the matter as someone posted before, no one should really be focussed on someone else’s lifts but to be worried about your own personal lifts (not directed at OP, just a general statement). I think a lot of these nit picking issues that are argued about why someone who deadlifts sumo isn’t deadlifting the “correct” way and everything Wild_Iron_Gym posted is like what he said: it;s a way for weak people to explain why other people lift more then them.

15

One advantage shorter people have in something like powerlifting is range of motion, not because their limbs are shorter, but because they can take a proportionally wider grip on bench than a taller guy while still having index fingers on the rings. Or they can get a proportionally wider sumo stance between the plates. However, short guys are at a big disadvantage in a sport like strongman, because a 60" box is a 60" box, whether that means lifting a stone to your chest or your chin.

But in general, most people never come near their absolute limits.

16


pointless

17

If someone is strong or weak in certain exercise it most likely is because his training habits than anything else.

18

[quote]wookieeassassin wrote:
I’d say you shouldn’t make genetics an excuse but there are some crazy people out there. I’m talking about the guys that bench 300+ the first time they do it or squat 400+ the first time they do the exercise. "

[/quote]

i still hate the fact that in his first competition a friend of mine squatted for the first time and managed to squat 182.5kg/402lbs, making it on his third attempt, first missed on commands, second on depth, and success on the third.