[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Since you did PLing in the past and now are Oly lifting, do you believe any Oly lifts used as assistance will assist the big three in any way?[/quote]
NOTE: WALL OF TEXT…
Hmmm, I thought about this long and hard and here is my answer but I am not too sure if its’ the politically correct thing to say. I think it depends on a couple of things. Firstly, if you have access to decent equipment and a coach to watch you, I think that heavy full cleans probably could be beneficial. Secondly, if you have sufficient mobility and no injuries, then again, maybe.
But I think that for the majority, you would be better spent doing the powerlfits and their appropriate assistance lifts. Why? Well I can only use myself as a case study here and what I will say is that I have been weightlifting for a little while now and I am the weakest I have been for a long, long time. For me at least, I have had to sort out a ton of mobility problems, strengthen muscle groups and sort out imbalances and I have to continue to work hard on my technique. So, in many instances, because I have been sorting these problems out, largely the weights I have been lifting have not been sufficient to really build strength, if that makes sense.
For example, within a few weeks of starting WL after doing PL, I cleaned 125kg, snatched 100kg and Jerked 120khg for 6 reps. All of these were FUGLY reps that were out of line and largely muscled up. I also developed bad tendinitis in my knees. With having a good strength base (220kg PL squat and 260kg + deadlift at 82.5kg), I was able to manhandle weights. However, in order to do the WLs as they should, I have had to dedicate a lot of time to refining how I lift, which means lighter weights that allow me to adjust myself.
It comes down to cost:benefit. I think that the time cost of weightlifting in order to get the benefits out of it are too much. I will say though that there are so many things that Pler can take from a WLer that it is worth sitting down and analyzing how they train. Again, using me as an example, I have always had a good work capacity.
So much so that training partners have said I am a freak; I can recover really fast, both between sessions and during sessions. One of the first things that I noticed from weightlifting, because you are doing very dynamic, stressful, full-body lifts so often, is that my recovery capacity had to improve further. And fast. Weightlifting is all about frequency and quality of movement. I think that a lot powerlifters would benefit from adopting a similar philosophy. People say that the lack of eccentric makes the weightlifts easier to recover from. That is largely bullshit.
A heavy max clean is nasty; the weight feels heavy, you have to accelerate it and importantly, you have to catch the downward momentum of the bar, which means you have to absorb a ton of force in your tissues, and then re-use it. This is stressful. Trust me when I say that squats are sometimes the easiest part of training.
Secondly, I think that some of the general strength exercises that weightlifters do could be of some benefit as assistance lifts. A true snatch-grip deadlift will be of benefit of the legs, back and abs. However what I will say is that how I have seen 99.99% of people perform these in articles and online is NOT how you would do them as a WLer. The start position has to reflect a snatch, which means your weight is distributed differently and the way you lift the bar from the platform is also very, very different.
Sorry for the wall of text.