Hi CT! I want to add some power clean to my programme. I’m actually doing the deadlift friend and foe + the 5x1 4x1 3x1 2x1 1x1/80% 1RM 3x5/70% 1RM 1x10 training you suggested me.
My main lifts are high pull, bench press, push press and squat. I thought I could do one day of squat and power clean… is it a good idea? Plus I would like to know witch kind of rep scheme I should do with power clean to upgrade my sprints.
Some1?
[quote]bigmax wrote:
Some1?[/quote]
i replaced the sghp with power cleans from hang.
i kept the sghp as activation for squat, and clean days so i still got plenty of them in.
sprints?
i never knew cleans to help sprints.
if you wanna bring up your sprints, there are tons of stuff out there for that.
Almost any quality speed program is going to utilize power cleans and other explosive lifts.
[quote]Brett Kunkel wrote:
Almost any quality speed program is going to utilize power cleans and other explosive lifts.[/quote]
As a former olympic lifter, and someone who uses the olympic lifts extensively with his athletes/clients I would like to agree with that statement. But it’s not true.
A lot of strength coaches working with high level athletes involved in sports where power and speed is very important do not the olympic lifts and their variations: Joe DeFranco, Eric Cressey, Mike Boyle, Buddy Morris, etc.
And many speed athletes (even some sprinters) do not use them either.
I personally value them as a great tool, but objectively it’s not true that they are absolutely needed to maximize speed and power. Other types of training can get you there.
Some sprint coaches use olympic lifts because they utilize a lot of muscles so they offer a lot of bang for the buck as far as general strength is concerned and they can spend less time in the weight room. They don’t use them to improve speed. That’s what sprinting is for.
Huh guess you learn somethin new everyday. Coach Thib are you saying they can’t be used to improve speed, or just that there are other tools that are better and or more popular? And what would those tools be?
[quote]Brett Kunkel wrote:
Huh guess you learn somethin new everyday. Coach Thib are you saying they can’t be used to improve speed, or just that there are other tools that are better and or more popular? And what would those tools be?[/quote]
I’m not saying they can’t be used. I use power cleans and power snatches extensively with my hockey and football players. I am simply playing Devil’s advocate here by mentioning that a lot of successful coaches have worked with very high level athletes without using power cleans to build explosiveness. I used Joe DeFranco has an example… with his NFL players he builds power by using “speed lifts” (e.g. squats with 40-50% lifted as fast as possible, often with added bands or chains) and plyometrics/jumps.
Now, no lift will directly build speed. A resistance training movement can improve strength, power, muscle mass or resistance. Power is the foundation on which speed is built. The more power you have, the greater is your speed potential… you still need to work on the track to learn to integrate the gained power.
Basically strength is the foundation on which power is built, and power is the foundation on which speed is built.
So any exercise making you stronger can make you more powerful, but you’ll need something to “learn” to apply your strength in an explosive action. Various forms of jumps and loaded jumps can do this… so one could build a large base of strength and use jumps, throws and loaded jumps to improve power.
Or lifts like the olympic lifts can be used since they require both a high level of strength and the capacity to display that strength in an explosive movement.
So in a sense, olympic lifts allow you to “skip a step” (converting strength into an increased capacity to produce power). However they are a lot more technicals than other power movements (jumps, throws, loaded jumps) and many coaches feel like the time it takes to learn the movement is not worth it… after all, if an athlete has a 16 weeks off-season (for example) then spending 4 weeks becoming efficient in the olympic lifts might mean 4 weeks were you do not stimulate maximal physical changes.
Some other coaches do not have the background and knowledge to teach the olympic lifts properly.
In those two cases, using a combination of heavy lifting and explosive drills might be a better solution than olympic lifts.
[quote]BillyHayes wrote:
Some sprint coaches use olympic lifts because they utilize a lot of muscles so they offer a lot of bang for the buck as far as general strength is concerned and they can spend less time in the weight room. They don’t use them to improve speed. That’s what sprinting is for.[/quote]
That is not totally correct. While it’s true that training economy plays a role. Sprinters by nature have a very fragile CNS and tend to not be able to take a lot of strength training volume. True elite sprinters are born with a different fiber make-up and neural wiring which makes them naturally super explosive, but also have a very low resiliency to high intensity work.
The two athletes I worked with that had the lowest tolerance for strength work were sprinters. They both could do roughly 6-9 total work sets in a workout… not 6-9 work sets per exercise or per body part, but total work set in a session. So yeah, in such a case you want exercises that hit a lot of muscle groups at once since you do not have a lot of “sets to invest”.
However the olympic lift variations are not primarily strength exercises. YES they will make you stronger, but their biggest advantage is to improve your capacity to produce power (strength displayed in an explosive action). It’s a huge difference… you can be strong without being powerful. And as I mentioned earlier, power is the foundation of speed… YES sprinting is important to improve technical efficiency and learn to use most of your power while sprinting… but improving power WILL improve your speed.
For example when I played football I registered a 5.2 / 40 yards dash… I was training using more of a strength routine but was also doing sprints.
Then I switched to olympic lifting… basically doing nothing but snatches, clean & jerks, squats and front squats. After 3 years of this regimen I went to train with a member of the Canadian bobsleigh team on the track and within 2 sessions I ran a 4.54 / 40 (electric time).
During those 3 years I didn’t do a single sprint.
So saying that olympic lift cannot make you faster is false.
Just like saying that they are absolutely necessery is also false.
Great points CT. I would say Oly lifts are great but only if the lifter has adequate technique, which is usually not the case. Most of the time it’s not worth the investment of learning, mainly because the coach has no business teaching the lifts. There’s plenty of evidence that power can be developed with the basic barbell lifts and medicine ball throws.
should i use them ? if so how should i use them ? and if not, witch kind of training should i do ?
rep shcheme, exercises…
[quote]bigmax wrote:
should i use them ? if so how should i use them ? and if not, witch kind of training should i do ?
rep shcheme, exercises…[/quote]
aren’t you a hockey player?
sprints?
didn’t he answer you before in a prior post?
sorry. i’m just asking, so maybe myself and others can try to give you better answers
[quote]bigmax wrote:
should i use them ? if so how should i use them ? and if not, witch kind of training should i do ?
rep shcheme, exercises…[/quote]
Prescribing individual program is way outside the scope of a Q&A forum