[quote]doubleh wrote:
I’m not sure what you’re saying here, but if you are implying that pros in the NFL, NBA, etc, have a low enough level of GPP that cleaning won’t do any good - i.e. relating them to your “kids” comment preceding this one - then you are utterly clueless and I don’t know why I bothered to respond to this post. Please tell me that’s not what you’re saying.
[/quote]
Actually the pro’s in those sports, especially at certain positions, place such a high emphasis on SPP that GPP often falls to the wayside. Think of down lineman in the NFL and some centers in the NBA. Even more prevalent in the MLB, I would say.
With many pro’s, they are so proficient at SPP that the limiting factor in their expression of sport form is their GPP. This is what duck_dodger23 is saying, that you don’t have to do much and almost anything works.
On elitefts’s youtube page, there is a great interview with Buddy Morris when he was the S&C coach for the Cleveland Browns talking about why Olympic lifts are a waste of time for his professional football players.
Also, have a look at this conversation with James Smith. I won’t hide the fact that I think he is extremely intelligent and I tend to agree with him on almost all points.
Okay let’s break this down, by “explosiveness” I assume you’re talking about RFD, speed-strength, strength-speed. correct? Please use the correct terminology bc so we can be clear.
to be honest, this “whole body explosiveness” you’re talking about doesnt really make sense. you’re going to have to spend some time to learn the vocab to have a meaningful discussion.
also, a box jump is NOT limited to a single action. counter movement and arm swing → jump → knee tuck → landing. in fact, it is much more versatile that a clean bc of the different ways you can execute the jump (seated, w/o cmm, w/cmm, w/ & w/o arm swing, soft landing, etc., etc.) all of these capable of producing different training effects. you can also position yourself further horizontally from the box, etc., etc. lot more qualities are able to be trained but thats just semantics.
“My argument is that a combination of such exercises cannot replace the effectiveness of cleaning.” i’m sorry but your argument is just flat wrong. understand that it is not the exercise that is important but HOW and WHEN it is performed i.e. what training effect your are looking for. can a clean develop strength-speed, RFD, etc? defineteley! but so can a million other things. that is why you use jumps, throws, until the athlete is to the point where he/she no longer improves by performing these exercises and then move on to more advanced stymulii. what you’re doing is not near as important as the how and when. i cannot emphasize that enough. there is nothing magical about a clean, a throw, a jump, squat, bench, etc., etc. it is all in how and when the exercise is executed and when effect you’re going for
i’m not talking about the players being injured while performing the clean, i’m talking about the cummulative stress on the lower back from improper technique. i have never seen a football player (myself included) correctly perform an oly lift! they ALL hyperextend the lower back instead of extending at the hips! you’re welcome to come check out my teams training room and take a lack at all the heat pads on lower backs if you don’t believe me. you dont get that trauma from jumps, throws BUT you do get the training effect you were looking to create with the oly lifts.
necessary is “you have to do it to be good.”
i don’t think you understand how GPP works hence your confusion. let me illustrate further:
a low level athlete with poor fitness can do bodyweight work, lift weights, run, jump, oly lift, etc. and he/she will improve. the fitness level is low so all stymulii will produce a positive adaptation.
as the athlete continues to improve it becomes more difficult to continue improvement. that’s when you have to begin implementing more advanced training methods so the athlete continues to improve.
for example, a 17yo kid will probably improve his VJ (and all the qualities that entails) just buy doing vertical jumps. but, for me, as i am highly trained in the VJ from years of jumping and jump training, it takes more advanced forms of exercise to improve. does this make sense?
what i was saying is most nba, nfl, mlb guys (that i have seen) are still at a level where jumps, throws, etc. will “do them good.” so will cleans, but why oly lift when you can jump? simple → complex there has to be a progression
i am by no means anti-oly lift. i think they’re a great tool and i hope to one day be a good enough athlete where i will need to perform them in order to improve. but, athletes like that exist at the highest level (olympians) and are few and far between in this country bc of our poor gpp from lack of PE and early specialization. once again, it’s not the exercise it’s the training effect.
[quote]duck_dodger23 wrote:
Okay let’s break this down, by “explosiveness” I assume you’re talking about RFD, speed-strength, strength-speed. correct? Please use the correct terminology bc so we can be clear.
to be honest, this “whole body explosiveness” you’re talking about doesnt really make sense. you’re going to have to spend some time to learn the vocab to have a meaningful discussion. [/quote]
OK buddy, I won’t be “spending any time learning the vocab”, which you clearly have mastered, but I’ll try and be technically clear: explosiveness is the ability to perform given work in a set amount of time.
See the power formula. If you can A) reduce the amount of time needed to work, or B) perform MORE work in the same time interval, either will result in more power, i.e. explosiveness. Real-world example: a DE who can engage, stack, and shed an OL faster than another guy is the more explosive athlete. They are performing the same action (work), but athlete A does it faster.
Now, more real-world: to do such a thing, it takes a concerted effort of the ENTIRE BODY. Agreed? So here’s the gist of why I believe cleans to be more beneficial in training for explosiveness (now that we are all on the same page with the terminology):
CLEANS WORK THE WHOLE BODY, or at least much more than individual plyos do. The goal in each is the same: to perform work in the LEAST amount of time, i.e. become more explosive. And while were at it, here’s another advantage of cleans: load.
Some plyos can be difficult to load; IOW increase the resistance and thereby increase the amount of force necessary to perform the work in the same amount of time. Cleans - just add more weight.
This is ridiculous. Arm swininging and the like don’t change the mechanism of action - it’s still ajump, regardless of how much momentum you put behind it.
[quote]“My argument is that a combination of such exercises cannot replace the effectiveness of cleaning.” i’m sorry but your argument is just flat wrong. understand that it is not the exercise that is important but HOW and WHEN it is performed i.e. what training effect your are looking for. can a clean develop strength-speed, RFD, etc? defineteley!
but so can a million other things. that is why you use jumps, throws, until the athlete is to the point where he/she no longer improves by performing these exercises and then move on to more advanced stymulii. what you’re doing is not near as important as the how and when. i cannot emphasize that enough. there is nothing magical about a clean, a throw, a jump, squat, bench, etc., etc. it is all in how and when the exercise is executed and when effect you’re going for[/quote]
I disagree. Here’s a hot-button analogy for you (not perfect per se but perfect fror this site): what will make you stronger overall more efficiently, lifting using big compunds, or focusing on isolation exercises? The former. Apply this analogy to cleans and individualized plyos.
[quote]i’m not talking about the players being injured while performing the clean, i’m talking about the cummulative stress on the lower back from improper technique. i have never seen a football player (myself included) correctly perform an oly lift!
they ALL hyperextend the lower back instead of extending at the hips! you’re welcome to come check out my teams training room and take a lack at all the heat pads on lower backs if you don’t believe me. you dont get that trauma from jumps, throws BUT you do get the training effect you were looking to create with the oly lifts.[/quote]
Cleans are not the only way football players hurt lower backs. This isn’t evidence.
You miss the point. You think you have to be a superior athlete to even perform cleans. I say cleans can help make you a superior athlete. By the way, what country is that? Are you really Czech?
Well, if you want to have meaningful discussions on any topic, it is generally helpful to be able to communicate in the appropriate language.
i’m not sure why you’re being so combative here. the irony is we both are after developing the same qualities, i think this might be a case where you “can’t see the forest b/c of the trees.” yes, a clean works the whole body, but so does a jumping jack. neither, in and of themselves will make you better than anything other than cleaning and doing jumping jacks
take a second and take a deep breath, get that HR and the BP down and read this sentence: the exercise is secondary to the training effect.
resistance can be increased many different ways. i’m also a fan of exhausting the most powerful resistive force on our planet i.e. gravity! why the obsession with adding weight? i don’t think you have to be a superior athlete to perform cleans, anybody (physical peculariarities aside) can perform them.
i just think that, in order to get the full benefit from cleans and other exercises, you should exhaust all other options before hand. i’m talking long term here – years of training.
what i’m saying is you want to go from simple training methods, and as the athlete advances in preparation/ability, progress to the more complex methods. you said yourself a clean is a complex movement with many different steps.
when you reach certain levels you have to move onto more complex exercises. check out the werner gunthor videos on youtube and dailymotion to see what i’m talking about. he’s doing very, very complex things with plyos, weights, etc. but he didnt start off their he progressed to that point.
an athlete is ready for any more advanced training method when he/she no longer benefits from simpler methods.
as far as what you’ve said, maybe the DE just has better technique than the other guy? look at the top players in nfl, nba, mlb they are not all the best athletes in the leagues. there are great, great athletes who never even make it to the show.
yes, i’ve been around several pro athletes (as well as numerous top collegiates) and have even competed against them (recreationally) in their respective sports. ever since i can remember, my goal has been to become a pro athlete. i wake up every day thinking about the nfl and go to sleep thinking about it. it’s in my best interest to know what i’m doing.
yes, a clean works the whole body, but so does a jumping jack. neither, in and of themselves will make you better than anything other than cleaning and doing jumping jacks
I gotta disagree here. Over the course of about 6 months-while focusing on cleans and squats for the low body and only playing ball [jumping] about once a week- I went from dunking a basketball off the drop step to dunking from a standstill. I had my vert measured after at a 35" from a standstill and a 41.5" off of 3 steps. I had never had it measured before, but I’d guess that I gained 3-4" off of the run and 2" or so from a standstill. I also felt a ton more explosive and springy, and jumping felt more “effortless” if that makes any sense.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
I gotta disagree here. Over the course of about 6 months-while focusing on cleans and squats for the low body and only playing ball [jumping] about once a week- I went from dunking a basketball off the drop step to dunking from a standstill. I had my vert measured after at a 35" from a standstill and a 41.5" off of 3 steps. I had never had it measured before, but I’d guess that I gained 3-4" off of the run and 2" or so from a standstill. I also felt a ton more explosive and springy, and jumping felt more “effortless” if that makes any sense. [/quote]
I think you’re missing the point here. Yes, cleans CAN work. I argue that there might have been another mean you could have used with less energetic or structural cost to your organism to achieve the same result.
With regards to springy and effortless jumping, you found your sweet spot on the static-spring continuum. Try to maintain it.
Why not just accept that fact that everything works for a period of time? Why can’t you use ALL means to promote adaptation? Maybe use the Olmypic lifts to focus on loaded speed-strength and jumps to focus on unloaded speed-strength…just my two cents.
[quote]Jimmy the Saint wrote:
Why not just accept that fact that everything works for a period of time? Why can’t you use ALL means to promote adaptation? Maybe use the Olmypic lifts to focus on loaded speed-strength and jumps to focus on unloaded speed-strength…just my two cents.[/quote]
I’ll agree with this wholeheartedly. That’s almost what I was saying to a T earlier in the thread. Everything works, nothing works forever. Some people seem to think Oly’s are the holy grail, and that’s the only thing I dispute.
[quote]Affliction wrote:
WhiteFlash wrote:
I gotta disagree here. Over the course of about 6 months-while focusing on cleans and squats for the low body and only playing ball [jumping] about once a week- I went from dunking a basketball off the drop step to dunking from a standstill. I had my vert measured after at a 35" from a standstill and a 41.5" off of 3 steps. I had never had it measured before, but I’d guess that I gained 3-4" off of the run and 2" or so from a standstill. I also felt a ton more explosive and springy, and jumping felt more “effortless” if that makes any sense.
I think you’re missing the point here. Yes, cleans CAN work. I argue that there might have been another mean you could have used with less energetic or structural cost to your organism to achieve the same result.
With regards to springy and effortless jumping, you found your sweet spot on the static-spring continuum. Try to maintain it.[/quote]
His arguement was that doing cleans will only make you better at cleaning. I disagreed. I can’t say if anything would’ve given me the same results 'cause I didn’t do anything else. Man, I stopped playing ball and sarted focusing on size, gained about 20lbs and could barely dunk. I looked pretty good, but felt “heavy”.Now I want my hops back, so I’m shifting back to strength training. It’s weird how the mind works huh?
[quote]Affliction wrote:
Jimmy the Saint wrote:
Why not just accept that fact that everything works for a period of time? Why can’t you use ALL means to promote adaptation? Maybe use the Olmypic lifts to focus on loaded speed-strength and jumps to focus on unloaded speed-strength…just my two cents.
I’ll agree with this wholeheartedly. That’s almost what I was saying to a T earlier in the thread. Everything works, nothing works forever. Some people seem to think Oly’s are the holy grail, and that’s the only thing I dispute.[/quote]
Agreed as well, which was my original point. Plyos and Olys BOTH work, but I strongly disagree with duck dodgers thinking that plyos alone can replace the benefits of Olys.
And I don’t think Olys are tho Holy Grail - I just think they are more effective than plyos alone
[quote]Affliction wrote:
Here’s something I just found in Eric Cressey’s locker room thread:
jackdup44 wrote:
Eric,
A simple, yet complex question: Are power cleans and olympic lifting neccesary for developing an explosive football player? Or are plyometrics good enough?
[Cressey’s response]
Plyos alone wouldn’t do it; you’re also need pure strength work. That said, a lot of guys get great results without O-lifts. There is more than one way to skin a cat.
There seems to be a common theme building up here, yeah? With coaches that work with a lot of great athletes, too… interesting.
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Great find Affliction. It would appear Cressey (as knowledgeable as anyone on this topic) thinks:
Plyos alone = Potential for great results
Olys + Plyos = Optimal.
