most of the people who do oly lifting know this, but some people dont understand - olympic weightlifting is about power, not strength. ofc you need to be strong to pick up 200kg, but you need to be much more powerful and mobile to just throw it over your head, duck underneath it, catch it and then stand up with it.
Of course Olympic lifting is about power AND strength AND technique (and genetics). You need them all and it is a very demanding sport (and compared to many other sports there are very few licensed Olympic lifters)
Olympic lifters routinely do pulls from the floor as part of their training. They don't use the word "deadlift;" they tend to use the phrases "clean pull" or "snatch pull" depending on the grip. But that is essentially what they're doing.
I'd expect a novice who has never trained the deadlift would be able to grow their deadlift solely through snatches and clean up to a certain point. I obviously wouldn't recommend that strategy, but I'd argue that the olympic lifts can drive a strength adaptation. There is such a things as "less effective strength training" or "bad strength training" that does not make it "not strength training"
they can drive a strength adaptation but they're so sport specific it is just not worth to do. It's like asking a figure skater to do single leg squats on a bosu ball lmao. Strength and conditioning should always be general, not sport specific. You can practice your sport specific skills for the sake of technique or improvement in your sport, but using it or part of it to replace the most effective strength exercises is stupid. A good S&C program will always use the most basic movements, an olympic weightlifting program is very sport specific which beginners should not use unless they're trying to get very very good at weightlifting, but even then most olympic weightlifting programs will have plenty of squats and pulls to keep their body trained and build specific strength for the snatch, clean and jerk, rather than sticking to the basic exercises to build general strength with the squat, bench and deadlift.
@@Barbellcoachkasper yes squat bench deadlift can be considered sport specific for powerlifting, but they're also the most effective general strength exercises in terms of building maximal strength and stability with a low barrier to entry (less time needed to learn the skill of basic SBD), which is why they're used in most S&C programs for a lot of athletes (collegiate to professional level)
@@alubchicken my entire point was that as long as an exercise causes a strength adaptation it can be used for strength training in the right context. Maybe not always "optimal strength training" or "very good strength training" but saying it does not provide any stimulus unless it's a squat, dead or bench is a bit silly. We intentionally program variations of these lifts that put us in a disadvantaged position (pause squats, rdl's, close grip bench). These versions of the lifts ALSO provide less stimulus than the main versions. Are these movements then also not strength training? A squat clean exists on the same spectrum as the deadlift, deficit deadlift, romanian deadlift, front squat, etc. It's just another loadable movement pattern that can be trained.
That's because there's a difference between doing power cleans for strength adaptations and changing some of your deadlifts to power cleans out as a compromise. It's a compromise intermediates might have to make because not pulling often enough leads to stagnation in your deadlift and deadlifting too often accrues too much fatigue. A happy medium is to do your deadlifts and change some of your deadlift days to power cleans to keep the adaptation going without breaking yourself. Not a hard concept to grasp, but it's mostly evident for those who have done their NLP and done the work of transitioning to intermediate training at the end of it. Everyone else is confused by theoretical notions and don't have actual experience with practical programming.
@@olindblo but that’s not the logic he puts forward in the book. If you wanted more pulling volume you would do rack pulls (something else he advocates in the book). The logic as to why we train power cleans is that it trains power production. This has transfer over to your deadlift because you need power to get it off the floor. But now he’s saying it has no benefit? Then what’s the point of including them in a strength program?
@@conker690 The rack pull AND power clean can both be used for additional pulling volume, but they're at opposite ends of the assistant exercise spectrum. Compared to the deadlift, the rack pull uses a heavier load and a shorter range of motion while power cleans use a lighter load with a longer range of motion. Both can be useful, but not necessarily for everybody all the time. Assistant exercises are best programmed on an as-needed, individual basis, as opposed to the core lifts (squat, deadlift, etc.), which are pretty much universal and should be done by pretty much everyone. The point Uncle Rip is trying to make is that a lot of these Olympic Weightlifters prioritize cleans and snatches to the point that they handicap their strength in the long run. Cleans and snatches are pulls from the floor, like a deadlift, using practically all your musculature, like a deadlift, but are pulled with a fraction of the weigh that you can actually deadlift. For MOST people, cleans are usually somewhere around half of their deadlift 1RM and snatches are even less than that. Trying to get stronger by only using 50% 1RM is simply not going to work. It's not heavy enough. It doesn't always need to be a death grind, but it DOES HAVE TO BE HEAVY ENOUGH. HEAVIER THAN 50%. The clean and snatch are so light compared to the deadlift because they're limited by explosiveness, which is mostly genetic, whereas the deadlift is limited by raw, brute strength, which is highly trainable. However, explosiveness IS still trainable to a small degree, which is why heavy power cleans are in the book. If you can squeeze out even 10% more explosiveness during the novice LP, it's worth doing, especially if you're an athlete of some kind. Heavy power cleans won't make your deadlift go up, though. Even if they're heavy, they're not heavy ENOUGH. That being said, they CAN be used for extra pulling volume because volume is just work. It doesn't have to be as heavy as the core lifts. It can just be moderately heavy, or even lighter than that. Something in the 8-12 range, or even 15+ sometimes. It's just work.
I agree that if power clean does not make anyone stronger, then it makes no sense to put it in the strength training. If power clean improves power to pull the bar off the floor in deadlift, it does improve deadlift and it does make people stronger. If the goal of power cleans would be to increase pulling volume then first of all there are other options including lighter deads. Knowing Rip there is some way to clarify this contradiction but this clarification was not put in the video. Maybe one day there is going to be an article which will make it clear. I'm only guessing that what Mark meant in this video is that training deadlift is a lot more efficient way of getting stronger than clean and jerk or power snatch on their own.
Lol. My snatch and my cleans improved my deadlift (but then again my deadlifts are clean stance deadlifts), having not trained the deadlift in months, and exclusively training clean and jerks and squat super-setted with pull-ups and snatches super-setted with pendlay rows, every other day 5x5, my clean deadlift did go up out of nowhere. One can argue that my pull-ups and penally rows could have definitely have played a factor, but my lower body and core strength without a doubt improved from cleaning and snatching. Such a what the hell effect has been experienced by people who train with kettlebells exclusively for a while (which are pretty much olympic lift movements) and then hit PRs on their bench and deadlift power lifts despite not training those lifts for a while.
I think this begs the question: is your Deadlift already VERY strong? I think the point Rip is making is if you're already Deadlifting 3x bodyweight (or some significant amount), then you're not going to add Snatches to your program to try and improve your Deadlift. If you're Deadlifting in the 200s, 300s, maybe even low 400s (lbs), then yea sure, maybe heavy snatches are going to improve your deadlift, but you're much more likely to program the Deadlift as a tool to strengthen your Snatch than you are to program the Snatch as a tool to strengthen your Deadlift.
Happened to me as well, I'm a beginner into oly lifts and exclusively training them I PRd my deadlift by 5kg with a clean stance. Barely did a few deadlifts during that time.
@@LegitifyableThe better you get at something, the less carryover you are going to get from something else. That being said: good weightlifters have at least a decent deadlift, good powerlifters usually have a terrible clean and snatch.
Trying to draw this unnecessary fine line is ridiculous. Olympic lifting is certainly strength training. You train the snatch, you train the jerk - you need to get stronger and more skilled to lift heavier and heavier weights. Literally - the one that can snatch and jerk the MOST WEIGHT wins. Take the "L" - you're wrong on this.
You're dumb as a rock so let's explain it so you understand. What you're saying is equivalent to whoever kicks the football the furthest must be the strongest. Being strong is a necessary element, but you can only kick it so far if you're weak. You keep kicking the ball and it keeps flying further out, and you draw the conclusion that you must be getting stronger. Yet that is not the case; it's only going to fly further to a certain point. You keep kicking the ball, and it doesn't go further. Once you go and raise your strength *outside* kicking the ball, you can once again put in practice to make it go further. This pertains to kicking a football the furthest, throwing a javelin, holding a triangle choke, swimming as quick as possible, throwing a kick harder, and even hoisting the biggest weight overhead. All of those require practice, but the practice making the number go up doesn't mean you're getting stronger, and anyone who actually spent a few years doing olympic lifting knows this. They progress, maybe gain some strength along the way (a necessary byproduct of any athletic endeavour) and then at some point they hit a wall because the stimulus of the practice itself is not enough to see strength adaptations. So they punch in their snatch numbers and their squat numbers and they see that they are grinding against the upper limit of the snatch to squat ratio (around 65-70%). Here, by the very latest, it will dawn on them why weightlifters keep posting squat videos on their instagram when they don't even compete in the squat. I hope this clarifies things, god bless your soul.
Trying to draw this unnecessary fine line is ridiculous. Kettlebell training is certainly strength training. You train the swing, you train the get up - you need to get stronger and more skilled to lift heavier and heavier weights. Literally - the one that can swing and TGU the MOST WEIGHT wins. Take the "L" - you're wrong on this.
Olympic lifting is much more skill based acquisition. It obviously relies heavily on more complex techniques. Then regular more basic exercises like a curl or bench press. You're not really training raw strength directly. It's more patterns and honing techniques. For example your biceps get stronger. But it's a secondary by product of practicing the skill. Not a main primary focus. If it was you'd just do curls and chin ups.
Hey Mark...I am 55 years old and have been lifting for many years...I have been doing the starting strength method for the last month and I love it...at my age, should I keep going? Thanks for all you do
@@brandonjames8671 Well no guarantees but if you follow the program you will be much better off, even if you occasionally get dinged up. And when you do it won’t be serious.
no. it's a beginner program. Sooner or later you're going to plateau regardless of what these broscience nerds keep shoving down your throat. You WILL need variation in your program sooner or later but that depends on your goal. If you don't mind, keep doing it. If you want to progress, you will need to throw in variations of those barbell lifts and some accessory work.
hmmm, so when you tell a lifter to rack pulls and halting deadlifts to improve their deadlift instead of deadlifting, are you saying that it is akin to the olympic lifts and that it is a lift that displays strength but is not necessarily the lift that will develop strength?
No. That has to do with more advance lifters need more complex programming. Novice/intermediated get stronger doing basic deadlift. The more advanced the lifter, the less basic deadlift forces an adaptation so halting and RP force the adaptation better.
@@astang1072 I've read the books -- done the program, hit all the intermediate benchmarks and do deadlifts every week. However, I generally only make comments on videos after watching them...
@@s.vernon5118 Yet you only get "stronger" in the snatch to wherever your current squat numbers allow. You're not going to snatch 100kg at a 140kg squat. No amount of snatching is going to make that squat number go significantly up. Yet when your squat number goes up, the ceiling of your snatch goes up as well; again, as if by magic. It's almost like there's a law of biomechanics that dictates the relationship between snatch and squat strength. It would be super useful to structure your training around the laws of nature, would it not?
@@olindblo if someone didn't lift weights and you recorded their squat , I am willing to bet money their squat would increase from the baseline if they only snatched following progressive overload . Of course increasing squat is more optimal but don't believe for one second snatching wouldn't produce any strength gains .
yes olympic lifters train the pulls off the floor to supplement their training only, their intensity and volumes prescribed to strength accessories like the squats and pulls (your "deadlifts") are reduced to mitigate fatigue carryover into the next session, although they will still be prescribed to build specific strength (most of the time these are positional strengths like maintaining an upright posture). Most important of all, strength training for good olympic weightlifters never replaces their classic lifts (snatch/clean and jerk), this is because no matter how far you raise your "ceiling", your snatch will only go up when you snatch more. This is especially true the higher level olympic weightlifter you are, so the further above bodyweight you can snatch the more snatches you will have to do to increase your snatch, no amount of squats or pulls will force the snatch to increase. However, the squats and pulls are still needed for general strength and conditioning, so it is important to do those according to your program (don't ever write your own), which should have reduced intensity and volume as mentioned above to prioritise the snatch, clean and jerk.
@@s.vernon5118 You're arguing semantics. Yes an absolute novice would improve their squat and deadlift from just cleaning and snatching. But it wouldn't last very long and it wouldn't be very significant. It's basically a waste of time.
Completely wrong. All lifting is work over time. Work over time is power. Olympic lifts just require more work over shorter time. This just means a higher requirement of fast twitch fibers plus tendon health.
High force movements such as the deadlift and squat increase the maximum force production of the athlete and therefore increase strength. But the snatch increases the rate at which force is produced by the athlete. So even though snatches and cleans may be a submaximal display of force, they are a maximal display of rate of force development.
Title was click bait, designed to get people riled up and arguing. It is more accurate to say Olympic weightlifting is not strength training only. It is strength training + speed. It is strength training + technique. This is what he said in the video and he is not wrong.
3:26 This example of a man who didn't deadlift only clean and jerked, but could have deadlifted an absurd amount of weight is an example AGAINST his argument
Can you imagine a podcast with coan? "Your technique isnt correct.. you have back pain, you cant train. " Coan: .. Theres no immaculate techique, you can barely stay away 1 inch from what a book or coach says, but for some, years of experience are necessary for execute a good lift and maybe you see that hip isnt 1 cm corrects, but you dont lift 700 pounds like him doesnt mean isnt correct..
What i don’t understand is this in this starting strength book, could you explain, if deadlift numbers will increase snatch numbers, and snatch numbers doesn’t increase deadlift numbers. Then why bother doing snatch if for example you are not really competing for a show?
There's a comment that explains it well above... there's a point where you can't maintain deadlifting every session, and in order to maintain a pull exercise without exhausting yourself, you alternate the deadlift with the power clean or power snatch
the snatch is a fun challenge, you don't have to do it just because you compete lmao. It's like saying what's the point of squatting if you're never going to a powerlifting competition, when almost everyone does barbell back squats low bar style. It is true though, that the snatch is the most useless lift for increasing strength numbers, if you want a bigger squat or deadlift you just have to squat and deadlift more. Most olympic weightlifting programmes will reduce the intensity (load) and volume (sets x reps) of the heavy squats and pulls, so the fatigue doesn't impact the snatch/clean and jerk. It is also important to note that these programmes only use the squat for conditioning, i.e. to keep your legs "trained" and used to heavy weights, as every time you snatch you have to exert twice the amount of force loaded into the bar (so around 130-140kg worth of force for a 70kg snatch) to get it past your hip, to your sternum level.
Bill Starr was a Senior National champion in Olympic weightlifting and won the Senior Nationals in Powerlifting without even training the deadlift. Rippetoe's starting strength is based on an Olympic Weightlifter's training method.
wait what ? "the deadlift improves the snatch the snatch doesnt improve the deadlift"...then they say if the guy who can clean and jerk 500 pounds can deadlift 800 pounds without practicing the deadlift - im confused im going to functional patterns now lol
Look at Olympic lifters and look at powerlifters and you can see what kind of fitness difference there is. Powerlifters basically are fat. Most of them are just using steroids and have tons of back injuries and other injuries whereas powerlifters have explosive strength and have a lot of flexibility and generally are not taking steroids except for the professional CrossFit people.
If olympic lifting was not this established respected thing and no one had ever seen people lift weights like that, the weightlifting, fitness, powerlifting, and trainer communities would all say, hey, you're just cheating with weights, thats not full ROM, you're just throwing around weights for the sake of moving the weight around rather than improving strength through clean full range of motion lifts. I'm not making a judgement here, meerly an observation. Thoughts? Proove me wrong...
You can stipulate a definition of what strength training is, and what it isn’t. The discussion that Olympic lifting is not strength training per see of course depends on the definition.
“If he clean and jerked 500 pounds, he’s strong enough to deadlift 800 pounds” Oh, so his deadlift strength is in fact dependent on his clean and jerk strength, meaning, uhhhhh, weightlifting IS strength training?
The question I've been meaning to ask for a while is relevant here: who is stronger? Lasha Talakhadze or Mitchell Hooper (winner of world's strongest man)
How many people can snatch lashas weight if they are that strong in their bs power lifting aka strength lifting 🤷♂️🤣 PL is brute strength bs with no technique. Oly lift needs technique aka finesse and strength
What did your training look like? Snatches, clean and jerks. Squats, pulls?, presses?, rows? My deadlift also improved without doing it. I'd say squats and Pendlay rows did it.
@@michiel5160 lots of clean and snatch variations then just front and back squats. If J had to say an accessory that helped it the most probably 45 degree back extension weighted
Ya coulda fooled me.i haven't seem a powerlifter nor wsm contestant lift 500 or 560 over head yet.they two disciplines can compliment one another..I know from personal experience but one must be highly motivated and driven to keep at it
While I find most of his takes as cringe, I don't believe he is wrong here. Very few lifters in my experience succeed with a strictly Olympic weightlifting program. Most people need to develop and continue to develop a maximal amount of reserve strength that isn't adequately developed by over emphasizing the Olymoic lifts over the strength movements.
Not just most, but *all* lifters have to do separate training for strength to make their competition lifts go up. That's the nature of the two factor model of sports performance. This is true for both olympic lifting and strongman, the exception being that strongmen sometimes do compete in the same moves that they perform their strength training in.
Yes, but I suspect it's not because "there's no transference from clean and jerk or snatch", but because doing those exercises in ranges optimal for strength development is dangerous long term. Less technique dependent movements are less likely to breakdown form and thus less likely to cause injury.
In this day and age not but the Bulgarians were the best in history and they did fine with just snatch, clean and jerk, front squats, and tons of dbol.
The reason he's saying olympic weightlifting is not strength training... because he's not able to do it. Most powerlifters are not even able to do full range of squat. 😂😂😂
why havent I heard or read anywhere in the 3 books or youtube videos, rid saying "as you age and strength train you must stretch your quads (daily) or your going to be sore walking all the time and hamstrings or you wont be able to get in position to deadlift" all i heard was if you have to stretch do it after lifting. my guess RIP cant stand seeing people in the gym stretching like a ballet class .
It is amazing what a cult following you can build by just speaking with unwavering confidence. I do notice most his followers have similar personality type to Rippetoe himself, but “expertise” in another field. You see Chinese weightlifters going ATG with just a weight belt, the week of the contest, and put up similar numbers to elite power lifters, with that only have to go parallel, and they don’t have to walk the weight out……
Not sure I understand the argument here. Why do they have a book on technique for lifts if the lifts don't require any technique to maximize them? Don't all lifts require optimal technique to maximize the lifts. If you pull off the floor with your arms outstretched, you won't maximize your deadlift. If you squat unbalanced, you won't maximize your squat. And the argument that deadlifts improve your olympic lifts while olympic lifts don't improve your deadlift is disproven by the example they actually cite where an olympic lifter's deadlift goes up and is much higher than his olympic lifts, by training only the olympic lifts. You can argue that high technique demands create an inefficiency for using olympic lifting as the primary way to gain strength, but you can't deny that training olympic lifts will get you stronger over time and, hence are strength training.
Strength training is work. Work is force x distance. Olympic lifting is power. Power is the rate of doing work. Or, Power is force x velocity. Therefore Olympic lifting is not strength training. Easy physics.
Both are forceXdistance. There are still some strength trained when doing something with higher velocity. Just not as much. I think the skill component of the snatch and clean and jerks are the much bigger issues. Beginners would probably not gain anything (or very little) from the Olympic lifts since the bad technique means very little weight used. But the more skilled you get, the better the strength component will be. On the other hand a very strong person that has a bad capacity for power (he is too slow) will also get very little from power training even if he masters the technique (again, too little weight moved).
The human body isn't as simple as your equations. When I started doing the olympic lifts I gained strength on other lifts that I didn't perform. Both my bench and deadlift went up and I didn't do either of those lifts on a regular basis.
I love the comments on this one. So many people not having a clue and filling in the blanks, that don’t exist, and changing the meaning or ignoring things Rip say just to keep pushing the though that pulling a clean that’s 60% of their max deadlift will magically make their deadlift go up. Hilarious.
Nope, Bozo Rippetoe is wrong again. Even if you only trained the snatch and the clean and jerk you would still get stronger. Squat, deadlift, press, and even bench would probably go up.
@@EdV978 I have yet to see any coach, even an Olympic weightlifting coach, recommend only training snatch and C&J. This is a strawman. But there have been lots of stories where people focused on snatch, C&J, and squats, and improved the deadlift and bench without training those lifts. This was my experience after I started weightlifting. In fact, all I did was power clean and push press followed by squats 3 days a week. After several months I saw improvements in my deadlift and bench. Would I recommend this "program" to a trainee who was looking to develop a base of general strength? That would depend on the trainee. A high school kid who wanted to get better at football and had all summer to do nothing but train and recover, no. A busy dad who worked 50 hours a week, yes.
most of the people who do oly lifting know this, but some people dont understand - olympic weightlifting is about power, not strength. ofc you need to be strong to pick up 200kg, but you need to be much more powerful and mobile to just throw it over your head, duck underneath it, catch it and then stand up with it.
Of course Olympic lifting is about power AND strength AND technique (and genetics). You need them all and it is a very demanding sport (and compared to many other sports there are very few licensed Olympic lifters)
Olympic lifters routinely do pulls from the floor as part of their training. They don't use the word "deadlift;" they tend to use the phrases "clean pull" or "snatch pull" depending on the grip. But that is essentially what they're doing.
O lifters have repeatedly demonstrated how inferior power lifters are to them.
Horrible comparisons are being made, like elite Olympic lifters with random powerlifters, for example.
I'd expect a novice who has never trained the deadlift would be able to grow their deadlift solely through snatches and clean up to a certain point. I obviously wouldn't recommend that strategy, but I'd argue that the olympic lifts can drive a strength adaptation. There is such a things as "less effective strength training" or "bad strength training" that does not make it "not strength training"
Yep
they can drive a strength adaptation but they're so sport specific it is just not worth to do. It's like asking a figure skater to do single leg squats on a bosu ball lmao.
Strength and conditioning should always be general, not sport specific. You can practice your sport specific skills for the sake of technique or improvement in your sport, but using it or part of it to replace the most effective strength exercises is stupid.
A good S&C program will always use the most basic movements, an olympic weightlifting program is very sport specific which beginners should not use unless they're trying to get very very good at weightlifting, but even then most olympic weightlifting programs will have plenty of squats and pulls to keep their body trained and build specific strength for the snatch, clean and jerk, rather than sticking to the basic exercises to build general strength with the squat, bench and deadlift.
@@alubchicken you missed my point. Also: the barbell deadlift, squat, press and bench can also be considered to be “sport specific”.
@@Barbellcoachkasper yes squat bench deadlift can be considered sport specific for powerlifting, but they're also the most effective general strength exercises in terms of building maximal strength and stability with a low barrier to entry (less time needed to learn the skill of basic SBD), which is why they're used in most S&C programs for a lot of athletes (collegiate to professional level)
@@alubchicken my entire point was that as long as an exercise causes a strength adaptation it can be used for strength training in the right context. Maybe not always "optimal strength training" or "very good strength training" but saying it does not provide any stimulus unless it's a squat, dead or bench is a bit silly. We intentionally program variations of these lifts that put us in a disadvantaged position (pause squats, rdl's, close grip bench). These versions of the lifts ALSO provide less stimulus than the main versions. Are these movements then also not strength training? A squat clean exists on the same spectrum as the deadlift, deficit deadlift, romanian deadlift, front squat, etc. It's just another loadable movement pattern that can be trained.
Oly Lifting is athletic, Powerlifting is something anyone can do
Anyone can do Oly lifting as much as powerlifting does :P It's just a matter of training and dedication.
Olympic lifting is no more athletic than anything else. It's not hard to have an average snatch. It's not hard to have an average clean and jerk.
This sort of goes against what he says in the book where the power training generateed by the power clean carries over to the deadlift.
That's because there's a difference between doing power cleans for strength adaptations and changing some of your deadlifts to power cleans out as a compromise.
It's a compromise intermediates might have to make because not pulling often enough leads to stagnation in your deadlift and deadlifting too often accrues too much fatigue.
A happy medium is to do your deadlifts and change some of your deadlift days to power cleans to keep the adaptation going without breaking yourself. Not a hard concept to grasp, but it's mostly evident for those who have done their NLP and done the work of transitioning to intermediate training at the end of it. Everyone else is confused by theoretical notions and don't have actual experience with practical programming.
@@olindblo but that’s not the logic he puts forward in the book.
If you wanted more pulling volume you would do rack pulls (something else he advocates in the book). The logic as to why we train power cleans is that it trains power production. This has transfer over to your deadlift because you need power to get it off the floor.
But now he’s saying it has no benefit? Then what’s the point of including them in a strength program?
@@conker690 The rack pull AND power clean can both be used for additional pulling volume, but they're at opposite ends of the assistant exercise spectrum. Compared to the deadlift, the rack pull uses a heavier load and a shorter range of motion while power cleans use a lighter load with a longer range of motion. Both can be useful, but not necessarily for everybody all the time. Assistant exercises are best programmed on an as-needed, individual basis, as opposed to the core lifts (squat, deadlift, etc.), which are pretty much universal and should be done by pretty much everyone.
The point Uncle Rip is trying to make is that a lot of these Olympic Weightlifters prioritize cleans and snatches to the point that they handicap their strength in the long run. Cleans and snatches are pulls from the floor, like a deadlift, using practically all your musculature, like a deadlift, but are pulled with a fraction of the weigh that you can actually deadlift. For MOST people, cleans are usually somewhere around half of their deadlift 1RM and snatches are even less than that. Trying to get stronger by only using 50% 1RM is simply not going to work. It's not heavy enough. It doesn't always need to be a death grind, but it DOES HAVE TO BE HEAVY ENOUGH. HEAVIER THAN 50%.
The clean and snatch are so light compared to the deadlift because they're limited by explosiveness, which is mostly genetic, whereas the deadlift is limited by raw, brute strength, which is highly trainable. However, explosiveness IS still trainable to a small degree, which is why heavy power cleans are in the book. If you can squeeze out even 10% more explosiveness during the novice LP, it's worth doing, especially if you're an athlete of some kind. Heavy power cleans won't make your deadlift go up, though. Even if they're heavy, they're not heavy ENOUGH. That being said, they CAN be used for extra pulling volume because volume is just work. It doesn't have to be as heavy as the core lifts. It can just be moderately heavy, or even lighter than that. Something in the 8-12 range, or even 15+ sometimes. It's just work.
I agree that if power clean does not make anyone stronger, then it makes no sense to put it in the strength training. If power clean improves power to pull the bar off the floor in deadlift, it does improve deadlift and it does make people stronger. If the goal of power cleans would be to increase pulling volume then first of all there are other options including lighter deads. Knowing Rip there is some way to clarify this contradiction but this clarification was not put in the video. Maybe one day there is going to be an article which will make it clear.
I'm only guessing that what Mark meant in this video is that training deadlift is a lot more efficient way of getting stronger than clean and jerk or power snatch on their own.
Lol. My snatch and my cleans improved my deadlift (but then again my deadlifts are clean stance deadlifts), having not trained the deadlift in months, and exclusively training clean and jerks and squat super-setted with pull-ups and snatches super-setted with pendlay rows, every other day 5x5, my clean deadlift did go up out of nowhere. One can argue that my pull-ups and penally rows could have definitely have played a factor, but my lower body and core strength without a doubt improved from cleaning and snatching. Such a what the hell effect has been experienced by people who train with kettlebells exclusively for a while (which are pretty much olympic lift movements) and then hit PRs on their bench and deadlift power lifts despite not training those lifts for a while.
I think this begs the question: is your Deadlift already VERY strong? I think the point Rip is making is if you're already Deadlifting 3x bodyweight (or some significant amount), then you're not going to add Snatches to your program to try and improve your Deadlift. If you're Deadlifting in the 200s, 300s, maybe even low 400s (lbs), then yea sure, maybe heavy snatches are going to improve your deadlift, but you're much more likely to program the Deadlift as a tool to strengthen your Snatch than you are to program the Snatch as a tool to strengthen your Deadlift.
Happened to me as well, I'm a beginner into oly lifts and exclusively training them I PRd my deadlift by 5kg with a clean stance. Barely did a few deadlifts during that time.
@@LegitifyableThe better you get at something, the less carryover you are going to get from something else.
That being said: good weightlifters have at least a decent deadlift, good powerlifters usually have a terrible clean and snatch.
Trying to draw this unnecessary fine line is ridiculous. Olympic lifting is certainly strength training. You train the snatch, you train the jerk - you need to get stronger and more skilled to lift heavier and heavier weights. Literally - the one that can snatch and jerk the MOST WEIGHT wins. Take the "L" - you're wrong on this.
Any resistance is resistance. That includes body weight.
You're dumb as a rock so let's explain it so you understand.
What you're saying is equivalent to whoever kicks the football the furthest must be the strongest. Being strong is a necessary element, but you can only kick it so far if you're weak. You keep kicking the ball and it keeps flying further out, and you draw the conclusion that you must be getting stronger. Yet that is not the case; it's only going to fly further to a certain point. You keep kicking the ball, and it doesn't go further. Once you go and raise your strength *outside* kicking the ball, you can once again put in practice to make it go further.
This pertains to kicking a football the furthest, throwing a javelin, holding a triangle choke, swimming as quick as possible, throwing a kick harder, and even hoisting the biggest weight overhead.
All of those require practice, but the practice making the number go up doesn't mean you're getting stronger, and anyone who actually spent a few years doing olympic lifting knows this. They progress, maybe gain some strength along the way (a necessary byproduct of any athletic endeavour) and then at some point they hit a wall because the stimulus of the practice itself is not enough to see strength adaptations.
So they punch in their snatch numbers and their squat numbers and they see that they are grinding against the upper limit of the snatch to squat ratio (around 65-70%). Here, by the very latest, it will dawn on them why weightlifters keep posting squat videos on their instagram when they don't even compete in the squat.
I hope this clarifies things, god bless your soul.
Its safe to say you have no clue that weight lifters use powerlifts as an accessory to get stronger for their competition lifts. You're an idiot lol.
Trying to draw this unnecessary fine line is ridiculous. Kettlebell training is certainly strength training. You train the swing, you train the get up - you need to get stronger and more skilled to lift heavier and heavier weights. Literally - the one that can swing and TGU the MOST WEIGHT wins. Take the "L" - you're wrong on this.
Olympic lifting is much more skill based acquisition. It obviously relies heavily on more complex techniques. Then regular more basic exercises like a curl or bench press. You're not really training raw strength directly. It's more patterns and honing techniques. For example your biceps get stronger. But it's a secondary by product of practicing the skill. Not a main primary focus. If it was you'd just do curls and chin ups.
I think the real question should be, is the snatch hairy or not?
Hopefully it’s CLEAN then I’ll JERK.
Not sure those snatch comments pass my sniff test.
😂😂😂😂
No one is going to mention that the biomechanics of a clean/snatch pull are different from a fricken deadlift?
Hey Mark...I am 55 years old and have been lifting for many years...I have been doing the starting strength method for the last month and I love it...at my age, should I keep going? Thanks for all you do
I m 60. Yes you most definitely should keep going.
@@brandonjames8671 Well no guarantees but if you follow the program you will be much better off, even if you occasionally get dinged up. And when you do it won’t be serious.
get the Barbell Prescription textbook by Dr Jonathan Sullivan
no. it's a beginner program. Sooner or later you're going to plateau regardless of what these broscience nerds keep shoving down your throat. You WILL need variation in your program sooner or later but that depends on your goal. If you don't mind, keep doing it. If you want to progress, you will need to throw in variations of those barbell lifts and some accessory work.
hmmm, so when you tell a lifter to rack pulls and halting deadlifts to improve their deadlift instead of deadlifting, are you saying that it is akin to the olympic lifts and that it is a lift that displays strength but is not necessarily the lift that will develop strength?
No. That has to do with more advance lifters need more complex programming. Novice/intermediated get stronger doing basic deadlift. The more advanced the lifter, the less basic deadlift forces an adaptation so halting and RP force the adaptation better.
@@astang1072 um, Starting Strength coaches often start implementing rack pulls during the novice phase...
@@astang1072 You obviously have not watched much of their stuff online. They often have later-stage novices doing rack pulls.
I’ve only read the books. Lol
@@astang1072 I've read the books -- done the program, hit all the intermediate benchmarks and do deadlifts every week. However, I generally only make comments on videos after watching them...
Mark is right.
All Olympic lifters train the clean pull or clean deadlift as a strength training.
That doesn't mean if you just snatched you wouldn't gain strength. Its not optimal but...
@@s.vernon5118 Yet you only get "stronger" in the snatch to wherever your current squat numbers allow. You're not going to snatch 100kg at a 140kg squat.
No amount of snatching is going to make that squat number go significantly up. Yet when your squat number goes up, the ceiling of your snatch goes up as well; again, as if by magic. It's almost like there's a law of biomechanics that dictates the relationship between snatch and squat strength. It would be super useful to structure your training around the laws of nature, would it not?
@@olindblo if someone didn't lift weights and you recorded their squat , I am willing to bet money their squat would increase from the baseline if they only snatched following progressive overload . Of course increasing squat is more optimal but don't believe for one second snatching wouldn't produce any strength gains .
yes olympic lifters train the pulls off the floor to supplement their training only, their intensity and volumes prescribed to strength accessories like the squats and pulls (your "deadlifts") are reduced to mitigate fatigue carryover into the next session, although they will still be prescribed to build specific strength (most of the time these are positional strengths like maintaining an upright posture).
Most important of all, strength training for good olympic weightlifters never replaces their classic lifts (snatch/clean and jerk), this is because no matter how far you raise your "ceiling", your snatch will only go up when you snatch more. This is especially true the higher level olympic weightlifter you are, so the further above bodyweight you can snatch the more snatches you will have to do to increase your snatch, no amount of squats or pulls will force the snatch to increase. However, the squats and pulls are still needed for general strength and conditioning, so it is important to do those according to your program (don't ever write your own), which should have reduced intensity and volume as mentioned above to prioritise the snatch, clean and jerk.
@@s.vernon5118 You're arguing semantics. Yes an absolute novice would improve their squat and deadlift from just cleaning and snatching. But it wouldn't last very long and it wouldn't be very significant. It's basically a waste of time.
Completely wrong. All lifting is work over time. Work over time is power. Olympic lifts just require more work over shorter time. This just means a higher requirement of fast twitch fibers plus tendon health.
High force movements such as the deadlift and squat increase the maximum force production of the athlete and therefore increase strength. But the snatch increases the rate at which force is produced by the athlete. So even though snatches and cleans may be a submaximal display of force, they are a maximal display of rate of force development.
Title was click bait, designed to get people riled up and arguing.
It is more accurate to say Olympic weightlifting is not strength training only.
It is strength training + speed.
It is strength training + technique.
This is what he said in the video and he is not wrong.
3:26 This example of a man who didn't deadlift only clean and jerked, but could have deadlifted an absurd amount of weight is an example AGAINST his argument
1:30 in a nutshell this is what they're emphasizing...they're not trash talking the Olympic lifts at all.
Can you imagine a podcast with coan? "Your technique isnt correct.. you have back pain, you cant train. "
Coan: ..
Theres no immaculate techique, you can barely stay away 1 inch from what a book or coach says, but for some, years of experience are necessary for execute a good lift and maybe you see that hip isnt 1 cm corrects, but you dont lift 700 pounds like him doesnt mean isnt correct..
What i don’t understand is this in this starting strength book, could you explain, if deadlift numbers will increase snatch numbers, and snatch numbers doesn’t increase deadlift numbers. Then why bother doing snatch if for example you are not really competing for a show?
There's a comment that explains it well above... there's a point where you can't maintain deadlifting every session, and in order to maintain a pull exercise without exhausting yourself, you alternate the deadlift with the power clean or power snatch
@@simeonfromberg thank you so much🙏🏼
the snatch is a fun challenge, you don't have to do it just because you compete lmao. It's like saying what's the point of squatting if you're never going to a powerlifting competition, when almost everyone does barbell back squats low bar style.
It is true though, that the snatch is the most useless lift for increasing strength numbers, if you want a bigger squat or deadlift you just have to squat and deadlift more. Most olympic weightlifting programmes will reduce the intensity (load) and volume (sets x reps) of the heavy squats and pulls, so the fatigue doesn't impact the snatch/clean and jerk. It is also important to note that these programmes only use the squat for conditioning, i.e. to keep your legs "trained" and used to heavy weights, as every time you snatch you have to exert twice the amount of force loaded into the bar (so around 130-140kg worth of force for a 70kg snatch) to get it past your hip, to your sternum level.
Bill Starr was a Senior National champion in Olympic weightlifting and won the Senior Nationals in Powerlifting without even training the deadlift.
Rippetoe's starting strength is based on an Olympic Weightlifter's training method.
Taranenko would absolutely not have been able to deadlift above 360 kilos, what a ridiculous statement
wait what ? "the deadlift improves the snatch the snatch doesnt improve the deadlift"...then they say if the guy who can clean and jerk 500 pounds can deadlift 800 pounds without practicing the deadlift - im confused im going to functional patterns now lol
Look at Olympic lifters and look at powerlifters and you can see what kind of fitness difference there is. Powerlifters basically are fat. Most of them are just using steroids and have tons of back injuries and other injuries whereas powerlifters have explosive strength and have a lot of flexibility and generally are not taking steroids except for the professional CrossFit people.
You're joking right?
I have friends who do both and are strong AF in the big 3. Elite levels of strength.
Delgado is looking leaner lately. Is he on a cut?
he sure as hell needs to
@@pinksupremacy6076 Fluffy is life
If olympic lifting was not this established respected thing and no one had ever seen people lift weights like that, the weightlifting, fitness, powerlifting, and trainer communities would all say, hey, you're just cheating with weights, thats not full ROM, you're just throwing around weights for the sake of moving the weight around rather than improving strength through clean full range of motion lifts.
I'm not making a judgement here, meerly an observation.
Thoughts? Proove me wrong...
You can stipulate a definition of what strength training is, and what it isn’t. The discussion that Olympic lifting is not strength training per see of course depends on the definition.
“If he clean and jerked 500 pounds, he’s strong enough to deadlift 800 pounds”
Oh, so his deadlift strength is in fact dependent on his clean and jerk strength, meaning, uhhhhh, weightlifting IS strength training?
where can I get that shirt?
The question I've been meaning to ask for a while is relevant here: who is stronger? Lasha Talakhadze or Mitchell Hooper (winner of world's strongest man)
The answer to this would be entirely opinion based.
All around the board? Mitchell Hooper imo
"Stronger" how? How would you test them to determine which is stronger? The design of the test would likely influence the outcome.
The man who has the highest weighted kegel is strongest.
How many people can snatch lashas weight if they are that strong in their bs power lifting aka strength lifting 🤷♂️🤣 PL is brute strength bs with no technique. Oly lift needs technique aka finesse and strength
Whar does Tack Zelander say to this
Uhhhhh...I haven't deadlifted in 3 years I have only trained Olympic and my deadlift has gone up what is bro yapping about😹😹
What did your training look like? Snatches, clean and jerks. Squats, pulls?, presses?, rows?
My deadlift also improved without doing it. I'd say squats and Pendlay rows did it.
@@michiel5160 lots of clean and snatch variations then just front and back squats. If J had to say an accessory that helped it the most probably 45 degree back extension weighted
@@vinniesacco8190 The 45 degree back extension is also Pete Rubish his favourite deadlift accessory.
Ya coulda fooled me.i haven't seem a powerlifter nor wsm contestant lift 500 or 560 over head yet.they two disciplines can compliment one another..I know from personal experience but one must be highly motivated and driven to keep at it
While I find most of his takes as cringe, I don't believe he is wrong here. Very few lifters in my experience succeed with a strictly Olympic weightlifting program. Most people need to develop and continue to develop a maximal amount of reserve strength that isn't adequately developed by over emphasizing the Olymoic lifts over the strength movements.
Not just most, but *all* lifters have to do separate training for strength to make their competition lifts go up. That's the nature of the two factor model of sports performance. This is true for both olympic lifting and strongman, the exception being that strongmen sometimes do compete in the same moves that they perform their strength training in.
Yes, but I suspect it's not because "there's no transference from clean and jerk or snatch", but because doing those exercises in ranges optimal for strength development is dangerous long term. Less technique dependent movements are less likely to breakdown form and thus less likely to cause injury.
In this day and age not but the Bulgarians were the best in history and they did fine with just snatch, clean and jerk, front squats, and tons of dbol.
The reason he's saying olympic weightlifting is not strength training... because he's not able to do it. Most powerlifters are not even able to do full range of squat. 😂😂😂
Of course they can.
why havent I heard or read anywhere in the 3 books or youtube videos, rid saying "as you age and strength train you must stretch your quads (daily) or your going to be sore walking all the time and hamstrings or you wont be able to get in position to deadlift" all i heard was if you have to stretch do it after lifting. my guess RIP cant stand seeing people in the gym stretching like a ballet class .
It is amazing what a cult following you can build by just speaking with unwavering confidence. I do notice most his followers have similar personality type to Rippetoe himself, but “expertise” in another field. You see Chinese weightlifters going ATG with just a weight belt, the week of the contest, and put up similar numbers to elite power lifters, with that only have to go parallel, and they don’t have to walk the weight out……
strength displayed with technique
Guys like Max Aita don’t agree with mark, I’ll go with max.
Is a bench press a normal human movement pattern? Come on Rip...
Pushing things away from your chest is a normal human movement pattern believe it or not
Not sure I understand the argument here. Why do they have a book on technique for lifts if the lifts don't require any technique to maximize them? Don't all lifts require optimal technique to maximize the lifts. If you pull off the floor with your arms outstretched, you won't maximize your deadlift. If you squat unbalanced, you won't maximize your squat. And the argument that deadlifts improve your olympic lifts while olympic lifts don't improve your deadlift is disproven by the example they actually cite where an olympic lifter's deadlift goes up and is much higher than his olympic lifts, by training only the olympic lifts. You can argue that high technique demands create an inefficiency for using olympic lifting as the primary way to gain strength, but you can't deny that training olympic lifts will get you stronger over time and, hence are strength training.
Thanks for the clip.
If you close your eyes you hear JIM ROSS
Strength training is work. Work is force x distance.
Olympic lifting is power. Power is the rate of doing work. Or, Power is force x velocity.
Therefore Olympic lifting is not strength training. Easy physics.
Both are forceXdistance. There are still some strength trained when doing something with higher velocity. Just not as much.
I think the skill component of the snatch and clean and jerks are the much bigger issues.
Beginners would probably not gain anything (or very little) from the Olympic lifts since the bad technique means very little weight used.
But the more skilled you get, the better the strength component will be.
On the other hand a very strong person that has a bad capacity for power (he is too slow) will also get very little from power training even if he masters the technique (again, too little weight moved).
Hahaha have you looked at force velocity curve? Power is still strength but in a sustainable fashion whilst 1rm is just 1 go.
The human body isn't as simple as your equations. When I started doing the olympic lifts I gained strength on other lifts that I didn't perform. Both my bench and deadlift went up and I didn't do either of those lifts on a regular basis.
what school did you go to? I think when your 200kgs on your butt from a squat clean I think you need strength to push . easy physics
Cuz thousands of football coaches are just wrong for teaching the clean to their players
Its alot of technique training that's for sure
What are we even talking about here? 🤷♂️
Has a voice like Dave Ramsey :-). He's correct though, OL is not ST
Do strongman next
I love the comments on this one. So many people not having a clue and filling in the blanks, that don’t exist, and changing the meaning or ignoring things Rip say just to keep pushing the though that pulling a clean that’s 60% of their max deadlift will magically make their deadlift go up. Hilarious.
Why wouldn't 60% load of max make one stronger, there's no real hard limit here.
you guys make no sense. you need to excerise strength to make a great oylmpic lift? you basically isolating the movement alone.
Training power has been demonstrated to improve deadlift a billion times. This is just a guy who sucks at Olympic lifting
lol olympic lifting is the king of strength training. get rekt nerds
3iq take
Doamne ferește omule tu te auzi ce spui?
Bear is much stronger than human and what? you can still shot it with a gun)
Dan John claims he deadlifted ‘600 lbs in a meet without Ever doing it and Only doing olympic lifts…
I like ‘Dan’ but he has some Strange Ideas…
Bree beats everyone lol
Nope, Bozo Rippetoe is wrong again. Even if you only trained the snatch and the clean and jerk you would still get stronger. Squat, deadlift, press, and even bench would probably go up.
Nope, he is right. You will face a hard limit if you only train CJ and Snatch
@@EdV978 Nope, that's not what he said.
@@EdV978 I have yet to see any coach, even an Olympic weightlifting coach, recommend only training snatch and C&J. This is a strawman. But there have been lots of stories where people focused on snatch, C&J, and squats, and improved the deadlift and bench without training those lifts. This was my experience after I started weightlifting. In fact, all I did was power clean and push press followed by squats 3 days a week. After several months I saw improvements in my deadlift and bench. Would I recommend this "program" to a trainee who was looking to develop a base of general strength? That would depend on the trainee. A high school kid who wanted to get better at football and had all summer to do nothing but train and recover, no. A busy dad who worked 50 hours a week, yes.
You didnt finish the video did you.
I like the " probably " in your comment. You started off sounding so sure of yourself. 😂