Performing Hang Cleans

[Jesse Polanco]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

Thanks for the advice. I did 6 rep sets yesterday, and yes...I am very new to them as an exercise. I am used to rest-pause or cluster training, so low reps are not an issue.

I do deadlifts and heavy overhead presses on that training day. My deadlifts are 5 to 8 singles around 80 to 85%. Could I do the deadlifts first?

no. Do the speed/dynamic movement before your deadlifts, they will prime your CNS for heavy deadlifts

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

Why am I doing them? Because I want to try them. It's a challenge. I've been training for 23 years using the same movements, and have never tried any Olympics lifts. I'm as big as I'm going to get naturally, so muscle mass is not a concern. I could pretty much do any split or form of training and it wouldn't impact my mass. So at this point in my life, lifting is about pleasure.

hey bro i seriously doubt you have reached your genetic potential and its pretty much impossible to tell if you have or haven't you can always try to get bigger you know

this is why i love weights and bodybuilding. so many different goals to focus on you can never get bored. bored with bodybuilding hit up powerlifting get tired of that.. do some strongman or olympic lfiting or more bodybuilding

the weights trully are a never ending journey

[dmaipa]

Originally Posted by Jesse Polanco

no. Do the speed/dynamic movement before your deadlifts, they will prime your CNS for heavy deadlifts



hey bro i seriously doubt you have reached your genetic potential and its pretty much impossible to tell if you have or haven't you can always try to get bigger you know

this is why i love weights and bodybuilding. so many different goals to focus on you can never get bored. bored with bodybuilding hit up powerlifting get tired of that.. do some strongman or olympic lfiting or more bodybuilding

the weights trully are a never ending journey

well said my friend..well said

[BRaWNy]

For sports like strongman, olympic lifts make some sense, since you see some replication of these movements in events.

Any movement you can do using force and for power and explosion (and plyos too), like doing it in dynamic effort fashion and like the olympic drills, and of course all the exercises where you have the intention to do them fast and explosive in the positive rep, have also sense for strength and mass purposes, not just for athletes, strongman and olympic lifting competitors, because they help you to prime your CNS, to use better the high threshold motor units, to become more functional and many other things, so the mass and strength comes more easier with the other exercises, because of the skills above.

[BendtheBar]

Originally Posted by Jesse Polanco

hey bro i seriously doubt you have reached your genetic potential and its pretty much impossible to tell if you have or haven't you can always try to get bigger you know

I have. Check the Casey Butt study of natural muscle mass limits. Many guys don't know this, but Dr. Casey Butt has putt together a study of all the top lifters of the last 50 years. It is incredibly accurate. Generally down to several ounces of muscle.

Determining Natural Bodybuilding Potential

I haven't gained a pound of muscle in over 12 years. I am dead nuts with my genetic potential. Naturals have limits because of natural testosterone levels. Natural levels place a ceiling upon how much muscle is possible.

Sorry for the long ramble, but testosterone levels determine muscle mass. Many naturals believe they can "out muscle" their natural testosterone levels. But that's physiologically impossible.

Lifters like Reg Park...one of the biggest naturals of all time, never gained more then 38 pounds of muscle. And he was a genetic elite.

Here are some recent pics. Although I'm heavier right now, I think they do justice to how much muscle mass I have.

[AthleteCreator]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

I don't know why, but this picture always reminds me of the blurry bigfoot picture. lol

[thumpinos]

His guns are almost as good as the chimps.

[dmaipa]

that's a yoke bendthebar..

[BendtheBar]

Originally Posted by dmaipa

that's a yoke bendthebar..

Thanks! Body by nacho cheese.

[CookAndrewB]

Originally Posted by dmaipa

amen brother..you lift what you want to lift! leave them to the pros? please, i have my 16 yr old athletes learning them.

Please re-read my post. I think you will find that nothing you just said contradicts what I wrote.

That being said, why would you have 16 year old athletes doing olympic lifts? I stand by the idea that doing lifts because you "think" you are getting some benefit out of them is plain silly. No competitive athlete should squat/deadlift/bench or perform ANY lift without having some understanding as to what they gain, or what they lose, by training the way they do. That goes doubly for coaches. Assigning weight training based on some archaic idea that everyone should perform a back squat... I thought the modern training world would have put a rest to that kind of stuff by now.

The question really isn't about whether a hang clean is a "good lift." They are all good, when put in their proper place. You only get so much weight room time with an athlete, and their performance on the field/court/rink needs to be improved by that time. Off season may allow for more slop, but even then you can train the hell out of a team and get absolutely zero improvement come in-season. Going back to my favorite analogy where a lift=tool, you wouldn't tell a house framer that what he needs is a set of sledge hammers. He may be able to accomplish some of his job with a sledge hammer (try nailing a house together with one and tell me how useful it was), but it will never give you the result that the right tool will. Industry wide, we see a broad application of the wrong tool, or a tool selection similar to the claw hammer/ sledge hammer analogy.

For a recreational lifter (such as BTB) the world is their oyster. All I was saying was that there was very little in the way of compelling reasons to perform Oly lifts if he didn't like them. The same may not be true for a competitve athlete.

[Casey Butt]

Originally Posted by thumpinos

That's not a chimp - that shot is George Burns on the Jack Lalanne show.