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By Root 606 0

overcome the weight of the bar by the vertical distance the bar travels, and since the bar is pulled perhaps six times faster in a power clean because it is half the weight of a deadlift, power outputs in a heavy clean might be five to seven times as high as in a deadlift. A deadlift can obviously be done with a heavier weight because it is a shorter movement with no inherent requirement to accelerate the bar – if you can just keep it moving up, however slowly, you can lock it out. Remember: there can be no slow power cleans because they will not rack on the shoulders, but a heavy deadlift might take 5–7 seconds to pull and it will still be a deadlift.

Here is one of the most important facts about training for strength, or power, or sports, or anything else: it is always true that a man with a 500-pound deadlift will clean more than a man with a 200-pound deadlift. At its very core, power is dependent upon strength: force production capacity that does not exist cannot be displayed, quickly or otherwise. However, between two men who both deadlift 500 pounds, the one moving it faster is producing more acceleration – more force over a shorter timeframe – and thus more power. This capacity is the ultimate difference between a strong man and a strong athlete. The power clean is an incrementally increasable way to develop this power.

Figure 6-3. The power clean contributes to the deadlift, and the deadlift contributes to the power clean. The power clean teaches timing and athletic synchronization of complex multi-joint movements; it trains the commitment involved in getting under the bar, the all-or-none that is sometimes lacking in a deadlift attempt; it trains the rate of motor unit recruitment, thus improving neuromuscular efficiency; and it teaches explosion – the mental cue for highly efficient motor unit recruitment. The deadlift develops the concentric and isometric strength involved in holding the correct position through the slower parts of a heavy clean, and the ability to hold the back rigid during the explosive hip extension that makes for an efficient second pull; it increases the total number of motor units that can be recruited in a contraction; it teaches and enables “grind” – the patience necessary to maintain position through a long effort; it disinhibits the nervous system against heavier weights, so that heavy cleans feel light in contrast to heavy deadlifts; and it develops the good old-fashioned ability to produce force.

A very strong powerlifter can deadlift two to three times the weight he can power clean – because he probably doesn’t train the clean at all. In the early days of powerlifting, most competitors had weightlifting experience or were coached by people who did. This being no longer the case, a powerlifter’s power clean might be 40% of his deadlift. In contrast, an Olympic weightlifter might clean 85% of his deadlift. This difference is a direct result of genetics and training specificity. At the elite levels, all sports favor a certain type of genetic predisposition. The elite powerlifter is an athlete who is good at pulling heavy weights, and the elite weightlifter is good at pulling moderate weights fast. And weightlifters tend to train with lighter weights explosively, while powerlifters concentrate their efforts on the slower movements that allow the use of heavier weights. It is quite likely that a weightlifter who can deadlift only 450 pounds over a 385-pound clean has not trained with sufficiently heavy weights to develop his absolute strength. His clean would go up if he developed his absolute strength off the floor. There is no reason that a lifter with a 385 clean and a 450 deadlift can’t get his deadlift stronger, unless he is happy with staying at a 385 clean. Or it could be that the powerlifter with a 600-pound deadlift and a 240-pound clean has neglected to develop his power off the floor. (“Powerlifting” is a bad choice of name for the sport; it should be “strengthlifting,” but I predict that my suggestion will not be adopted anytime soon.) Both sports could benefit