Tuesday, April 15, 2014

The whole catapult vs jump shrug debate


o.k., I am really tired because I just got in from a session of training that was entirely focused on one of my weakest links, my pull. Something dawned on me though during my training and I have to put it down in words. I might be wrong, but this whole catapult vs jump shrug debate is in my opinion is a debate of body types. These long legged lifters with short torsos scuff at these other lifters with short legs and long torsos working so much on pulling the bar high. Think about what I just wrote. Long torso vs short torso. Who is going to have to pull the bar higher to get it overhead? If you don't have much of a torso the bar is that much closer to being locked out at the end of your pull compared to someone with a long torso. To put this in perspective lets flip the coin. Lifters with short torsos usually have long legs and squats are a big weak link for them, these are the lifters who fail to recover from cleans. It would be easy for lifters whith short legs to scuff at the long legged lifter training his squat so much, but there would be no reason to. Each lifter has strengths and weaknesses based on his or her own body composition. Training is individual. The fact is long torso lifters may need to work on pulling higher and long legged lifters may need to work on squats more than the "norm". Same thing goes for overhead strength. We all know the guy with short little T-rex arms that can jerk anything from the rack, Sean Rigsbey comes to mind, but there are others. Some people are just built to jerk, or built to squat, or built to pull, and working on those God given strengths to a certain extend may be a waste of time when you have a closet full of weaknesses waiting in the wings. Your strength isn't holding you back, it's your weakness.

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