Greg and Robb are Brilliant!

Derek Simonds · 04-28-2007, 06:29 PM

Man you guys rock. The mass gain strength template is perfect.

In testing today I snatched 95 lb's (over 50% of BW yeah me) which is 10 heavier than last week and I think I could have gone heavier. I have only cleaned in the past and I cleaned and jerked 145 lb's and easily cleaned 155 lb's which is also 10 lb's heavier than last week.

Here are some questions, I probably could google these but I am asking here and signing off for the night.

1) Traditionally what percentage of clean to front squat do most people achieve?

2) Are most people able to clean more than they can jerk?

3) Greg gave me great advice on testing and I have been following it. I bought some fractional plates off of Iron Woody on ebay that were blemished. In the past I have only worked in increments of 2.5 lbs. If I start to feel like I am getting close to a max should I start using the fractional plates to slowly add weight or just do what I have done in the past and toss on a 2.5 and see what happens?

Thanks again for a great program. I have really enjoyed it and I still have 2 weeks to go! I am shooting for 10 lb's a week

might be a little unrealistic but lets see what I can do.

Pierre Auge · 04-29-2007, 10:56 AM

Derek,
Many a competition lifter can clean more then they can front squat. Take Donnie Shankle for example has Cleaned 10kg more in competition (if I'm not mistaken) then his best front squat!

Don't think about ratios too much its not worth your time, simply work on progressing linearly with your lifts, you'll get more enjoyment out of the program and it wont get you wrapped around the wheel.. You seem to be doing well..

Once you get to the point where a 5 lbs jump is too much for progression start using the fractional plates.

Robb Wolf · 04-30-2007, 01:45 PM

Greg will have to chime in on the ratios but off the top of my head I think snatch is about 75-80% of C&J. Similar ratios for front and back sqts. Any of the oL experts chime in if I'm smoking crack on this.

Pierre Auge · 04-30-2007, 05:33 PM

Robb,
don't humor the guy...

ok not withstanding sometimes my opinions are not the most productive...

Greg Everett · 04-30-2007, 08:08 PM

in my experience robb's 75-80% figure is pretty accurate. personally i snatch 80% of what i CJ. i also smoke crack. also just saw this on goHeavy.

and then:

2) people are split both ways (no pun intended initially, but now i like it). i think the diifference between max clean and max jerk depends greatly on how an individual trains. for example if an athlete cleans way more than he jerks, clearly he needs to focus more on the jerk and less on the clean (and squats). if the disparity doesn't diminish over time, he's probably doing something wrong because there's no point (for a competitive weightlifter) to be significantly better in either the clean or jerk since you don't get a choice of one or the other in a meet. i can jerk more than i can clean, but when God was handing out legs, I thought He said eggs, and i said No thanks, got to watch my cholesterol.

3) You can use the fractionals as pierre said--just be careful not to use them too much and wind up doing way more reps than you really need to. over time you'll become better and better at gauging how close a given effort is to max and be able to pretty accurately choose your next attempt.

Derek Simonds · 05-05-2007, 09:33 AM

Well another testing day in the books. I only have 1 week left on the mass gain plan and it is the unloading microcycle. I pushed really hard this week and I think I was on the ragged edge for recovery with BJJ and training. I ended up catching a cold that has been going around the family for the last 10 days. Worst day by far was Thursday so I am recovering. Here are the results from today.

Snatch 100 Lb's (PR) I missed on 105 and it was pretty funny. I snatched the weight got under it locked out my shoulders and arms sank into the squat and stayed there. I just couldn't seem to get out of the hole. As I was sitting there I started laughing and I lost it.
Clean I just didn't have it today. I did 145 lb's but it just didn't feel good and I didn't want to push it.
FS 190 lb's (PR) I ran out of time but I am confident that I will be able to break over 200 next Saturday.

Derek Simonds · 05-12-2007, 05:10 AM

Today was the last testing day for the 7 week in my case 8 week mass gain template. I managed one more PR everything else was fairly stagnant which was a disappointment. I think as I progress from undertrained to at least average the progress will slow compared to the big leaps I have been making.

All in LB's

Snatch 105 easily, missed twice on 115, dropped down and missed once on 110. The 110 I had but got stuck at the bottom like I did last week on the 105.

Clean / Jerk 155 nailed it moved up to 160 and cleaned it fairly easily but totally missed the jerk. This was spectacular as I started to lose the weight backwards and wasn't prepared for that. No blood no foul. I tried it again without getting the jerk again. The last time I kept the weight where it should be just couldn't get my arms fully extended.

Front Squat 190 with a little strain but couldn't get 195 for some reason, the weight felt good going down just couldn't get moving out of the hole.

I had great success and really enjoyed the mass gain template. Once again Robb and Greg thanks for the design, the kind words and the feedback (Pierre also).