Weightlifting Efficiency

I was listening to a discussion with Barbell Shrugged interviewing Justin Thacker of The L.A.B. Gym in St. Louis.  Justin has created a gym with breakouts for weightlifting, CrossFit, personal training, monostructural training and strongman training.

One thing that struck me is that for the majority of athletes, Justin recommended specific training.  Accessory movements aside from those to prevent muscle imbalances should be reserved for intermediate and advanced athletes.

For example if I want to clean & jerk, I should clean & jerk.  Bands, pulling from blocks, hang cleans, power cleans will not provide the same stimulus as doing the full movement.

Another point that struck me was Justin's efficiency guidelines:

Front Squat = 85% of Back Squat
Clean = 90% of Front Squat
Snatch = 78%-82% of Clean & Jerk

While these are rough guidelines and athletes may or may not fall into them, it did provide a good reference for me.  Justin further clarified that Deadlift will often be all over the place and not correlate with weightlifting or squats.

Finally Justin alluded to his super secret programming spreadsheet code named "Megatron."  This little gem is slowly accumulating data to develop customized programming, progression and peaking schedule.  For example, based on the weights you are hitting and success rates, he can predict what you should be doing down the road.