Please Scroll Down to See Forums Below Most gymnasts do seem to have good shoulder development. They must crucify their joints in the process though. I saw a top American Oympic gymnast doing DB flys with his elbows locked tight.
The most complete upper body single exercise
- Thread starter bblazer
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Most gymnasts do seem to have good shoulder development. They must crucify their joints in the process though. I saw a top American Oympic gymnast doing DB flys with his elbows locked tight.
trauck1506
New member
Warning you right now to be careful doing them European style especially if you don't regularly do them. Today I decided to try it and kept going up in weight until I went back a little to far and heard my back pop. That's when I dropped one side on my left shoulder and tripped backward, but thank god I caught myself. Right now my back hurts fairly bad and I just hope it doesn't stop legs tomorrow.
When you think about it, there's really no point being obsessed with how much weight you can press. Why bother doing the European style presses which were used in contests back in the 70's. It's nothing more than nostalgia from a bygone era.
Leave the ego at home when you train and be sensible about what you're doing. A strict muscle press makes more sense and is a lot safer than a technique driven competition style lift that hasn't been used for 30 years.
They don't have any use in bodybuilding, powerlifting or olympic lifting.
trauck1506
New member
Well you are right except the main reason i was doing them is to see how much it helped and second I like to see how much I can do on anything without hurting myself. Why bother doing power cleans either if your never going to compete, and they could come in handy in a strong man competition? Yes I did say without hurting myself and I pushed it a little to far, but I was doing the weight for reps not singles so I didn't see that happening. They also seem to kill my lats more than rows or pull ups and my lats never get this sore.
I don't bother with power cleans. I gave them up years ago.
trauck1506
New member
Well there are lots of people who do and I think that doing anything that allows you to add more weight will help your overall strength.
Adding weight in a power movement is usually more about improving techniqe than adding pure strength. You can add weight in a more controlled fashion by doing pure strength movements and eliminate some risk of injury.
If you have no use in competition for power movements (power cleans, snatches, european style military presses etc), why do them?
gjohnson5
New member
The first part in bold is false. Improving weight in power cleans will mean strength increases in legs,back and shoulder muscles.
Anyway improving explosiveness through pwoer movements carries over in other sports related activities such as jumping.
trauck1506
New member
I was about to come in here and write nearly the exact same thing. I want to lift more than I look like I can lift not the other way around. Also as most people would say, training like most body builders changes your muscle fiber from fast twitch to slow twitch.
If you read the bold comment again, you'll see the two disclaimers in there. ie. "usually" (not always) and "more about" (not exclusively).
In this thread we're mainly talking about presses, and in this case I was mainly refering to the European press as used in competition back in the 1970's and explained in detail by Bill Starr. Sorry, I should have made that clearer.
Anyway, you mentioned power cleans to demonstate that I was wrong, so let's discuss them briefly. You'll add some strength to the back, legs and shoulders, but only explosive strength specific to explosive power movements. These could help in certain athletic movements, sure, but you're not going to see anyone squating, deadlifting or pressing more from doing power cleans.
Being a bodybuilding forum with a powerlifting following, I'm not speaking about advantages specific to other sports. Other sports will have their own forums with advice on how to improve strength specific to those sports. Of course power cleans will be useful in other sports. I'm not disputing that.
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