Deadlift Harder Than Bench Press??

External Since: Mar 28, 2005 Posts: 702

In article <1190820609.176091.8150.TakeThisOut@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
Prisoner at War <prisoner_at_war.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Sep 25, 3:19 pm, Hobbes <khobman....TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Deadlift world records are higher than bench press world records in all
> > classes in the IPF. Federations that allow very heavy gear tend to have
> > higher bench press records.
>
> What's "very heavy gear"?? You mean what they call bench press
> shirts? They come in different weights???
>
> > For a lifter not using supportive gear most can deadlift 150% if what
> > they can bench and squat about the same.
>
> That's interesting, the correlation between deadlifts and
> squats...must be all about them legs, eh!
>
> > My bests in competition were 617# squat, 403# bench and 623# deadlift -
> > which is a typical ratio of a non-juiced lifter not using a pile of
> > supportive gear. I weighed just under 220.
>
> Eh?? 403-lbs.?? Why not the full four plates on each side of 405-
> lbs.???

I've done 425 as a touch and go gym lift, but as a competitive
powerlifter I only count competition attempts. Kilogram plates - my best
was 182.5 kgs - 403 lbs. I've squatted and deadlifted more in the gym
too, but like the bench they wouldn't have passed in a competition.

--
Keith

External Since: May 02, 2006 Posts: 288

On Wed, 26 Sep 2007, Randy Poe wrote:

> On Sep 26, 11:21 am, Prisoner at War <prisoner_at_....DeleteThis@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>> On Sep 26, 9:58 am, Elflord <ab....DeleteThis@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I guess it all depends on what one means by "hard". I'd say deads and
>>> squats are harder than the bench, though I can deadlift/squat much
>>> more than I bench.
>>
>> Indeed -- according to Hobbes, it's "harder" due to the expenditure of
>> energy involved, due to the utilization of resources...which
>> utilization (recruitment of many muscle groups) makes possible the much
>> higher poundage.
>>
>> In terms of physics/biomechanics, there must be a reason, too, I
>> suspect...I wonder what a weightlifting physicist would say!
>
> Pardon my ignorance but I'm reading this in sci.physics.
>
> Isn't a deadlift the one we see in the Olympics that starts with the
> weight on the floor, then it's given a boost upward with the leg
> muscles, and then the idea is to get under it as it moves up and over
> your head?

That's the snatch. A deadlift is a little like the first phase of that,
where you pull it up to waist level. The key difference (apart from the
range of motion) is that in a snatch, you get it moving fast, so at waist
level it's moving up quickly, and carries on up under its own momentum, so
you can catch it as it reaches shoulder level. In a deadlift, you lift
slowly, so there's relatively little momentum. This is a basic difference
between Olympic style lifting and what's called 'powerlifting' - the
former is a matter of dynamics, the latter statics. Despite the names,
that means the former is more about power (force of resistance times speed
of movement), and the latter about the maximal force you can exert.

> It seems to me that involves mostly the lower body.

Still true.

> On the other hand, a bench press is just arms and shoulders, right?

Chest, primarily. The pectoral muscles run, roughly, from the middle of
your chest to the arms, just outside the shoulder joint; as they contract,
they swing the arms forward.

> I'm not a weightlifter, no strength to speak of, but at my worst I could
> lift 2 or 3 times with my legs what I can lift with my arms.

Those ratios might not be true of strength athletes (and might not be true
of you, in fact), but that order generally holds for everyone. The OP is
some kind of freak.

tom

--
There's no future.