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Performance Area => Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion => Topic started by: vag on August 02, 2012, 06:02:20 am
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After recent discussion about pressing and squatting i decided to measure my limbs.
It could be a good explanation to why i suck so much at bench press and full squat.
Arms :
Fingertip to elbow : ~50cm ( ~20'' )
Elbow to shoulder : ~30cm ( ~12'' )
Total : ~80cm ( ~32'' )
Legs:
Heel to knee : ~55cm ( ~22'' )
Knee to hip joint : ~45cm ( 18'' )
Total : ~100cm ( ~40'' )
In presses my arms make it really weird to go full rom, the extra long elbow-palm length calls for crazy bend/flexibility.
Same with legs i suppose, to get my hip joint to mid-calves height i need to travel ~25-30'' down.
Are my metrics totally fucked up ( reminder , height just below 6' barefoot , 6'5'' wingspan ), does it affect my lifting, or am i just making excuses?
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I'm 6"3 with a 6'5 wingspan, so looks like you have long arms for your height. You will always have leverage disadvantages with long limbs, I'm also poor at the full squat and I could only get my push press up to 175 with sketchy form when I was working on it. For upper body I pretty much switch to calisthenics and gymnastic exercises which cured my left shoulder impingement, and I decided that a full squat wasn't in the cards for me and I need to working on a lunge or half squat. At 200 lbs my best full squat was 315 twice but real slow form wasn't perfect. Maybe you need to just pick exercises that will benefit your limb length like a half squat.
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where are you measuring for each? are you really that short? you seem taller on vids. maybe it's the long legs. damn my 5-11 height and 5-11 wingspan.
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I'm 5'11 with a 6'3 wingspan. I don't really find benching hard but squats are fairly difficult.
I just measured my leg length and it was 3'3 (39 inches) from heel to hip joint.
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I would measure slightly different numbers
Arm pit to elbow
elbow to wrist
that way you don't have hand size confounding things. Bigger hands help with grip of course, but for proportion analysis it probably confounds analysis more than it helps.
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or am i just making excuses?
Yes. No offense but you probably "suck" at these movements because you're ok with sucking at them.
My measurements:
Arms :
Fingertip to elbow : ~20.25"
Elbow to shoulder : ~15"
Legs:
Heel to knee : 23"
Knee to hip joint : 17"
My current maxes are something like 310 Bench, 195 Standing Mil Press (seated probably 10-15 more), 365-425? Squat. I haven't squatted in a month so I'm not sure.
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Also remember, long levers are a huge ADVANTAGE in sport, you may not have it super easy lifting huge numbers in the weight room, but the higher you get those numbers, the more magnified the effect in performance vs a shorter limbed individual.
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or am i just making excuses?
Yes. No offense but you probably "suck" at these movements because you're ok with sucking at them.
My measurements:
Arms :
Fingertip to elbow : ~20.25"
Elbow to shoulder : ~15"
Legs:
Heel to knee : 23"
Knee to hip joint : 17"
My current maxes are something like 310 Bench, 195 Standing Mil Press (seated probably 10-15 more), 365-425? Squat. I haven't squatted in a month so I'm not sure.
I'd don't know my exact measurements but I am pretty sure my heel to knee measurement is just about equal to my knee to hip join measurement. Extremely long femurs.
As to whether your making excuses or you just suck because your ok with sucking....
Differences in limb lengths will have huge a huge effect on the load you can lift... but there's almost always a positive to different limb ratios. I've been squatting a couple times a week for a year straight and have still never back squatted more than 405 at almost 200lbs. But I came back to track and went sub 11 in the 100m after only four months back and less than a year removed from clinical obesity. Additionally, I never train it but can deadlift 550 with semi-decent bar speed. Point is I know that I'm at at a disadvantage when comparing my squat against a 5'7 190lb guy, but the disadvantage doesn't mean I can't improve.
Bottom line is, if ALL your lifts and performance tests are poor your making excuses because it's not your limb length.
Additionally, your limb lengths should affect your absolute numbers not your ability to improve. I started squatting 185lbs in college. If I was better built for it maybe I woulda started with 275lbs instead. The point is I have still added a lot of weight to my squat.... you can do the same. Your limb lengths are why you might go from 135 to 405 rather than 225 to 495 over the course of 10 years, but they are not the reason for being stuck at 185lbs!
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Wow, so much feedback! Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts.
I just want to say that i wasn't whining or looking to change something to my training. A solid plan and progressive overloading is all that is to it, absolute numbers don't really matter, if progress is constant for a long time the numbers will get big in the end.
What i really wanted was an "official" confirmation that limb length leverages do affect the 'starting' absolute numbers and also the push/pull ratios.
Also i must say that am very happy with my long ass arms and legs as they have helped me a lot playing my beloved sport, basketball. Also if they were shorter i might have squatted and benched more, maybe i would have gained more than 11'' that i did now too, but maybe that wouldn't have been enough to make that 10' dunk true.
So yeah , long limbs FTW! 8)
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A long crotch is considered a long limb?
Just asking...
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^ I said i have long legs! I meant all 3 of them...
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I lold hard at "long crotch" lmfaooo
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Your limb lengths are why you might go from 135 to 405 rather than 225 to 495 over the course of 10 years, but they are not the reason for being stuck at 185lbs!
You kind of lost me here. Is this a fact that, all other things being equal, an absolute beginner with shorter limbs will be able to start w/more weight than one with longer? I can see the advantage for smaller limbs in terms of making gains but I wouldn't have thought that it would affect beginning levels of strength.
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^ of course, a good leverage is always better than a bad leverage regardless of training experience.
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As a porn star, I can tell you that between the legs is where it's at.
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^ of course, a good leverage is always better than a bad leverage regardless of training experience.
Thanks...for some reason I didn't make that connection.
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Your limb lengths are why you might go from 135 to 405 rather than 225 to 495 over the course of 10 years, but they are not the reason for being stuck at 185lbs!
You kind of lost me here. Is this a fact that, all other things being equal, an absolute beginner with shorter limbs will be able to start w/more weight than one with longer? I can see the advantage for smaller limbs in terms of making gains but I wouldn't have thought that it would affect beginning levels of strength.
If you took all untrained people and tested their initial max lifts then there would be surely be a correlations between different limb lengths and weight lifted, especially weight relative to bw. Limb lengths, limb length ratios, bone structure, and differences in muscle insertions will make a large difference between the strength levels of untrained people.
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is it better for your leg to be longer above the knees or below the knees as a jumper?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22090004
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is it better for your leg to be longer above the knees or below the knees as a jumper?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22090004
do you have the full paper? was it CMJ or running vertical?
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is it better for your leg to be longer above the knees or below the knees as a jumper?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22090004
do you have the full paper? was it CMJ or running vertical?
The paper's not open access? I believe it's CMJ, can email paper.