http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=52balan
In May of 1999, Charles Poliquin wrote an article for T-mag called Achieving Structural Balance. It dealt with some general guidlines to identify strength imbalances in the upper body. Is anyone aware of the lower body guidelines that I think were only available at his seminars and if so, I would be interested in finding out what he has to say.
Yes only available at seminars.
He charts them and lists the differences - generally they stay the same over time.
I don’t know anyone else who follows them.
And I am not sure they’re as special as he says.
I’d love to know how they come up with these figures …
By the way the story about a someone at one of their seminars in Ireland talking about a certification where you have to drink your urine was complete BS.
I was there - never happened.
Either the Brown Recluse spider or the Vit. C did serious damage to the brain … maybe it wasn’t oxygen in the tent after all … serious bong hits CP.
ok
I’m sorry - I am sometimes a little to harsh on the wee guy.
no23,
you mean you didn’t perform bicep curls in a hyperbaric chamber with an IV of vit c hooked up to your arm?
how else are you going to “win the arms race”
From my archives. I believe this was for an American football player or just for general porpotionate strength. For other sport athletes the percentages may be different.
Back squat
Front squat 85% of back squat
Power clean 72% of back squat
Snatch 56% of back squat
Example:
Back squat 500lb
Front squat 425lb
PC 360lb
Snatch 280lb
Thomas
That sounds similar to the percentages I heard at his seminar 5 years ago.
I hope these tables are better than the ones he used on a guy I met. He told this guy, during a phone consultation, that, at 5’ 10" he should weigh 205 to be a world class sprinter. “I’ve got the tables here in front of me!” CP said. That’s total bullshit, of course, as there are no such tables. Then again, maybe CP was talking about the coffee table he was resting his drink on.
Does anyone see the problem here?? How can you have a table when ther are such huge variations in skill needed to perform the tests? How do you do a general comparison across an athletic population between a back squat and a snatch?
In a purely theoretical kinematic analysis (crap, i am using more jargon than DB hammer 
), the differences in lower and upper leg lengths as well as torso length would render these statistics void. In addition, since there is more than one way for the same person to do a lift (stance width, torso bending over, knees in or out etc), there is no way one could get reasonably good confidence intervals with this data.
If you add in the real-world technical aspects to the lifts, it makes those statistics excessively bad especially for people who suck at OLY lifts.
I agree, but I suppose the real problem is the crowd at the seminar itself. The bigger the crowd, by definition, the lower the general level of understanding. If you DON’T give them something to use right away, they won’t come back.
Fair enough. I can understand that situation. It would be nice to hear some of details behind this though, maybe it would make more sense. (although i find the jokes about the spider bite hilarious )
Regardless, a large amount of statistic data of athletes’ lifts with adaquet background such as sports performance, limb and body dimensions would be some interesting data to look at. I wonder if there are some interesting correlations to be made.
I agree, but I suppose the real problem is the crowd at the seminar itself. The bigger the crowd, by definition, the lower the general level of understanding. If you DON’T give them something to use right away, they won’t come back.
Charlie, well put as always.
Don’t shoot the messenger! I only reported what I heard.
And that’s why we’ll never make friends with the aliens.
I agree it would be interesting - but that’s all it would be.
No two people can be the same and attempting to use such percentages is dangerous IMO.
CP always says he gets this data from assessing the world class athletes he has tested and treated etc.
Even if you had ALL the data, race, limb lengths, strength values, age, genetic factors etc. etc. etc. there would be sooooo much data to manage it couldn’t be assessed to a practical or safe degree for use.
(I know I’m harsh on the guy and I hate knocking people - CP has done alot for the strength training world and profession etc. and might be classed somewhat as a pioneer - but some of his more recent stuff is … well … questionable)
Bottom Line -
You cannot ‘formulize’ training of athletes - far too many variables.
We see this far too often in this arena.
I definately agree that we see this too often in this arena. (I think that CP does this a bit much). I think that part of this could be constributed to people not understanding the use of the statistics that they have.
I agree that even with all of that data, one could probably never ‘formulize’ the training of athletes (although it would be interesting to apply some control theory and identification theory to this ), but we could notice some commonalities among certain athletes with certain characteristics which could lead into better training regimes. (isn’t this what a good coach does as they train more athletes?)
I’ve been writing an article on this very point which is why I find it so interesting…
… the term we are looking for is ‘Athletic Heuristics’
Guidelines not Rules
LOL! Bwahaha.
That is the perfect term for it. That article sounds like a good read. When will you have the article finished?
Unfortunately it’ll take some time.
I’m so busy just now I need to clone myself!!!