Strength vs. Technique?

Bill Kazmaier called him the strongest man who has ever lived. He will NOT win a gold medal in Olympic weightlifting.

Although within the sport of weightlifting this “debate” is ridiculous and has been recognized as such from the start, it still persists on various message boards around the internet. Wherever a shortage of experience and common sense exist, it rears it’s ugly head. This will be yet another attempt to slay this beast, and it will no doubt fail. Nevertheless, let us continue.

Let us imagine that the level of a lifters strength and technique are both illustrated by having a certain number of pebbles. Let us suppose that one could have between 0 and 100 “strength pebbles”. Zero indicates an inability to do a squat with your own body weight, no bar or weight added. 100 indicates a complete and total realization of any and all strength you could possibly have given your genetic potential. The technique pebbles operate along the same lines, and it is the person WITH THE MOST TOTAL PEBBLES THAT WILL LIFT THE MOST WEIGHT!

Now to make this realistic, let’s add a couple more conditions. First of all, let us assume that as you accumulate pebbles, whether they are strength pebbles or technique pebbles, each pebble of that particular variety becomes harder and harder to pick up and hold on to. So it is relatively easy to pick up the first 20 strength pebbles, and even easier to retain them. This might represent going from not being able to squat your own body down and up unassisted to being able to squat with a 150lb bar. Very easy to achieve that, and given any level of activity or training whatsoever, easy to maintain. But with each pebble you accumulate, picking it up becomes harder, as well as retaining it. So much so that picking up the last 10 is more difficult than the first 90. After all, isn’t going from a 500lb squat to a 600lb squat harder, and more time consuming, than getting up to 500lbs in the first place? It is for most people.

Second, let us suppose that once either strength or technique get a certain amount ahead of the other, further increases are useless and don’t count. After all, you might have the most beautiful pull in the world, and a transition to going under the bar that is poetry in motion, but if you are not strong enough to stand up with the weight, it is wasted. And if you are pulling the bar in a manner that makes bicep strength the limiting factor, is increasing the squat going to help you? Are your biceps ever going to be strong enough to break a world record? No, there is after all a reason why Zydrunas Savickas is not the Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting.

Think about these conditions and what they mean. If your imagination is lacking, let me help you out!

1.) To lift the largest weights, it takes a high level of strength AND a high level of technique.

2.) A relative lack of either quality makes subsequent focus on the other quality inefficient and self-limiting.

3.) Achieving a balance of both qualities is always the easiest and quickest way to a given level of performance.

4.) We should all be trying to increase both qualities, with a focus on whichever is lacking the most.

5.) There is no reasonable argument to be made that either quality should be prioritized to the point of letting the other fall behind.

So there it is, simple and logical. And it will make no difference whatsoever to those engaged in this silly debate.

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