October 30th, 2012 
John David L. asked a simple question the other day, how do you do a muscle up? Short answer, jump up there and try it. You can and will always do more than you think you can, if you just let yourself…
Another question we’ve been asked quite a bit lately is presented by our new found friend, Mike Winchester, and he gives us an awesome in depth answer. This is a must read for you fellow numbers geeks out there like myself.
Why Don’t We Deadlift More?
SKILL/STRENGTH
Front Squats
Dips
WOD
Run Short Lap
20 OH Lunges
5 Plate Burpees
AMRP in 15 Minutes
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From a pure thought perspective, I can understand what this guy is talking about but, honestly, his incorrect use (or lack thereof) of engineering units confuses the issue and doesn’t accurately convey the crux of his argument. Power is usually expressed in Watts, especially for human exercise output. Light bulbs can be 100 Watts and a typical pickup truck has 230 horsepower, equivalent to ~171,000 Watts. Based on what I know, the maximum power output of a human is about 300-350 Watts for the Crossfit work we do. Basically, he is saying that our power capability for a clean is 15,344,640 of indescript units and so more than a typical pickup truck! That cannot be right…
I do get this overall gist of his argument that cleans and snatchs require more power than the deadlifts. But the difference he outlines is not that stark, I would think.
For some reason, this bothered me and so I plugged his numbers into my Crossfit power spreadsheet. His equations are correct even though he does not keep track of his units which is not trivial.
To compute power, you first calculate Work(Joules) = Weight(N)xDistance(m). Then calculate Power(Watts)=Work(Joules)/Time(sec).
For one deadlift rep of #275 from ground to hip(~24in) at 2 seconds (too long in my estimation), I calculate power of 371 Watts after converting units and neglecting body weight for simplicity sake.
For one clean rep of #185 from ground to rack position(more like ~60in for 5’9″ person) at 0.25 seconds, I calculate power of 4987 Watts.
The power ratio between a clean and deadlift is 13 to 1 but for this guy, it is 774 to 1! You can double-check my math by using some online power calculators.
Basically, the numbers do matter and influences the impact of his argument which some aspects I am still not convinced of…
But do you see validity in deadlifting more often?
Congratulations on your muscle ups David…now you can never do a dip from the low rings again
I can definitely see why we do not deadlift more but not just for power output reasons. The mobility and technique required for a clean and snatch seems more involved and so more repetition would be great for improvement.
Oh and congratulations David!
Congrats, David!! And you were worried if you could get through some of the girls! Man…you’re killing it, bro! Wish I could have been there to cheer ya on!