Momentum is unavoidable in explosive lifting, but that's okay

[tyciol]

I wanted to reply to a post in a previous thread, but someone locked it, so am making a new one.

http://training.fitness.com/body-building/lat-pulldown-vs-pullup-2-33859.html#post423310

How is momentum unaviodable during explosive lifts? I power clean every now and then, theres no momentum. I also do plyometrics here and there. No momentum there either. I suggest you use less weight if you are using momentum. Thats cheating.

The very nature of movements like the powerclean rely on momentum. The bar is accelerated using the strong leg muscles (hip extension mostly, I figure) so that it will continue traveling upward, making racking the bar in the 'clean' position easier.

A powerclean utterly without momentum would just be a reverse curl, and most people couldn't use anywhere near as much weight with it.

All of the olympic lifts and the mini-moves they break down into rely on exploding and generating momentum with large muscles to move the bar through a RoM which, if you stalled there, you probably couldn't even statically hold the huge weights that you work up to using.

Moves like these are why momentum isn't necessarily an enemy, because while you 'cheat' the arms, so to speak, in a power clean, you do so with work from the hip muscles, and those are muscles the move aims to target. These movements allow large weights to be moved into the top position for people to do strict negatives if they like, also.

 

[PLB_old]

Due to the number of spammers, threads now automatically close after one year, I believe.

Thank you for the post though! Sometimes it's better to start a new thread as many people will ignore old threads that have been dug up, assuming that it's spam.

 

[CrazyOldMan]

Personally I don't understand why so many are set against momentum as if it is somehow automatically cheating. Yes if you are swinging your arms to do 'isolated' dumbbell curls, that's cheating and you are a muppet.
However power is a combination of strength and speed, with speed involving coordination. So seeking power means improving coordination to the level where you use momentum you have generated through good form to get the bar, kettle etc. into position safely and under control. Far from cheating this involves more control than most steady movements in many cases and a detailed understanding of all techniques.
I do a combination of controlled steady strength, power and silly co-ordination each workout to give me balanced ability. None of it is easy, momentum is needed for high pulls etc. but certainly isn't cheating.