I have received a couple emails recently about work from a 3 inch platform. Most of the emails were asking specifically why we would want to work from that deficit and what kind of capacity we should have from that position. I wanted to answer those questions in this evening’s blog post. There are three specific reasons I like to program and personally work from that deficit:
First it lengthens your pull. I know this is an obvious observation but for those of you who are weak off the floor or the hardest part of your lift is moving the bar from the floor to the hip, this deficit work is the way to go for you. I am one of those lifters. The hardest part for me is getting the bar moving and keeping it moving in a stable, strong position. Doing work from the 3 inch deficit allows me to over exaggerate this weakness and get stronger off of the floor. The extra 3 inches, though it seems minimal, feels like I am lifting from a 12 inch deficit.
The second reason I like this type of deficit work is that it forces me to continue my leg drive for longer. What I mean by that is that I am forced to continue driving my feet into the platform for longer than I would normally during a lift. This forced leg drive helps me when I snatch or clean from the ground because I build some strength and create good movement patterns that help maintain downward pressure in my feet. One of my, and one of most lifters weak areas, is continuing a downward leg drive into the floor and keeping our feet flat for long enough to create bar speed. Working from the deficit helps fix this weakness.
The third reason I like this type of work ties directly into the second reason. Some of the biggest problems I see across the lifting and CrossFit world is that when the bar crosses the knees, often we will roll forward into our toes and shut down the leg drive. Working from a 3 inch deficit forces lifters to keep their weight flat in their feet and stay out of their toes. I have this massive problem when I lift and as a result I often will miss lifts because of a lack of bar velocity and/or a poor bar track. When we roll into the balls of our feet early, this often will force our quads to make contact with the bar in such a fashion that it sends the bar out in front of us. If you’re anything like me it forces my hips to move horizontally into the bar and as a result sends the bar looping around my head. Working from a deficit forces me to keep my feet flat and heels down for an exaggerated amount of time which will translate to keeping my feet flat in a full lift from the ground.
Your capacity from this 3 inch deficit will likely depend upon your body make up. For those of you with longer legs, you will only be able to perform this variation at a much lower percentage then those of you with shorter legs. Clearly a shorter leg doesn’t have to move the bar as far and therefore the 3 inch deficit is not as big of a disadvantage. Also those of you with longer, weaker backs the added tension may force you to use a lower percentage as well. Some of the best in the world will be able to snatch up to 90% from a 3 inch deficit but the typical average is about 80%-85% of your one rep max from a 3 inch deficit. I hope this helps and I hope this helps you buy into our platform work planned for this week and in the coming weeks ahead.
See example videos below:
3in platform: Clean + FS @ 90% from Power And Grace Performance on Vimeo.
3in platform snatch with pause at platform height from Power And Grace Performance on Vimeo.