Shed WoD #17: Power Cleans

Strength doesn't come out of a vacuum, nor is it gifted from on high at birth--with rare exceptions, of course. Rather, strength is the product of an assiduous and repetitive assault on the Iron; in fact, perhaps more than any other component of what we know as fitness, strength is optimally built brick by brick.

This ought to be extremely encouraging. Listen, I can't promise you that you'll deadlift four or five times your bodyweight eventually: that's a superstrong deadlift and your body may not be anatomically wired to push it to that level. But what I can promise you is that if you put in the work, the strength gains will come, and they'll be pretty measurable at that.

With an eye on my goal to clean and jerk my bodyweight 35 times this July, I hit a power clean strength workout to build on Friday's "Grace":

Shed WoD #17: Power Cleans
Warmup: 3x10 PVC overhead squats, muscle cleans, jumping jacks
Skill work: Clean Grip Deadlift (really a continued warmup), 3X3 at 135 lbs
WoD: 7 sets, 2 reps, power cleans, work to 90% of current max
Rest 4 min
Run 1 mile
Results: first two sets at 135, third at 140, fourth at 145, fifth at 155, sixth at 160, failed seventh at 175 (would have been a PR by 5 lbs), back down to 135 for form-reinforcing set of two (got good extension, quick elbows)...mile was hellish--first mile in 4 months, about 9 minutes--ugly.

For you: What is strength, exactly? How does it differ from power--itself defined broadly as the ability to apply maximal force with the quickness? How strong is real strong? Here's a pretty good place to start looking into the nuts and bolts of strength training, with the bonus rec of a few good books (for me, you can't beat Coach Rip's Starting Strength).