How can variation ratios help identify your strengths and weaknesses?
- Joe McKale
- Mar 29
- 6 min read
At the club, we use exercise variation ratios to tailor programs for established lifters, helping to identify strengths and weaknesses in their skill and strength profiles. The concept itself isnt my own, and was largely inspired by the Waxman lift calculator which used to be part of Sean Waxman's site. Unfortunately it seemed to have been removed a good while back so I hope this article does Sean and the calculator some justice!
Variations are frequently employed as corrective exercises in weightlifting to enhance proper technique by placing restrictions on how a lift is executed. Typically, if an athlete has a weakness or lacks skill, the variation will expose this. On the other hand, if an athlete is strong in a particular part of a lift, they might perform better in a variation compared to their standard lift. Thus, we can leverage information this when evaluating our athlete. By gathering the best lifts performed across a range of variations with well-established ratios, we can pinpoint where lifts are strong or weak.
Variation Ratios
Snatch Audit Exercises | Comparison lift | Ideal % |
Snatch | Clean & Jerk | 80% |
Overhead Squat | Snatch | 105% |
Power Snatch | Snatch | 80% |
Snatch from blocks ATK | Snatch | 95% |
Low hang snatch | Snatch | 95% |
C&J Audit Exercises | Comparison lift | Ideal % |
Clean | Clean & Jerk | 102% |
Jerk | Clean & Jerk | 105% |
Power clean | Clean | 80% |
Clean from blocks ATK | Clean | 95% |
Low hang clean | Clean | 95% |
Front squat | Clean & Jerk | 115% |
Back squat | Clean & Jerk | 135% |
Overhead press | Jerk | 55% |
The above describes the exercises and ratios employed to assess an athlete in the Snatch and the Clean & Jerk. Ratios that are +5% or -3% of the comparison lift are deemed high or low.
The advantage of the exercises mentioned above is that they are familiar to an intermediate lifter, allowing most to use their current numbers for an assessment without having to place long periods of time into learning any of the lifts for the first time. The skill in auditing ratios lies not just in spotting unusual scores and simply increasing what the athlete lacks while reducing what they excel in. Instead, it involves understanding why a profile appears as it does, allowing for more informed exercise selection.
Example audit
The following is an illustration of how a coach or an athlete might use an audit to assess an athletes clean in a more objective way. I'm just going to cover the clean as it takes a little while coming up with examples for a full profile. Hopefully it gets the point across.
Athlete Audit: Clean
Athlete: "Coach, I keep getting under my cleans but I dont have the leg strength to get up, I need my front squat to go up! - Gimme that sweet Russian squat routine"
Clean: 100kg
Power clean: 88kg (+8%)
Clean from blocks ATK: 105kg (+10%)
Low hang clean: 95kg (0%)
Front squat: 123kg (+8%)
Back squat: 140kg (+5%)
Okay, let's see if all resources into leg strength is the avenue that we should take based on what we are seeing with our ratios, or if there's some technical inefficiency we can work on.
Power clean (+8%)
Barbell is clearly being pulled high enoigh relative to the clean. A high ratio in the power clean points towards enough strength or a technical issue in the pull.
Clean from blocks (+10%)
When isolated to the second pull onwards the athlete outperforms their full clean by a long way. High ratio suggests potential issues with pulling strength below the knee or coordination off the floor or in transition.
Front squat (+8%)
Enough of a reserve to make heavier cleans than current. High ratio suggests technical issue in the way that the barbell is received.
Back squat (+5%)
Upper end of normal range suggests enough leg strength.
Low hang clean (+2%)
Normal range for low hangs, suggests no weakness in strength or technique when lowered from the top down.
Putting it all together:
Power clean, front squat and back squat suggest well enough strength to pull the barbell and squat at greater loads than current best. This suggests an issue in the pull that is skill related and very likely creating a less than ideal bar path to catch the bar.
Athlete performes very well when clean is isolated to the blocks above the knee, no issues with second pull and turnover. Issue comes from below the knee.
Lifter performs well in the low hang, implying they are technically efficient when performing the lift top down as well as having enough back strength. There is probably a coordination issue caused when the lifter breaks the barbell from the floor.
This can be confirmed with a bar path analysis or by checking the lifters positions at key points in the lift (separation from floor, below knee, above knee, power position).
For this lifter I would expect to see:
A bar path that moves straight up, or slightly away when breaking from the floor.
Early arm bend, even below the knee.
Heels lifting early in the second pull.
A jump forward, or an off balance catch in the clean leading to a difficult front squat..
We have diagnosed the issue! Now we choose exercises to help!
What we want exercises that:
Force the athlete to complete the first pull with control, correct balance and shoulder position.
Allow the athlete to experience moving into the correct position and balance above the knee so that they can use their excellent second pull and turn over ability!
Joe's selection:
Correct start position - A low hanging fruit, a lot if lifters just have a poor start position when lifting weight from the floor. Ensure the knees cover the barbell, but arent so far over that the barbell has to travel around them when passing the knee joint.
Paused clean/clean pulls - The most simple and least invasive option would be to integrate cleans paused as the barbell breaks from the floor. The athlete should pause 3-5 seconds to ensure proper balance and positioning,
Halting clean deadlift + Clean - Providing that the correct balance can be found with pauses just off the deck, finding balance when crossing the knee is the next step. If performed correctly the athlete should find that they are able to clear the knees by just pushing the floor away and maintaining their back angle. The barbell should remain close, weight subtly bias to the rear of thee foot and the shoulders still in advance of the barbell. Performing the halt followed by a clean reinforces the balance and position the lifter is aiming to achieve.
You might have a few other ideas on how to approach the issue presented, but hopefully the above illustrates the process in very general terms.
Audit glossary
If you're considering plugging in your own numbers, this surface deep glossary is a way to think about each category of lift and how they relate to the classic lifts. High and low ratios shown assume that all other lifts are normal and that the ratio in question is the one outlier, so if you have multiple lifts in high and low ranges you might want to consider how those ratios interract!
Powers
High ratio: Generally shows enough strength but technical issue with the classic lift.
Low ratio: Poor acceleration of the bar in the second pull.
Blocks above the knee
High ratio: Issues in full lift when moving the barbell past the knees, potentially issues with pulling strength from floor.
Low ratio: Technical issues in the second pull or pulling under mechanics
Low hang lifts
High ratio: Potential issues breaking the barbell from the floor correctly,
Low ratio: Generally a back/trunk strength issue
Separate Clean & Jerk
High ratio: A high ratio in both points towards a likely PB in the full CJ.
Low ratio: Will hold back the other lift to the point that the full CJ will not be able to surpass the lower of the two.
Strength Lifts
High ratios: Strength work can be put onto maintenance, or performed at higher velocities whilst technical improvements are made in weightlifitng exercises.
Low ratios: Errors in lifts may be caused due to lack of strength rather than technical ability.
Final thoughts
Hopefully this has given you an insight into 'how' ratios can be used to audit weightlifters strength and technique. It works well for us, and we get it right way more often than we get it wrong which is a good sign that a tool works! If you have any feedback, questions, or even opinions on how you would tackle the above i'd love to hear it! I find this stuff pretty fun, so I'll likely do a whip around on the instagram or message a few weightlifting friends over the next couple weeks to see if they will be willing to donate their best numbers so I can publicly criticise them as part of a case study.
Until then, thanks for reading and hopefully you're already looking forward to the next one!
Joe.
Subliminal message - buy a tee shirt.
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