Beastly Figures from Spring Conditioning

“Freshman Michael Ford produced some impressive numbers, including a team-best 42 inches in the vertical jump and 352 pounds, which ranked second on the squad, in the clean. Ford also benched 425 pounds and squatted 510 pounds, both ranking among the top five on the team.”

Right?

Also, we can’t trust the 40 times b/c CLM has trouble managing the clock.

Before anyone tries to shiv me, I am kidding.

(Other than Peterson squatting 2.5 times his weight (or ~ 1.5 Herman Johnsons)) are the numbers in the clean. I’m sure Coach Moffitt doesn’t let people get away with partial reps while squatting, but there’s much more room for fudging (depth, etc.) in a squat than in a full Olympic clean. You almost have to ride the bar all the way to the bottom (without letting it crush you) and then front squat the weight back up. A 374-lb. clean is pretty impressive.

But not the most impressive part of the numbers in the clean (at least not to me). *MATH WARNING*

The world record in the clean and jerk is 580 lbs, by Rezazadeh, an Iranian lifter, who did so at a bodyweight of around 350. Rezazadeh’s strength-to-bodyweight ratio on the clean is thus 580 / 350 = 1.66.

Michael Ford cleaned 352 lbs. His body weight, per LSUSports.net, is 207 lbs. Ford’s strength-to-bodyweight ratio on the clean is thus 352 / 207 = 1.70.

Which is greater than Rezazadeh’s.

Which is ridiculous. This point is particularly well-illustrated by looking at Mr. Rezazadeh:

(He’s probably the only way that the short-side option could look less fluid.)

*Some caveats, &c: those numbers may not be exactly right – I’m sure Ford probably weighs more than his listed weight of 207, but I’m equally as sure that I’ve been generous on Rezazadeh’s weight, too. Also, it’s not clear whether Ford jerked 352, since he isn’t listed among the jerk numbers (Lonergan and Clement are listed in 4th and 5th place as each jerking 352), but I’m sure he got close.