Development

An interesting quote from Glenn Pendlay on the GoHeavy forums:

"Funny you should mention upper back development. After I got home from the Junior Worlds in Romania, I had a conversation with several people about the differences between those on the medal stand, and those placing 10th or below, which was, often, precisely the differences between the Medal winners and the American lifters.

You couldnt tell a medal contender from a B session lifter by leg size. At least I couldnt, not thighs, hamstrings, or butt. Some of the lifters with the most impressive legs were either B session lifters, or bottom of the A session. Many of the medal winners didnt have huge legs.

What I found to be the most noticable quality that seperated medalists from lower caliber lifters was general leanness, and upper back/posterior delt muscle. That really stood out to me while in the warmup room and seeing various lifters without their shirts on and with singlets pulled down. The top guys were LEAN usually, and, VERY musculasr all across the upper back... not neccessarily high traps, but just very thick and muscular on the backs of the shoulders, around the shoulder blades, between the shoulder blades, etc...

I discussed with Dr. Michael Hartman for about an hour, what to do with this observation? Does this mean the winners tend to be people who naturally are muscular in this area? Is a slightly different pull or other technical difference in the top lifters building muscle in this area? Would it pay to do extra "non-weightlifting" exercises to build this area, like barbell or dumbell rows? I believe the chinese do a fair amount of dumbell rows...

I am not sure what the answer is, maybe a combination of things. But I am glad to hear this observation from anther person... "