How can some olympic lifters bench so much?

[LiftHeavy85]

I know that overhead pressing movements correlate to shoulder strength but even though the bench is dependent on the shoulders, isn't the chest the main source of power? That would mean that if an olympic lifter had an excellent amount of chest strength, that plus developed shoulders could yield a pretty strong bench press.

depends on the positioning but the bench can be more chest dependent or more shoulder/tricep dependent, lats also play a role as well as leg drive

[Manosis]

I've got a question for all you Olympic lifters out there:

What is your bench press to jerk ratio?
For me personally the two have for some time now been equal, moving up hand in hand with each other.

I'm not a strictly oly lifter, but it is my main focus in the ring as I am a college shot putter/hammer thrower. I can jerk around 170k and only bench maybe 150k. On the other hand, all my strength lies in my legs with a 280k back squat. I've never put a lot of time into my bench as my left shoulder is not a fan of it, but I train my olympics out the ass.

[trailless]

I'm not a strictly oly lifter, but it is my main focus in the ring as I am a college shot putter/hammer thrower. I can jerk around 170k and only bench maybe 150k. On the other hand, all my strength lies in my legs with a 280k back squat. I've never put a lot of time into my bench as my left shoulder is not a fan of it, but I train my olympics out the ass.

WTF? So strong.... Also bumping a one year old thread? I'll give it a shot.

Since I can't squat for a while, hurt knee, I did upper body today. Did DB bench and did 95lb x 8...

[LudiWithKnives]

a lot of it is in the leg drive and the fact that we dont do a strict paused bench but just a touch and go

[OlyTrick]

Strict olympic lifter here...

I'm not sure what everyone else's routine looks like, but I only do the actual lifts one day a week. I may throw in some lighter % work on my leg day, but my other 4 training days are broken up into more of a "bodybuilding split" routine. I've been doing this for about a year now and I've seen the most results from this style of training. Everyone is different, but I've discovered that my body doesn't respond best to the actual lifts or variations of them every day. So for example:

Monday - Back squat/Legs/lower back
Tuesday - Shoulders/lats/traps
Thursday - Front squat/Chest/upper back/biceps/triceps
Friday - "cardio"
Saturday - Snatch/clean/jerk/pulls/back squat

Anyway, I have a dedicated chest day, but don't really strict press. My strict press is like 60kg x 3 but I can jerk 120kg and push press around 100kg. While shoulder/tricep strength is important for lock out, I don't really find strict barbell pressing relavent unless you're a complete beginner.