Indeed

I go back to the days of Wide World of Sports and Russian weightlifter Vasily Alexiev and it seems that back then for the most part it was Russians but the big rivalrys were Turkish against Bulgarian weightlifters!! Wasn't just a few years back it seems we were watching Turkish " Pocket Hercules" in the Olympics breaking/setting records almost everyday !!! That dude was phenominal!!!!

Just imagine if the state of Florida played rugby at every level instead of football. They would probably field the best rugby team in the world.

Now add in top level athletes from TX, CA, PA, OK and OH. The world wouldn’t stand a chance. The US has been slowly creeping up in the rugby world with imported players and college footballers that can’t  make the next level.

We do well in lots of other events because there is money, some of it because they are college sports, some from TV, some because it is a niche rich persons sport.

Oly style weight lifting fits none of that and as it has been pointed out, money sports get the best athletes.

Hell no. They're probably all crazy. I don't want to even be in the same room.

Clip vs magazine.

Most people don’t understand the distinction.

Or whiny bitches like Hafthor.

They all do CrossFit.  And even there a US woman hasent won in years.

That's like saying rugby and soccer are the same.

Weightlifting is a distinct sport, the only thing it has in common with powerlifting is that both use barbells, but they're not even the same type of bars. It is not semantics.

I don't know who that is. But I'm down to see ridiculous feats of strength that drastically reduces someone's life expectancy for my own amusement.

That guy benches 3,700lbs! *dies at 20*

Yeah they just started it this year. Colleges don't pay them, well not directly...you can guess how it's going to go though.. EA is bringing back EA College football in 2023 so I bet they'll get paid from EA also. I bet it'll be some high dollar booster that pays some guy $100K to do a car lot commercial. Heard, don't know if true the Bama QB has almost $1M in deals done

He gotcha. Wakeboarder is brilliant.

Power lifters lift a weight, therefore they are weight lifters in many peoples minds. Even body builders lift weights.  

Only an enthusiast understands that the sport of weightlifting means the Olympic style.

Grip strength has some funny distributions over various populations.

There has been a lot of research into it.

Some groups can be 'picked out.'

There is an identified group in Sweden that has a specific haplotype in their
genetics that gives than an advantage in weightlifting.

As we gain more knowledge about what all that "useless" DNA we carry around
we are finding out it is the "rest of the code" that makes us what we are.
Early DNA research could only detect "protein synthesis" portions of DNA.
We knew the markers that started and ended protein coding in the DNA.
What all the other stuff was doing we had no idea.
Thus in the 1980 to 1990 time period large portions of human DNA came to be
labeled as "useless."
As our knowledge has increased we have found what that DNA does.

There are certain genetic characteristics that give someone carrying them an
advantage in weight lifting.
One is the contractile fibers in the persons muscles are longer and stronger.
They have a genetic advantage that makes their muscle fibers more suited to weightlifting.

There has been much research into why certain African tribes seem to excel at long distance running.

We are only all the same at certain shallow things.

The ABO blood group system seems very widespread, but there are a few 'kinks' in localized areas.
And different groups tend to have varying distributions.
We have no idea why.

A: 43% Caucasians, 27% Blacks, 28% Asians
B: 9% Caucasians, 20% Blacks, 27% Asians
A1: 34% Caucasians, 19% Blacks, 27% Asians
Note: Does not include AB blood groups (1).

Why are A & A1 so heavily present in Caucasians?
Does it mean anything?
Or is it just pure chance and the cause is lost to the sands of time.

We can identify 'race' from skeletons.
At least for Caucasian, Black, and Asian.
But not in all parts of the world.
The Indian subcontinent has smeared the races pretty thoroughly.
One thing that remains relatively easy to determine is sex, as in male or female.
Women of all races tend to have a wider pelvis than men.
Their bones are not usually as dense either.
Or as long as men's bones.

As an engineer I learned how to use anthropomorphic tables to size equipment
to 'fit' the largest portion of the population that would be likely to use it.
It was an interesting example of how NOT identical we are.

Taller people have an advantage on the basketball court.
It is what it is.
It probably means nothing more than that.

Since taller people have an advantage you would expect them to be attracted to that sport.
We can probably be rather assured it was not anyone's "intent" as the sport was created.

Yup.

Money, fame, women.

Even at younger ages, you can be on the HS football team and get bitches, or focus on Oly lifting and... hmmm.... decisions, decisions.

Many people are wrong. The sport is called weightlifting. Just because many people are ignorant doesn't mean words no longer mean things. lifting weights =/= weightlifter.

Gabi Butler is a 23 year old cheerleader from a Netflix show, Cheer. She has millions of fans, has been on tv, started in a Netflix show, etc.

Her main stunt partner, Kollin Cockrell, clean and jerked 395-405 lbs in multiple sanctioned weightlifting competitions. When he was 19 years old.

He has obtained much more fame and money throwing around professional cheerleaders, giving clinics, etc than he ever would have in Olympic lifting.

lol

So don’t call people not in the Olympics “olympic lifters”

olympic lifting = weightlifting

Olympic lifter =/= olympic lifter

lmao

the sport is weightlifting. It can also be called oly, or olympic weightlifting. It can also be done outside of the olympics....it's the STYLE that "olympic" describes, not the place.

bro, he's fuckin with you so hard.

Roids, too many roids.  Plus our women lifters have pickles.

Actually by the rules of our language it does. It is only when you are discussing the sport of weightlifting does it become inaccurate.

Yeah but I convert to pounds but them label them in kilos.  


Which is how I set several world records in my weight class last week.  

The snatch and the clean and jerk are the two lifts done for Olympic weightlifting.  Those two lifts are what some people are referring to when they use the term “weightlifting”.

Lol. He is jerking your chain.

But not a clean and jerk, of course.

Yeah I know

....

and what do you think we're discussing right now?

Weight lifter =/= weightlifter

This is what I get for trying to teach you walnuts something.

Olympic weightlifting is not body building. About all they have in common is the use of weights.

More important in there is the bit about lineman, and athletes in general.

All of the world class weightlifters are amazingly athletic. People with that kind of coordination and speed almost definitely have other more lucrative athletic pursuits available to them.

I saw the thumbnail and knew it was here. Was scrolling through this thread waiting for someone to post it.

If you guys want to see something great skip to about 4:15

Depends, some people just don't want to take something they enjoy and do it until they burn out.

A guy in my area was invited to "USA shooting" to do trap.He said no, he doesn't want to do it until he sick of it.

What about it?

Money may play a part in it,  but there is no money in swimming either.  Yet we still have several athletes that dominate in the pool.

Some of you all need to watch the first 5 minutes of this video. The little guy is the only world class weightlifter. The others are a world class crossfitter, powerlifter, and bodybuilder.

The sport of weightlifting is not about who is strongest. It is about who is best at doing those particular lifts. And refined technique combined with raw athleticism favors raw strength any day.

That is the lady that trained with water jugs tied to a stick and won gold.

Ours don't use as many drugs.

Also no one gives a rats ass about Olympic weightlifting in the US, so we have a very small pool of talent to draw from. Most athletically gifted youngsters gravitate towards football, baseball, track and field, etc. In other countries weightlifting is a huge deal and they train weightlifting from a young age. Here it is basically a niche sport.

New record? A weightlifter winning her country's first gold medal ever, and the genuine excitement?

Wow, that's crazy- I didn't know that. Talk about dedication.

I thought you were fucking with me at first lol

Sports that require very specialized equipment and facilities tend to favor countries where there is heavy investment in that type of infrastructure and coaching.

The US decided generations ago that swimming should be a thing. We put pools in every community. Nearly every high school has a swimming team.

What's more surprising to me is our success in gymnastics.

That's why I love weightlifting. The perfect blend of strength and technique.

I just looked up, the heaviest weight category clean and jerk record is 581#, roughly. I think the strongman log press world record is somewhere around 500 pounds. Now the clean and jerk dude isn't going to next go pick up a 600 pound atlas stone and walk with it, either.

With the oly lifts, the technique is just amazing and built over a lifetime. Making the most of strength with technique. They just jump under the bar , ass on the ground. Really impressive. Whereas strongman, is just that. A feat of almost pure strength.

Of course it also takes technique and is also harder than it looks. Me doing some Merican oly lifting a few years back.....

Attached File

lol yeah, 135# is meaningless. Put some real weight on the bar and see what happens when he can't get away with terrible technique.

Oh. Yeah. I just already saw that highlight and thought you were pointing out something technical.