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Hello everyone i'm 14 years old and i just hit a 70kg pr in the clean and jerk but i feel pretty bad when i see those chinese kids doing 140kg i just wanted your opinion should i continue training for olympic lifting? or should i just quit and turn to powerlifting?
At 14 you have TONS of time to develop in this sport. I just started lifting this year and I'm about to turn 23.
According to Glen Pendlay, Donny Shankle and Jon North both started lifting at 21 and have put up 173/210 and 160/189 respectively. For all we know you could wind up being more athletic or stronger than either of them, with a 7-year head start! You won't know unless you give it a good few years, at your age at least 5, to see whether or not you have real potential. If you are 14 years old that means, if you can stay healthy, you have almost 20 good years for athletics. Just take your time and learn as much as you can early on, don't worry about being strong or putting up numbers - that won't matter until you are older. One thing that separates Chinese/Russian kids from many others is that by the time they are old enough to start putting up decent numbers, they CAN put up those numbers because their technique is already extremely solid. You may not be starting at 5 or 10, but you still have a quite a while to perfect your technique first.
Time is on your side man! Give it your best shot.
[QUOTE=mchase126;1158939453]At 14 you have TONS of time to develop in this sport. I just started lifting this year and I'm about to turn 23.
According to Glen Pendlay, Donny Shankle and Jon North both started lifting at 21 and have put up 173/210 and 160/189 respectively. For all we know you could wind up being more athletic or stronger than either of them, with a 7-year head start! You won't know unless you give it a good few years, at your age at least 5, to see whether or not you have real potential. If you are 14 years old that means, if you can stay healthy, you have almost 20 good years for athletics. Just take your time and learn as much as you can early on, don't worry about being strong or putting up numbers - that won't matter until you are older. One thing that separates Chinese/Russian kids from many others is that by the time they are old enough to start putting up decent numbers, they CAN put up those numbers because their technique is already extremely solid. You may not be starting at 5 or 10, but you still have a quite a while to perfect your technique first.
Time is on your side man! Give it your best shot.[/QUOTE]
thanks
Just quit
[QUOTE=WHT_LIGHTNING;1159097213]Just quit[/QUOTE]
This.
Quit. Just quit right now. If you don't enjoy training weightlifting, you already don't have what it takes to be successful in this sport. If you enjoy training weightlifting, you wouldn't be asking this stupid question. So just quit already.
At 14 and you are already asking this question then you either need to re-evaluate your goals with this sport or quit. Of course you have a future in a sense that there's a lot more weight you can lift if you keep on training, and you'll never know how far you can get. If you can love the sport and enjoy the journey then you definitely have a future.
But if you're simply in this to win and be the champ then your best option is simply quit. There is nothing in this sport for you. You'll have to put in endless amount of time to train. No fame. No money. Your body will constantly be in pain. And there will always be some one stronger than you (like those Chinese kids). So quit.
Quit? Just because there's some extremely talented Chinese kids tossing heavier weight than you are, you want to quit? If you don't legitimately enjoy Oly lifting then go ahead and quit. I don't know about you though, but I have a blast with Oly lifting even though I know there's tons of women and children that can outlift me. You need to reevaluate your reasons for lifting, man.
I wouldn't. Even if you don't pursue it, it will be useful to you in any athletics you take up later in life.
Also how tall are your parents? Chances are you aren't done growing yet, and will see MASSIVE gains in the near future. I'm talking like 50-100lbs on a lift in a year. I was done growing by 8th grade but still put hundreds of pounds on my lifts. My clean went up 100lbs in highschool and I was already cleaning 255lbs as a freshmen