Why are Iranians so strong?

[Glenn Gould]

Iranians have now become a force to be reckoned with in Olympic Weightlifting. What is it that makes them so strong?? It can not be mere coincidence - this phenomenon is the result of something that wasn't there before. I am guessing probably diet or the environment. Superior training too, but everybody has access to that.

[babylover]

Good chemists.

[Xuaxace]

Good chemists.

lol...

however I doubt that their "chemist" are just better than their russian counterparts, there are other variables.

[EasternHammer]

The Iranians have been major players since 99-2000. This really isn't news. But they've got that old-school Bulgarian system working pretty well for them.

[MyAvatar]

Kebabs for protein.
Onion juice for testosterone.

[Glenn Gould]

Every country in the world has access to performance enhancing drugs. For some reason, some countries have never done well in weightlifting... regardless of drugs.

[feces99]

Every country in the world has access to performance enhancing drugs. For some reason, some countries have never done well in weightlifting... regardless of drugs.

good coaches, determined and gifted young athletes. thats all it ever boils down to.

[ledinred2]

Weightlifting is one of the few sports that Iranians are good at and it's actually a pretty popular sport there, much more so than in most other countries, which is great for the talent pool.

[chigiskov]

In a country that size, who have little other sport successes, when you get an athlete that is so dominant like Reza its gonna affect the entire population and motivate kids to go beyond his numbers.

[fraverdenstreet]

In a country that size, who have little other sport successes, when you get an athlete that is so dominant like Reza its gonna affect the entire population and motivate kids to go beyond his numbers.

this
kind of like how Kenyans always want to run and ****, because theyre famous for it. once Iran became famous for wl'ing cuz of Reza, everyone wants to follow in his footsteps

[breathinglife]

In a country that size, who have little other sport successes, when you get an athlete that is so dominant like Reza its gonna affect the entire population and motivate kids to go beyond his numbers.

This exactly. It has a snowballing effect. Look at Jamaica's sprinters. They have a population of 2.7 mil; that's a million people less than live in Los Angeles. Yet they are crushing us on sprinting this year, despite the fact that the U.S. population is more than 100x larger.

Same with Bulgaria, a tiny country who never had made a weightlifting medal got medals, and then more medals, and on the third Olympics after Abadjiev was coaching they beat Russia in medals--a country that dwarfed them in population.

[dsync]

I motorcycled through Eastern Europe, Iran, Russia, and much of central asia back in the late 90's and I observed a few things which may point to the underlying reasons behind the Iranians success.

Firstly, throughout all these places, when you get to the smaller towns and villages you see a lot of pride and community backing behind the local strongmen. In Iran there is a long tradition of strongmen training zoorkhooneh's (roughly translated to Strength house), where they would basically gather and swing around gigantic club bells, lift heavy ****, try to one up each other and lift heavier ****. In much of the towns, some of the "influential" people in the town were basically the heads of these gyms, where as in others the gyms were kinda like little gangs. Either way, they garnered a lot of respect from the local populace.

Secondly, because of the culture noted above, it's easy to assimilate the local youth, who often have nothing better to do, into the strongmen culture. A lot of these youth are already strong from working fields, or doing traditional industrial work, also their society as a whole hasn't been overly emasculated, men are expected to be strong, being weak or cowardly isn't really acceptable. This means more youth get interested in strongmen type activities, and the most genetically gifted are noticed right away and promoted up to where they can be found by leagues/officials etc.

Thirdly, the pride that people take within their history throughout the region, and in Iran specifically is huge. They really do still have a bit of an empire mindset in alot of ways. Religion also plays a big role within the strongmen culture in these areas. A lot of what you heard the Iranians saying when they came out, or were prepping for their lifts were traditional prayers. In eastern europe and much of central asia this is the case as well. A lot of the strength houses are also houses of worship in a way, except instead of lighting candles, they lift iron.

Fourthly, there are serious weightlifting, wrestling and strength/combat sports leagues within Iran and a few of the other countries in the region. I think our last serious weightlifter here in the US had to shill t-shirts to pay for his training, where as there cities take pride and watch teams compete against one another. Here "worlds strongest man" competitions are novelties reserved for off-hours ESPN, there they are tickets to fame, fortune, and sources of national pride.

Anyway just my observations...

[feces99]

I motorcycled through Eastern Europe, Iran, Russia, and much of central asia back in the late 90's and I observed a few things which may point to the underlying reasons behind the Iranians success.

Firstly, throughout all these places, when you get to the smaller towns and villages you see a lot of pride and community backing behind the local strongmen. In Iran there is a long tradition of strongmen training zoorkhooneh's (roughly translated to Strength house), where they would basically gather and swing around gigantic club bells, lift heavy ****, try to one up each other and lift heavier ****. In much of the towns, some of the "influential" people in the town were basically the heads of these gyms, where as in others the gyms were kinda like little gangs. Either way, they garnered a lot of respect from the local populace.

Secondly, because of the culture noted above, it's easy to assimilate the local youth, who often have nothing better to do, into the strongmen culture. A lot of these youth are already strong from working fields, or doing traditional industrial work, also their society as a whole hasn't been overly emasculated, men are expected to be strong, being weak or cowardly isn't really acceptable. This means more youth get interested in strongmen type activities, and the most genetically gifted are noticed right away and promoted up to where they can be found by leagues/officials etc.

Thirdly, the pride that people take within their history throughout the region, and in Iran specifically is huge. They really do still have a bit of an empire mindset in alot of ways. Religion also plays a big role within the strongmen culture in these areas. A lot of what you heard the Iranians saying when they came out, or were prepping for their lifts were traditional prayers. In eastern europe and much of central asia this is the case as well. A lot of the strength houses are also houses of worship in a way, except instead of lighting candles, they lift iron.

Fourthly, there are serious weightlifting, wrestling and strength/combat sports leagues within Iran and a few of the other countries in the region. I think our last serious weightlifter here in the US had to shill t-shirts to pay for his training, where as there cities take pride and watch teams compete against one another. Here "worlds strongest man" competitions are novelties reserved for off-hours ESPN, there they are tickets to fame, fortune, and sources of national pride.

Anyway just my observations...

reps for great info

[thereals]

dsync is the cloest. I'm from Iran and have been there many times. If you look at it this way, in many villages strong people are looked up to and it is considered the norm for a man to be a man e.g. to be strong, weight lifting is the best way to acheive this it is in their culture to be strong, as dsync mentioned there are strength houses (zoorkhoonehs) and generally men are portrayed as being big and strong this is also the case in larger citys, . Secondly as a young person there is actaully very little to do in Iran, therefore sports like weight lifting and bodybuilding have a very large and dedicated following.

[fraverdenstreet]

dsync is the cloest. I'm from Iran and have been there many times. If you look at it this way, in many villages strong people are looked up to and it is considered the norm for a man to be a man e.g. to be strong, weight lifting is the best way to acheive this it is in their culture to be strong, as dsync mentioned there are strength houses (zoorkhoonehs) and generally men are portrayed as being big and strong this is also the case in larger citys, . Secondly as a young person there is actaully very little to do in Iran, therefore sports like weight lifting and bodybuilding have a very large and dedicated following.

im not sure how close iran is afghanistan in culture, but in afghanistan people were like this too. the afghan army soldiers i stayed with would do judo matches everyday and they greatly admired strength. so if they saw an american who was "built", like me, they favored him and gave lots of food (hehehehhehehHEHEHHEHE winn)

[arian11]

We are good at wrestling, weightlifting, and taekwondo. If I told you why, I'd have to kill you...and lose my kabob eating privileges.

[chigiskov]

This is a serious question for persian brahs, but what is the custom in Iran for sportsmanship? Maybe your fans and lifters are misunderstood in the west because of a difference in culture.

[huntito]

Lift 200kg's of iron, then eat 200kg's of shawarma lol

This is a serious question for persian brahs, but what is the custom in Iran for sportsmanship? Maybe your fans and lifters are misunderstood in the west because of a difference in culture.

I'd like to know this too. I've seen tons of videos where the fans go apesh*t for their lifters (which is fine) but then are completely disrespectful to the other lifters when they are about to set up or when they fail.

[FutureMiscKing]

mother born in iran uncles all strong as phuck. so strong genes for 1. also, strong gear id imagine.

[Spazboy006]

I was wondering this as well after watching the Olympics. Obviously part of it is that weightlifting is more popular over there. But I also wonder whether there is a significant genetic component as well, considering the vast majority of high-end olympic lifters were from the middle-east/eastern Europe. It could just be a culture thing tho. If anyone can shed some light I'd be curious to know the answer

[Clifton_Peele]

It's just cultural as dsync and the others explained.

[CelticTheTruth]

i motorcycled through eastern europe, iran, russia, and much of central asia back in the late 90's and i observed a few things which may point to the underlying reasons behind the iranians success.

Firstly, throughout all these places, when you get to the smaller towns and villages you see a lot of pride and community backing behind the local strongmen. In iran there is a long tradition of strongmen training zoorkhooneh's (roughly translated to strength house), where they would basically gather and swing around gigantic club bells, lift heavy ****, try to one up each other and lift heavier ****. In much of the towns, some of the "influential" people in the town were basically the heads of these gyms, where as in others the gyms were kinda like little gangs. Either way, they garnered a lot of respect from the local populace.

Secondly, because of the culture noted above, it's easy to assimilate the local youth, who often have nothing better to do, into the strongmen culture. A lot of these youth are already strong from working fields, or doing traditional industrial work, also their society as a whole hasn't been overly emasculated, men are expected to be strong, being weak or cowardly isn't really acceptable. This means more youth get interested in strongmen type activities, and the most genetically gifted are noticed right away and promoted up to where they can be found by leagues/officials etc.

Thirdly, the pride that people take within their history throughout the region, and in iran specifically is huge. They really do still have a bit of an empire mindset in alot of ways. Religion also plays a big role within the strongmen culture in these areas. A lot of what you heard the iranians saying when they came out, or were prepping for their lifts were traditional prayers. In eastern europe and much of central asia this is the case as well. A lot of the strength houses are also houses of worship in a way, except instead of lighting candles, they lift iron.

Fourthly, there are serious weightlifting, wrestling and strength/combat sports leagues within iran and a few of the other countries in the region. I think our last serious weightlifter here in the us had to shill t-shirts to pay for his training, where as there cities take pride and watch teams compete against one another. Here "worlds strongest man" competitions are novelties reserved for off-hours espn, there they are tickets to fame, fortune, and sources of national pride.

Anyway just my observations...

join date: 2008
posts: 9

everybody rep this guy!! His post is pure gold!

[yummy22]

1 gold medalist in weightlifting = all Iranians are strong

ok...

[Blitzk]

1 gold medalist in weightlifting = all Iranians are strong

ok...

Salimi isn't the first Iranian gold medalist...

[Rouhanibrah]

kabob and doogh

my persian brothers will understand. the meal of champions right there

1 gold medalist in weightlifting = all Iranians are strong

ok...

google stuff like that before you post cause it makes you look like an idiot

[Rouhanibrah]

I motorcycled through Eastern Europe, Iran, Russia, and much of central asia back in the late 90's and I observed a few things which may point to the underlying reasons behind the Iranians success.

Firstly, throughout all these places, when you get to the smaller towns and villages you see a lot of pride and community backing behind the local strongmen. In Iran there is a long tradition of strongmen training zoorkhooneh's (roughly translated to Strength house), where they would basically gather and swing around gigantic club bells, lift heavy ****, try to one up each other and lift heavier ****. In much of the towns, some of the "influential" people in the town were basically the heads of these gyms, where as in others the gyms were kinda like little gangs. Either way, they garnered a lot of respect from the local populace.

Secondly, because of the culture noted above, it's easy to assimilate the local youth, who often have nothing better to do, into the strongmen culture. A lot of these youth are already strong from working fields, or doing traditional industrial work, also their society as a whole hasn't been overly emasculated, men are expected to be strong, being weak or cowardly isn't really acceptable. This means more youth get interested in strongmen type activities, and the most genetically gifted are noticed right away and promoted up to where they can be found by leagues/officials etc.

Thirdly, the pride that people take within their history throughout the region, and in Iran specifically is huge. They really do still have a bit of an empire mindset in alot of ways. Religion also plays a big role within the strongmen culture in these areas. A lot of what you heard the Iranians saying when they came out, or were prepping for their lifts were traditional prayers. In eastern europe and much of central asia this is the case as well. A lot of the strength houses are also houses of worship in a way, except instead of lighting candles, they lift iron.

Fourthly, there are serious weightlifting, wrestling and strength/combat sports leagues within Iran and a few of the other countries in the region. I think our last serious weightlifter here in the US had to shill t-shirts to pay for his training, where as there cities take pride and watch teams compete against one another. Here "worlds strongest man" competitions are novelties reserved for off-hours ESPN, there they are tickets to fame, fortune, and sources of national pride.

Anyway just my observations...

strong this. my dad and grandpa would always talk about this, spesh my dad who was national champion in wrestling and **** (seen medals etc) before the revolution. they took it seriously and did it from a young age

[yummy22]

Salimi isn't the first Iranian gold medalist...

Um ok still only 1 gold medal this olympic run

China still got the most this year with 5 golds you don't see threads about why all Asian people are strong

Not sure what the point of this thread is saying how all Iranians are strong

[chigiskov]

Um ok still only 1 gold medal this olympic run

China still got the most this year with 5 golds you don't see threads about why all Asian people are strong

Not sure what the point of this thread is saying how all Iranians are strong

its a dumb thread, the same thing could be said for any country that has any success in weightlifting. Kaz is smaller, Bulgaria MUCH smaller than any other country, etc. Just makes people come out with some retarded nationalistic sense of superiority like everyone has better genes where you come from lmao okay people.

[strengthsthetic]

work ethic and ability to train hard daily without mentally breaking down > genetics

stop thinking that a certain country has greater genetics, there is a large variety of countries in weightlifting

[ulfhednar]

Same reason why chinese got alot better at weight lifting (and most sports) in the past 10 years or so...When a nation has interest in a sport, it advertises it and encourages young people to do it. They scout for athletes, and picks the best ones to compete.