What's 'wrong' with American Weightlifting?

[raffiki]

Haha, the russian books love talking about kefir drinking at night for digestion reasons. It's a sour milk that is fermented by certain yeast strains. Also kombucha tea, another sour yeast fermented juice like drink.

Yeah i really don't like either one, but they made a noticeable improvement in my health. I guess being German i just lean more towards sauerkraut and pickles. I eat a lot of yogurt too.

[glennpendlay]

Yeah i really don't like either one, but they made a noticeable improvement in my health. I guess being German i just lean more towards sauerkraut and pickles. I eat a lot of yogurt too.

Funny story. My first few times at the training table in Eastern Europe, I came home with horror stories for all my friends about how all the milk they had for breakfast was sour and rotten. I assumed it was lack of refrigeration or whatever. Someone had to eventually tell me that it was Kefir and it was suppposed to taste that way. Every time I have had the privelidge of eating with Eastern European lifters they have that stuff at every breakfast and every supper. It is what you might call an "acquired" taste.

There are a lot of things you can do to improve recovery. A lot of countries ae big on going to the mountains or to the coast for training camps for a week or two every now and then. The whole "negative-ion" thing tastes a little funny to me, sort of like quackery... but, where is the negative ion concentration the highest? Well supposedly in the mountains or on the coast. Who knows. Isnt it also almost a cliche that we feel better on a beach or in the mountains? Who has not heard at some point in their life "breath in that clean, healthy mountain air" or something like that. So who knows. maybe there is something to it. I am pretty sure though that getting out of the concrete jungle and getting out in nature, walking on grass, etc, makes a person feel better and more refreshed. Whatever the reason, it seems to help.

Zygmunt has the lifters take ONE sauna a week, after saturdays training. Caleb says he felt less stiff and sore on monday doing that than when he didnt do it.

I like the pool as a restorative, done in the morning, and between sessions. 5 or 10 minutes fooling around in the water really seems to help the body respond to training.

I am a big proponent of getting out in the sun. Seems to me that folks feel better when they get out and get some sun. Now there is an ever increasing mountain of evidence that not only is vitamin D a hell of a lot more important than we realized, especially for athletes, but we are also finding out that the majority of people are deficient.

It seems it eventually boils down to a healthy lifestyle. Getting out in nature, out in the sun. Eating a healthy nutrient rich diet. Engaging in the same healthy movement and exercise along with training that would be good for you even if you werent training, like swimming, walks in the park, etc. funny that the stuff that our grandma's probably would have termed "healthy" turn out to be the best training aids, isnt it?

[disgorge89]

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the extreme commercialization of fitness in America to a greater extent than in other countries. The sport is really inaccessible, primarily because it's really ****ing hard to find a coach/proper equipment. I was astounded when I made a trip to Colombia because every single gym I went to, no matter how rural, had bumpers, squat racks, and platforms. Half the gyms I go to in Arizona don't even have a squat rack. Of all the commercial gyms I've been in, not one had bumpers or allowed chalk, much less had competent coaches capable of teaching the lifts. My university of ~20k undergrads doesn't have bumpers or a platform in the rec center and only one of the "personal trainers" has even performed a full barbell squat. How are we supposed to be good at a sport that has virtually no exposure and very few places to learn and practice it?


I suspect there are underlying cultural reasons for this as well. We want fitness to be easy and something everyone can do, not challenging and difficult. Consumers in America demand treadmills, televisions, "functional" trainers, and "Curves", not bumpers, platforms, barbells, squat racks, and coaches; the market has responded accordingly. I think even given our population, we have a smaller pool of weightlifters than people imagine. Just adding some god damn platforms and combating the "planet fitness" (fitness for everyone, judgement free zone, pizza night, lunk alarm, DON'T DROP THE WEIGHTS1!!") culture would go a long way.

Not having enough support for the athletes once they're already olympic caliber elite lifters is of course a factor too, but that's been mentioned plenty already. I suspect there are of course programming faults too but I think people overstate how important they are. The Russians and Chinese have vastly different programming for their elite athletes than the Bulgarians, but these countries have all been very successful. It mostly comes down to getting people into the sport, especially from a young age, and supporting their careers more.

In general, in a country like Colombia, they are able to recruit more talented kids to the sport than we can. This is because they have less options.

In general, in Colombia, becoming a good weightlifter leads to a step up in life, more money, more opportunity, more comfort. In the United States, becoming a lifter requires sacrifices... less income, less opportunity.

In general, their lifters get way more governmental support than ours do.

I think there might be a fairly simple test to determine a countries ability to do well in a sport like weightlifting. As indoor air conditioning becomes more common, success becomes harder to achieve.

This is probably the biggest factor though. Being involved with weightlifting at any level means a sacrifice. If you're a lifer, it's the income/opportunity/comfort. Coaches and gym owners, rather than getting involved in weightlifting, can instead be filling their halls with treadmills and plasma tvs and likely be more profitable or sell people the latest p90x.

[davidearle]

I think if USAW can figure out a way to get young football players into weightlifting they could be a force in international lifting, but consider the sales pitch...

You won't get a scholarship to college, you'll get paid little to nothing, you'll have to work hard as **** year-round, sacrifice all your time and energy, and there's NO CHEERLEADERS!

[crackyflipside]

I was astounded when I made a trip to Colombia because every single gym I went to, no matter how rural, had bumpers, squat racks, and platforms. Half the gyms I go to in Arizona don't even have a squat rack. Of all the commercial gyms I've been in, not one had bumpers or allowed chalk, much less had competent coaches capable of teaching the lifts. My university of ~20k undergrads doesn't have bumpers or a platform in the rec center and only one of the "personal trainers" has even performed a full barbell squat. How are we supposed to be good at a sport that has virtually no exposure and very few places to learn and practice it?

Extremely good point. Living in Miami I get the chance to talk to a lot of people from spanish speaking countries. Most of them I've met know the sport of weightlifting despite never doing it themselves. Their news reports on the weightlifters when they win medals at pan-ams, worlds, and especially the olympics. I don't think I've ever seen a blurb on SportsCenter on weightlifting results, but they don't mind spending 4 hours of programming on a national spelling bee competition.

[feces99]

i think a big portion of it (along with all the great points in the thread) is that we treat weightlifting like weight training. Another is these yahoos on*youtube*who post these*instructionals*that completely bastardize form. I think the biggest problem though, is inspiration and motivation. Let's face it, America is*becoming fat, lazy, and worst of all: everyone thinks their entitled and cry once they have to sacrifice.**

[Iberian80]

Common arguments-

Training: We are consistently 10% behind medal totals. It is possible but 10% is a lot to attribute to a training program given how varied our coaching in the US is and how consistent we are 10% short.

Lazy: You can say a lot about North, Shankle, Ward, Farris, Mendes, etc but I don’t think you would use the word lazy.

Drugs: No way to know the answer to this unless you were on the Soviet or Chinese team and saw things first hand. Drug use though would be something that would encompass the 10% difference.

Talent: In America if you play Basketball and dominate in high school you may be okay in college. If you dominate in college you may be okay in the NBA. There are few who can dominate in the NBA. Out of literally millions of kids playing basketball we end up with a few freaks like LeBron, Kobe, Dwight, and others. The difference between one of these amazingly gifted players and someone who takes up basketball with a passion at the age of 4 and trains for their whole life is huge. I don’t care how much you love the game you have a 1 in 100,000,000 chance of even close to LeBron. Genetics aren’t given out in fair doses. Even with 300 million people the exposure to weightlifting is very low, followed with the fact that if you are genetically amazing you probably have scholarships for football or basketball. I bet someone like Darren Sproles would have been a pretty amazing lifter if he had been training since he was 10.

Realistically I think it comes down to talent. I know our guys work hard but what are the odds that they are the most genetically gifted the US has?

Hard work > genetics but hard work + genetics > hard work.

Most of the men winning medals aren’t just hard workers. They are amazing athletes who are freakishly strong for their size.

[John Prophet]

Common arguments- Training: We are consistently 10% behind medal totals. It is possible but 10% is a lot to attribute to a training program given how varied our coaching in the US is and how consistent we are 10% short. Lazy: You can say a lot about North, Shankle, Ward, Farris, Mendes, etc but I don’t think you would use the word lazy. Drugs: No way to know the answer to this unless you were on the Soviet or Chinese team and saw things first hand. Drug use though would be something that would encompass the 10% difference. Talent: In America if you play Basketball and dominate in high school you may be okay in college. If you dominate in college you may be okay in the NBA. There are few who can dominate in the NBA. Out of literally millions of kids playing basketball we end up with a few freaks like LeBron, Kobe, Dwight, and others. The difference between one of these amazingly gifted players and someone who takes up basketball with a passion at the age of 4 and trains for their whole life is huge. I don’t care how much you love the game you have a 1 in 100,000,000 chance of even close to LeBron. Genetics aren’t given out in fair doses. Even with 300 million people the exposure to weightlifting is very low, followed with the fact that if you are genetically amazing you probably have scholarships for football or basketball. I bet someone like Darren Sproles would have been a pretty amazing lifter if he had been training since he was 10. Realistically I think it comes down to talent. I know our guys work hard but what are the odds that they are the most genetically gifted the US has? Hard work > genetics but hard work + genetics > hard work. Most of the men winning medals aren’t just hard workers. They are amazing athletes who are freakishly strong for their size.

its sort of hard to accept the genetics thing. U mean we just got lucky that John Davis, Schemansky, Paul Anderson, Kono, etc had those 1 in a billion genetics? and since then we have been unlucky and the REST of the world, like, uhmm, moldova, cuba, have somehow found athletes with medal winning genetics? Hard to swallow that

I mean, Tara Nott wasnt even in her prime and she didnt even start young did she?

and were arent talking about finding the 1 in a million Kobe here. we are talking about winning ANY medal, lol.

of course I agree that we arent funneling as many peeps into the sport as we could. Down the street from me there is a basketball court. Everyday there are 50 black kids shooting ball. Most of them arent involved in any organized sport. That scene is probably played out in 10-20 locations every day just in my town. Multiply that by every city in the US and there is a staggering amount of fast twitch talent out there going to waste.

[brudman]

Not an olympic lifter but here's my $.02:

1. No one trains the classical lifts. Even in football the powerlifts and other forms of training are becoming more prominent. You see football players who used to power clean doing dynamic squats/lower body and what not. Joe DeFranco, one of the most respected guys in football strength training, hardly has his guys do anything related to cleans or snatches.

2. No one knows anything about any of the strength sports except for what's on ESPN the ocho. Americans do strongman because it's on TV. Americans train like bodybuilders because that's what Mike the Situation does. No one gives two shirts about powerlifting or weightlifting.

[Iberian80]

its sort of hard to accept the genetics thing. U mean we just got lucky that John Davis, Schemansky, Paul Anderson, Kono, etc had those 1 in a billion genetics? and since then we have been unlucky and the REST of the world, like, uhmm, moldova, cuba, have somehow found athletes with medal winning genetics? Hard to swallow that

I mean, Tara Nott wasnt even in her prime and she didnt even start young did she?

and were arent talking about finding the 1 in a million Kobe here. we are talking about winning ANY medal, lol.

of course I agree that we arent funneling as many peeps into the sport as we could. Down the street from me there is a basketball court. Everyday there are 50 black kids shooting ball. Most of them arent involved in any organized sport. That scene is probably played out in 10-20 locations every day just in my town. Multiply that by every city in the US and there is a staggering amount of fast twitch talent out there going to waste.

Kendrick is probably the closest to a genetically gifted athlete we have had in a while. If someone in Cuba has a lot of quick fast muscle he isn't going to be playing football or basketball unless he comes to the US. Other than Pablo and Nunez how many Cuban lifters have an Olympic medal? It is rare there as well.

The countries that have mutliple medals per Olympics are the countries that are pulling from a much larger talent pool. The rest of the one offs are coming from exceptions to the rule. Kendrick could have probably have played at least college football or ran track on full ride scholarships with a much better chance for making money. How many exceptionally talented individuals in America are going to opt for olympic lifting. Short of the love of the sport it doesn't make sense.

[John Prophet]

Kendrick is probably the closest to a genetically gifted athlete we have had in a while. If someone in Cuba has a lot of quick fast muscle he isn't going to be playing football or basketball unless he comes to the US. Other than Pablo and Nunez how many Cuban lifters have an Olympic medal? It is rare there as well.

The countries that have mutliple medals per Olympics are the countries that are pulling from a much larger talent pool. The rest of the one offs are coming from exceptions to the rule. Kendrick could have probably have played at least college football or ran track on full ride scholarships with a much better chance for making money. How many exceptionally talented individuals in America are going to opt for olympic lifting. Short of the love of the sport it doesn't make sense.

I guess its beating a dead horse....but its hard not to beat it because its mind boggling that Cuba, or Vietnam, or Moldova could win ANY world weightlifting medals

How the heck do we do decent in Shotputting? the arguments against weightlifting success hold up for shotputting too. Somehow the NFL didnt siphon off all those big guys.
Does the "USA Weightlifting" org have any position or comments on the drought?



btw, hats off to Tara Nott

[J.L.C.]

I guess its beating a dead horse....but its hard not to beat it because its mind boggling that Cuba, or Vietnam, or Moldova could win ANY world weightlifting medals

How the heck do we do decent in Shotputting? the arguments against weightlifting success hold up for shotputting too. Somehow the NFL didnt siphon off all those big guys.
Does the "USA Weightlifting" org have any position or comments on the drought?



btw, hats off to Tara Nott

There are full-ride scholarships available for shot put, discus and pretty much all track and field sports.

It's really not as complicated or confounding as everyone makes it out to be.

[John Prophet]

There are full-ride scholarships available for shot put, discus and pretty much all track and field sports.

It's really not as complicated or confounding as everyone makes it out to be.

no scholarships for weightlifting?


In that case id have to ask how the USA weightlifting organization justifies its existence, lol. Doesnt sound as if they are doing much for weightlifting in the USA

[feces99]

Common arguments-

Training: We are consistently 10% behind medal totals. It is possible but 10% is a lot to attribute to a training program given how varied our coaching in the US is and how consistent we are 10% short.

Lazy: You can say a lot about North, Shankle, Ward, Farris, Mendes, etc but I don’t think you would use the word lazy.


Drugs: No way to know the answer to this unless you were on the Soviet or Chinese team and saw things first hand. Drug use though would be something that would encompass the 10% difference.

Talent: In America if you play Basketball and dominate in high school you may be okay in college. If you dominate in college you may be okay in the NBA. There are few who can dominate in the NBA. Out of literally millions of kids playing basketball we end up with a few freaks like LeBron, Kobe, Dwight, and others. The difference between one of these amazingly gifted players and someone who takes up basketball with a passion at the age of 4 and trains for their whole life is huge. I don’t care how much you love the game you have a 1 in 100,000,000 chance of even close to LeBron. Genetics aren’t given out in fair doses. Even with 300 million people the exposure to weightlifting is very low, followed with the fact that if you are genetically amazing you probably have scholarships for football or basketball. I bet someone like Darren Sproles would have been a pretty amazing lifter if he had been training since he was 10.

Realistically I think it comes down to talent. I know our guys work hard but what are the odds that they are the most genetically gifted the US has?

Hard work > genetics but hard work + genetics > hard work.

Most of the men winning medals aren’t just hard workers. They are amazing athletes who are freakishly strong for their size.

I wasnt*referring*to those athletes as being lazy. I was referring to those who only ride the wave for the beginner gains, then drop out once the going gets tough

[BadSnatch]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...601842556.html

"In the meantime, Arthur Drechsler, chairman of USA Weightlifting's board of directors, says the Olympics organization is seeking a middle ground. Many American coaches have attended Mr. Abadjiev's seminars, read his articles and even traveled to Bulgaria, "looking for ways to get the same results, but with lower intensity and volume of workouts," he says.

Mr. Abadjiev, of course, says that is impossible."

[olyw8lifter]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...601842556.html

"In the meantime, Arthur Drechsler, chairman of USA Weightlifting's board of directors, says the Olympics organization is seeking a middle ground. Many American coaches have attended Mr. Abadjiev's seminars, read his articles and even traveled to Bulgaria, "looking for ways to get the same results, but with lower intensity and volume of workouts," he says.

Mr. Abadjiev, of course, says that is impossible."

I read that part and remember thinking, "they are just trying to use the same system without doing all the work necessary??!!!" It's a little ridiculous, if you think about it. I'm not saying that Abadjiev's system is the end all be all of Olympic weightlifting, but if you're going to implement it, you have to do it all the way, not just half-a$$ed!!

[Iberian80]

no scholarships for weightlifting?


In that case id have to ask how the USA weightlifting organization justifies its existence, lol. Doesnt sound as if they are doing much for weightlifting in the USA

USAW < any other nations weightlifting program.

Even some small nearly broke country has a better national program than we do.

[brudman]

USAW < any other nations weightlifting program.

Even some small nearly broke country has a better national program than we do.

It's almost as if the reason that the USA struggles is cultural. I.e. the socioeconomic playing field is leveled by the fact that you just need a bar, some weights, and a few wooden blocks, and a squat stand and you're about covered.

If that were true however we wouldn't dominate track & field. It's actually really puzzling when you think about it, because we have a sports-centered culture mixed with world leading technology and medicine. We're successful at ball sports and track, so why would we suck at weightlifting?

Perhaps the sole reason one can logically form is USAW just does that horrible of a job, that it manages to take being the representative organization for the world's only superpower and squanders it. Just a conjecture.

[Bladerunner1811]

ya know guys there's some good idea and there is some bad idea here,but thats neither here nor there because none of that even means a thing if we don't have someone to promote weightlifting to the masses.

What we need is soemone who eats sleeps and breathes weightlifting.
Who has a drive to see America's Glory days of Weight lifting return,who has hunger a passion for weghtlifting,who'll tirelessly promote Weightlifting all over America.

In short guys we need another...dun dun DUNNNNNN Bob Hoffman.

[John Prophet]

ya know guys there's some good idea and there is some bad idea here,but thats neither here nor there because none of that even means a thing if we don't have someone to promote weightlifting to the masses.

What we need is soemone who eats sleeps and breathes weightlifting.
Who has a drive to see America's Glory days of Weight lifting return,who has hunger a passion for weghtlifting,who'll tirelessly promote Weightlifting all over America.

In short guys we need another...dun dun DUNNNNNN Viktoricus

Totally agree

[Bladerunner1811]

Totally agree

I googled Viktoricus and sw a video of thim, h does a rep on the Clean and jerk,then when he puts the bar downbended down and does soemthing with his Cell phone..I mean really WTF?? 0_o anyone thats going to take the time out of thier training to push the button on a cell phone,is not the person I'd say should be out there day in day out promoting Oly Liftng because it makes then seem it a frickking phones mre importnat!

I can say this if by the time i'm hitting big numbers in the Oly Lifts if no one else is campaining for it likeUncle Bob did back in the day then I'll start doing it!

[Pokarface]

I can't recall the last time a male lifter won a gold medal at the olympics. So what's the deal?

not ITT, but I'll post it here
Today I went to the library and found this guy in a book, so I decided to take a picture with my cellphone. John Davis, Team USA!





that was a long time ago!!

inb4coolstorybro

[Bladerunner1811]

[QUOTE=disgorge89;540299893]I suspect a lot of it has to do with the extreme commercialization of fitness in America to a greater extent than in other countries. The sport is really inaccessible, primarily because it's really ****ing hard to find a coach/proper equipment. I was astounded when I made a trip to Colombia because every single gym I went to, no matter how rural, had bumpers, squat racks, and platforms. Half the gyms I go to in Arizona don't even have a squat rack. Of all the commercial gyms I've been in, not one had bumpers or allowed chalk, much less had competent coaches capable of teaching the lifts. My university of ~20k undergrads doesn't have bumpers or a platform in the rec center and only one of the "personal trainers" has even performed a full barbell squat. How are we supposed to be good at a sport that has virtually no exposure and very few places to learn and practice it?


I suspect there are underlying cultural reasons for this as well. We want fitness to be easy and something everyone can do, not challenging and difficult. Consumers in America demand treadmills, televisions, "functional" trainers, and "Curves", not bumpers, platforms, barbells, squat racks, and coaches; the market has responded accordingly. I think even given our population, we have a smaller pool of weightlifters than people imagine. Just adding some god damn platforms and combating the "planet fitness" (fitness for everyone, judgement free zone, pizza night, lunk alarm, DON'T DROP THE WEIGHTS1!!") culture would go a long way.

Not having enough support for the athletes once they're already olympic caliber elite lifters is of course a factor too, but that's been mentioned plenty already. I suspect there are of course programming faults too but I think people overstate how important they are. The Russians and Chinese have vastly different programming for their elite athletes than the Bulgarians, but these countries have all been very successful. It mostly comes down to getting people into the sport, especially from a young age, and supporting their careers more.



This is probably the biggest factor though. Being involved with weightlifting at any level means a sacrifice. If you're a lifer, it's the income/opportunity/comfort. Coaches and gym owners, rather than getting involved in weightlifting, can instead be filling their halls with treadmills and plasma tvs and likely be more profitable or sell people the latest p90x.[/QUOTE}


































































































This is a sad state of affairs we have retrogressed back before Milo Stienborn came to America people mostly lifted light weights,and did the squat on the toes,he came to America and showed us the value of lifting heavy and a heavy squats.To me it seems like most of America has forgotten that lesson and retrogressed.

[J.L.C.]

not ITT, but I'll post it here
Today I went to the library and found this guy in a book, so I decided to take a picture with my cellphone. John Davis, Team USA!

Wow strong bent arms

[Bladerunner1811]

Wow strong bent arms

probably taken before he could finish the move .

[nastyk]

It most likely sucks because weightlifting is pretty much never a part of american high school athletics, and not too many colleges/universities have it either.

[J.L.C.]

probably taken before he could finish the move .

Then the finish was probably a pressout. Lifting was pretty different back then

[ManWithCurls]

I agree with most of what has been said. Primarily, I believe it is due to the non-existent commercial allure of weightlifting, in a society as is the US where success in mainstream sports is highly monetarised, even in the form of scholarships to go to university. That and the lack of access to training facilities.

Having said that, I think it also comes down to luck. To be able to compete at the highest level (Olympic) you need to have athletes with the greatest of genes. Nowadays everyone has the same access to training, nutritional and recovery methods, and I am one who remains skeptic of the use of steroids by some countries being the reason for their superiority. Simply put, some nations have gotten "lucky" in their selection of gifted athletes. Of course, I write " lucky" in inverted commas because to get lucky you need to have a freaking awesome scouting and filtering program but once you have a pool of selected good athletes, the truly gifted ones can be counted with one hand. Add the fact that in some countries being an Olympic athlete has a high social status (despite the lack of economic benefits), and you have the truly gifted athletes sticking through instead of opting to get a conventional professional career.

While the US sucks in terms of Olympic Games dominance in weightlifting, they are not that bad in other international competitions. I sincerely have high hopes in the US in the near future, as their selection pool increases, their chances of getting lucky with gifted athletes increases.

[olyw8lifter]

Very well said, Manwithcurls!! (have to spread reps!!) I totally agree with you, including the skepticism of steroid use being the primary reason for success!! I think it's a factor to consider, but not necessarily the primary one!!

[Iberian80]

Glen has some insight on this thread over the article series from Lyle McDonald.

http://www.pendlayforum.com/showthre...t=3568&page=14