US Olympic lifting back on the map

[oldtimer1]

After the long drought we have two US contenders for gold. Olivia Reeves just won Gold in the World Cup against two Chinese lifters that looked like men. In the men's division we have Hampton Morris who just broke the clean and jerk world record. He trains in his dad's garage for the most part.

[Gym Rat]

One of the few things I'll watch when the Olympics are on.
Good to see..

[oldtimer1]

One of the few things I'll watch when the Olympics are on.
Good to see..

The US never seems to show weightlifting on prime time tv. Maybe they will because two Americans are in contention to win.

[falco]

Thank crossfit for it. Even with all its flaws, they brought snatches back to the masses.

[Irongrip400]

Thank crossfit for it. Even with all its flaws, they brought snatches back to the masses.

I’d sniff Olivia’s snatch.

[joswift]

again proof that strength has nothing to do with muscle size...

[G_Thang]

Italians are hotter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=c3gZcHHn7co

[Humble Narcissist]

Thank crossfit for it. Even with all its flaws, they brought snatches back to the masses.

They should bring back the press to Olympic lifting.

[Van_Bilderass]

again proof that strength has nothing to do with muscle size...

Not trying to be that contrarian guy all the time BUT muscles still have a lot to do with it I think. Typically weightlifters do have oversized vastus medialis, and thighs overall, as well as glutes for example. It's a fact that the cross sectional area of a muscle is directly related to its strenght, BUT weightlifting is of course a lot more than even muscular strength per se.

If steroids were a free for all, I think the best would be some real jacked up dudes, not like bodybuilders necessarily, but more muscle would be built overall.

But I get what you mean still, the sport is so skill intensive, don't know what to call it exactly, but you know what I mean. Some of these lifters have been drilling technique since they were 5 or 8 years old. One interesting tidbit I remember, some of the ways in which they, in the Eastern Bloc countries, tried to asses future potential, was look at the natural forearm hair of the little kids, the girls too. More hair meant more potential they thought. Highly interesting observation in my mind especially if it does have validity 

[joswift]

Not trying to be that contrarian guy all the time BUT muscles still have a lot to do with it I think. Typically weightlifters do have oversized vastus medialis, and thighs overall, as well as glutes for example. It's a fact that the cross sectional area of a muscle is directly related to its strenght, BUT weightlifting is of course a lot more than even muscular strength per se.

If steroids were a free for all, I think the best would be some real jacked up dudes, not like bodybuilders necessarily, but more muscle would be built overall.

But I get what you mean still, the sport is so skill intensive, don't know what to call it exactly, but you know what I mean. Some of these lifters have been drilling technique since they were 5 or 8 years old. One interesting tidbit I remember, some of the ways in which they, in the Eastern Bloc countries, tried to asses future potential, was look at the natural forearm hair of the little kids, the girls too. More hair meant more potential they thought. Highly interesting observation in my mind especially if it does have validity 

Higher test levels?

Most of the huge strongmen dont have anywhere near the same amount of lean muscle as bodybuilders

imagine these guys at 7% BF

[MAXX]

it's more like an IQ test in that who is the best at getting around the steroid testing. And then, some nations like North Korea don't even have their athletes tested. So how is that a fair playing field.

some good arguments here why doping tests are pretty much pointless

[oldtimer1]

Not trying to be that contrarian guy all the time BUT muscles still have a lot to do with it I think. Typically weightlifters do have oversized vastus medialis, and thighs overall, as well as glutes for example. It's a fact that the cross sectional area of a muscle is directly related to its strenght, BUT weightlifting is of course a lot more than even muscular strength per se.

If steroids were a free for all, I think the best would be some real jacked up dudes, not like bodybuilders necessarily, but more muscle would be built overall.

But I get what you mean still, the sport is so skill intensive, don't know what to call it exactly, but you know what I mean. Some of these lifters have been drilling technique since they were 5 or 8 years old. One interesting tidbit I remember, some of the ways in which they, in the Eastern Bloc countries, tried to asses future potential, was look at the natural forearm hair of the little kids, the girls too. More hair meant more potential they thought. Highly interesting observation in my mind especially if it does have validity 

Olympic lifting is a power sport like sprinting. They are sick strong but the most important attribute is explosive power. There no weak but skillful Olympic champs. Both of the US champs that have a shot at Gold are in the lighter categories. Plenty of seriously muscled Olympic lifters. Because of the muscle bloat steroid bodybuilding look I think fans of the sport have a warped perception of what a muscular physique is. Imagine a boxing champ, sprinter, or an Olympic lifter donned speedos and stood next to an Olympia contestant. 

[MajorDomo]

Not trying to be that contrarian guy all the time BUT muscles still have a lot to do with it I think. Typically weightlifters do have oversized vastus medialis, and thighs overall, as well as glutes for example. It's a fact that the cross sectional area of a muscle is directly related to its strenght, BUT weightlifting is of course a lot more than even muscular strength per se.

Where is this fact reported? I found this Pubmed paper that doesn't mention it- and you would think in a survey paper they would lead with stuff like that.

"two studies on isolated hypertrophic fibers of body builders, have shown that in well trained professional body builders increase in size and in force are dissociated"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7582410/

[falco]

Where is this fact reported? I found this Pubmed paper that doesn't mention it- and you would think in a survey paper they would lead with stuff like that.

"two studies on isolated hypertrophic fibers of body builders, have shown that in well trained professional body builders increase in size and in force are dissociated"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7582410/

You know better than that. Notice how pr increase as weightlifters go up in weight categories.

[Van_Bilderass]

it's more like an IQ test in that who is the best at getting around the steroid testing. And then, some nations like North Korea don't even have their athletes tested. So how is that a fair playing field.

some good arguments here why doping tests are pretty much pointless

It's more of a funding issue IMO. Countries like China and Russia have funds to allocate to sophisticated soping programs. Russia even had the secret service break into a testing lab to change out the samples! The athletes don't have the IQ to beat the test, actually it's hard to best the test even with IQ and funding. No one can do lots of steroids with this testing. I didn't watch the video but I agree that if some countries don't do the unannounced testing it's not fair. Just now some 20 Chinese athletes were exonerated over doing some heart medication which they claimed came from some type of food contamination. So they are playing with some "minor"  drugs and methods, they aren't running tren and Anadrol.

[Van_Bilderass]

Where is this fact reported? I found this Pubmed paper that doesn't mention it- and you would think in a survey paper they would lead with stuff like that.

"two studies on isolated hypertrophic fibers of body builders, have shown that in well trained professional body builders increase in size and in force are dissociated"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7582410/

I just read it so many times I took it as fact, but here's the first goofle result:

"Muscle volume (MV) and anatomical cross-sectional area (CSA) are measurements of muscle size [often measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)] that presents a strong relationship (r > 0.73) with muscle strength (Bamman et al., 2000, Ogasawara et al., 2011, Ogasawara et al., 2013b, Trezise et al., 2016)."

But there's also data that says, I think, the increased size changes the angle of force generation negatively or something like that lol, so it's probably more nuanced.

But generally, in each individual lifter, strength and their muscle size is correlated. Many deny this and say their were stronger than now when they are bigger but I don't buy it at all, they just changed their exercise execution style. When a bb is at say their 8-12 rep peak strength they are most likely their biggest too. Of course you can't compare two dofferent lifters and sat look, that smaller guy is stronger, when there are a multitude of factors affecting demonstratable strenght, like tendon lenght/placement, aanatomical differences like limb length (could affect bench strength for example), neural efficiency, technique differences and on and on. At least measure a lifter to himself, is he stronger when bigger muscularly? Yes he usually is, unless he changes his technique. I might increase  my deadlift max by going sumo or whatever and say, look, my dead max is bigger now yet I'm smaller, but check your lower back strength, it's probably weaker, you just changed your technique. This is how older powerlifters can keep eeking our bigger numbers, just keep refining technique.

And like falco said, there's weight classes for a reason.

[Van_Bilderass]

Olympic lifting is a power sport like sprinting. They are sick strong but the most important attribute is explosive power. There no weak but skillful Olympic champs. Both of the US champs that have a shot at Gold are in the lighter categories. Plenty of seriously muscled Olympic lifters. Because of the muscle bloat steroid bodybuilding look I think fans of the sport have a warped perception of what a muscular physique is. Imagine a boxing champ, sprinter, or an Olympic lifter donned speedos and stood next to an Olympia contestant.

Yes there are no weak lifters I agree, they are all very strong. And some do have impressive muscularity, considering the testing programs, most often in their thighs and glutes like I said. But if they could run lots of steroids you'd see the delts and particularly the traps, I've said befote that there are NO impressive traps in natural lifters. If they could run lots of steroids you'd see some crazy traps in particular especially considering all the stimulus the traps get. People's perceptions are warped by all the drugs I 100% agree, they don't know what a top natural actually looks like.

If a lifter knows he isn't tested for some period of time, say days or weeks, they tend to do lots of GH and insulin and peptides. All Olympic athletes do what I call "legal doping" which means drugs that can have PED effects but are not on any banned list, there are tons of them***. Then there is the "therapeutic use exemption" for say diabetes or especially ASTHMA, probably all athletes have "exertion" or cold induced asthma (think skiers) so they can use the seminstratably anabolic beta-agonists.

*** this coach posts about drugs that are not on banned lists for athletes

https://www.instagram.com/p/C5Xw2N-ujW5/?igsh=OHpnem41b3NwZHh0

https://www.instagram.com/p/C3h4x2DMly_/?igsh=MTdjbzJja2tza3B6Ng==

https://www.instagram.com/p/C3A4smUR01P/?igsh=dWR1dnY4YzJ1bmxh

https://www.instagram.com/p/C2kU2dVu4kC/?igsh=dGN4Y2hpdGgyM25h
https://www.instagram.com/p/C2QAdWZOLaD/?igsh=MTNmY3UydmRzOTg2Mg==

And so on

[MAXX]

It's more of a funding issue IMO. Countries like China and Russia have funds to allocate to sophisticated soping programs. Russia even had the secret service break into a testing lab to change out the samples! The athletes don't have the IQ to beat the test, actually it's hard to best the test even with IQ and funding. No one can do lots of steroids with this testing. I didn't watch the video but I agree that if some countries don't do the unannounced testing it's not fair. Just now some 20 Chinese athletes were exonerated over doing some heart medication which they claimed came from some type of food contamination. So they are playing with some "minor"  drugs and methods, they aren't running tren and Anadrol.

That is more like goverment foul play/corruption than funding athletes. And as I stated some nations are not allowing testning year around so that makes it uneven playing field.

[Van_Bilderass]

That is more like goverment foul play/corruption than funding athletes. And as I stated some nations are not allowing testning year around so that makes it uneven playing field.

Yes that's corruption. There could also be buying off officials but that would probably take multimillions to possibly make one positive result disappear, if at all possible. It dows take funding for the secret service to get involved. I'm 100% positive the Chinese fund some crazy doping schemes, like gene doping and designer drugs, they have unlimited money for it. Different societies also have different morals, some countries don't consider anything cheating, morally. I know here in Sweden in powerlifting the gym owners all hounded all the lifters at the first sign of steroid use, called the testing authorities etc. I was accuded of doping at 16-17 before I took anything at all. Now with crossfit and raw powerlifting it's impossible to police it all, there's so many competing lifters in even my small gym. I still have the biggest dead ever in my gym by 20kg but there's a huge asterix to my name lol, since I admit everything.