Is Olympic Weighlifting Strength training

Turbo_diesel

Interesting enough article from Rip on why the US is no longer successful at Weighlifting. Thoughts?
http://startingstrength.com/articles/weightlifting_strength_rippetoe.pdf

kevpants

Utter bollox. What does he know about it?

Edwardius

thought rip made his position clear years ago. Sets of five on the deadlift and drinking the goddamn milk are the only things between them and olympic glory.

the drifter

and utter load or crap..

cc87

Whats with americans and feeling the need to find reasons behind them not being successful internationally in weightlifting??

I dunno how many different articles there is on it now.

cambridge

Very interesting.

He makes a link between vertical leap, explosiveness and strength. Is it well accepted that basketball players make decent weightlifters (even allowing for their height surely they have some of the best vertical leaps?)?

Does anyone here who weightlifts not also aim to incrementally improve their powerlifting?

token

Rip thinks a a clean is a deadlift with a jump at the top. He's a clown. A clown that can talk about human physiology and anatomy but a clown all the same.

Most of these arguments coming from the USA are basically complaints about the Bulgarian programming of just snatch, c&j, & front squat only. That programming was for a select group of elite athletes already with 5-10 years of more general training (read back squats & pulls) under them and a boat load of drugs. It's not going to work for regular people with little training experience. Duh? These guys were already stupid strong before they started training like that.

People who are not genetic freaks and have a younger training age mostly train with assistance to bring up strength. Lots of squats, pulls, pressing movements done after the classic lifts. Who are these articles aimed at? I don't know anything other than what I read online about American weightlifting but you'd have to be an idiot to be training only the classic lifts and front squats if you have not already built a high level of strength over an existing multi year training base.

Barry.Oglesby

Nothing mentioned about the fact that the gold medals tend to end up where weightlifting is approaching the #1 sport for strength athletes.

USA weightlifting's problem is Football.

Hanley

Another reason to dislike him. What an arrogant prick. That's worse than the time Louie Simmons used to spend telling everyone he could make a better weightlifter than USAW.

cambridge

I am not approaching this from the pre-conceptualised opinion that this Rippletoe guy is a high level troll.

This is the olympic programme refers to in his article I think



I'm not sure what all of the acronyms and abbreviations stand for but there is a mixture of front squatting, an entire morning dedicated to back squatting and some squatting after some PR snatches on other days. Obviously the vast majority of lifts are snatches, power snatches, c&j and similar.

No bench press and no deadlift.

I distinctly remember Donny Shankle saying "pulls don't mean ****". But he's the prime example of the elite american weightlifter who isn't going to the Olympics.

So I'd love to see a generic training programme from an Olympic lifter in China/Bulgaria etc. to see if there is any difference.

But haven't said all of that ^, it's really just academic. It seems pretty obvious, even to me, that a novice lifter has to powerlift and weightlift concurrently to make progress.

Scuba Ste

cambridge wrote: »

I distinctly remember Donny Shankle saying "pulls don't mean ****". But he's the prime example of the elite american weightlifter who isn't going to the Olympics.

What makes you think that? As far as I remember Shankle is currently the 2nd or 3rd ranked lifter and if (big if) he can hit his training numbers at the Pan Ams he has a realistic shot at an Olympic spot. He may not go but it's very presumptuous to say he isn't going.

But haven't said all of that ^, it's really just academic. It seems pretty obvious, even to me, that a novice lifter has to powerlift and weightlift concurrently to make progress.

I wouldn't agree agree with that at all. It depends what you mean by novice but if you mean someone with little to no oly lifting experience then just oly lifting will push those lifts up without much if any assistance exercises. After a certain time period you'll need a lot of strength work but not deads and bench.

I think the article makes one interesting point and that's that training like an elite european or chinese lifter on drugs is not great for clean lifters. I also think drug free lifters need a good bit of general strength work to do well but there's no reason to believe that US lifters or any other drug free lifters aren't doing that. Rip is building a straw man that US lifters don't try to get stronger so he can knock it down, I think he's talking BS.

The US isn't poor (relative to the big guns) because of their programming or especially because of drugs. It's the reason Barry states, they don't have the athletes or the coaches, infrastructure, resources or professionalism. They're just not a country set up to do well at weightlifitng and they never have been. It's 50 years since they've been dominant and at that time very few Russians or Chinese lifted.

Who is the program above for? What age are they? How long have they been training? What are their weaknesses? Where are they in a training cycle? That is just a glimpse of their training but saying that's all they do all the time makes for a good argument to write an article about and keep Rip relevant. He uses anecdotal evidence as fact, it's BS.

cambridge

Scuba Ste wrote: »

What makes you think that? As far as I remember Shankle is currently the 2nd or 3rd ranked lifter and if (big if) he can hit his training numbers at the Pan Ams he has a realistic shot at an Olympic spot. He may not go but it's very presumptuous to say he isn't going.

I thought it was a team thing, team qualifies or no one qualifies? I thought the american team were fairly low ranked. I don't expect Donny Shankle to win the pan-ams unless the guys that won it last year are already qualified and are not competing. Having said that, I didn't know who Donny Shankle was until about 2 weeks ago so you are more likely to be correct than I am.

I wouldn't agree agree with that at all. It depends what you mean by novice but if you mean someone with little to no oly lifting experience then just oly lifting will push those lifts up without much if any assistance exercises. After a certain time period you'll need a lot of strength work but not deads and bench.

Well what do you mean by novice? You mean someone who is already brutally strong but naive to weightlifting? I meant someone that has never strength trained at all.

I'd postulate it would take years of training for someone to concurrently develop strength and technique via pure weightlifting. Unless you're a great athlete you'd prematurely rise through the lifts with bad technique and then plateau off prematurely. Then go back and relearn your technique and then you'd get weaker because you're working off lower numbers. Like you saying you wouldn't even need to squat?

The US isn't poor (relative to the big guns) because of their programming or especially because of drugs. It's the reason Barry states, they don't have the athletes or the coaches, infrastructure, resources or professionalism. They're just not a country set up to do well at weightlifitng and they never have been. It's 50 years since they've been dominant and at that time very few Russians or Chinese lifted.

Why are the venezeulans, columbians and cubans regularly performing better than the Americans? It's hardly simply because they're all drug cheats is it? I honestly find it hard to believe the USA isn't even in the top 20 because of "athletes or the coaches, infrastructure, resources or professionalism" when their higher ranked nations who are essentially '2nd world countries'.

Who is the program above for? What age are they? How long have they been training? What are their weaknesses? Where are they in a training cycle? That is just a glimpse of their training but saying that's all they do all the time makes for a good argument to write an article about and keep Rip relevant. He uses anecdotal evidence as fact, it's BS.

the program is from the paper Rip references in his article http://content.yudu.com/A1uynn/USAWeightlifting0112/resources/2.htm

sample program for 69kg female training for american open. maybe it's just what they do in the last couple of weeks coming up to a session and they cut the other strength work but if that's true either i'm misrepresentating rippletoe and he's not referencing this program or rippletoe is misrepresenting team usa weightlifting

Scuba Ste

cambridge wrote: »

I thought it was a team thing, team qualifies or no one qualifies? I thought the american team were fairly low ranked. I don't expect Donny Shankle to win the pan-ams unless the guys that won it last year are already qualified and are not competing. Having said that, I didn't know who Donny Shankle was until about 2 weeks ago so you are more likely to be correct than I am.

No. The top 6 ranked countries send a team of 6 (men), next 6 send 5 and son on down to 2. Then there are 7 spots for 1 lifter from the countries that finish in the top 7 in the regional qualifiers (such as Euro/Pan Am etc) outside those that have already qualified, which the US is very likely to achieve.

Well what do you mean by novice? You mean someone who is already brutally strong but naive to weightlifting? I meant someone that has never strength trained at all.

I'd postulate it would take years of training for someone to concurrently develop strength and technique via pure weightlifting. Unless you're a great athlete you'd prematurely rise through the lifts with bad technique and then plateau off prematurely. Then go back and relearn your technique and then you'd get weaker because you're working off lower numbers. Like you saying you wouldn't even need to squat?

Yeah I think of a novice as the same. And in the very beginning you can get stronger at the lifts up to a point simply by doing them. After 'years of training' your not a novice anymore and just doing the lifts would be stupid. I'm not saying anyone should just do the lifts, I'm just addressing your point that a novice should do both weighlifting and powerlifting to progress. A novice is the only person that doesn't need to do that. I still think everyone should squat and do some pressing and pulling.

Why are the venezeulans, columbians and cubans regularly performing better than the Americans? It's hardly simply because they're all drug cheats is it? I honestly find it hard to believe the USA isn't even in the top 20 because of "athletes or the coaches, infrastructure, resources or professionalism" when their higher ranked nations who are essentially '2nd world countries'.

Because they're communists.

Seriously why is it hard to believe. How many World Cups have Brazil won? Routinely beating wealthier countries. 2nd world countries can offer incentives to lift that cost less than in the US where your competing with football, baseball and basketball as well as being able to offer more 'real earnings' than wealthier countries like the US. A lot of the top countries are former USSR countries and have a tradition and culture of WL that the US just doesn't have. I'd say there must be 20+ sports more popular than weightlifting in the US.

And yeah they can take drugs.

or rippletoe is misrepresenting team usa weightlifting

Surely it couldn't be this.

cambridge

Scuba Ste wrote: »

No. The top 6 ranked countries send a team of 6 (men), next 6 send 5 and son on down to 2. Then there are 7 spots for 1 lifter from the countries that finish in the top 7 in the regional qualifiers (such as Euro/Pan Am etc) outside those that have already qualified, which the US is very likely to achieve.

Fair enough, there is a chance the usa will send one male lifter, which, unless donny does something amazing, will be kendrick.

Yeah I think of a novice as the same. And in the very beginning you can get stronger at the lifts up to a point simply by doing them. After 'years of training' your not a novice anymore and just doing the lifts would be stupid. I'm not saying anyone should just do the lifts, I'm just addressing your point that a novice should do both weighlifting and powerlifting to progress. A novice is the only person that doesn't need to do that. I still think everyone should squat and do some pressing and pulling.

progress from bar to what? 60kg? 100kg?

Because they're communists.

Seriously why is it hard to believe. How many World Cups have Brazil won?

only the cubans are communists. 5 world cups. Brazil has a population of about 200m where every single boy has played football. It's not really a fair analogy.

I still stand by my point that the USA, despite all it's best power athletes going into Football etc. they should still have the resources to compete with Columbia and Venuzela. Unless, Columbia and Venezuela treat weightlifting like football or something.

kevpants

Barry.Oglesby wrote: »

Nothing mentioned about the fact that the gold medals tend to end up where weightlifting is approaching the #1 sport for strength athletes.

USA weightlifting's problem is Football.

It's basically just this. If Russia had a national sport that promised anyone with decent numbers in the weightroom $20m a year do you think so may of these guys would stick with weightlifting?

Hanley

kevpants wrote: »

It's basically just this. If Russia had a national sport that promised anyone with decent numbers in the weightroom $20m a year do you think so may of these guys would stick with weightlifting?

Didn't Lyle McDonald write a 100,000 word dissertation on this and arrive at the exact same conclusion?

Like it's really simple. In the US you can make money doing lots of things - various sports, business, etc etc. You can ensure a good standard of living fairly easily (...dangerous thing to say).

But in the relatively poorer countries mentioned, be they socialist, communist, democratic or jurassic, sport is one of the primary ways for disadvantaged people to get out of the poverty trap. And it just happens government sponsored sports like weightlifting are the ones that have the most money.

Scuba Ste

Football is only kinda the reason. There's still no glut of 56-77kg lifters making waves in the US and they're not going into the big professional sports. I think there are two or maybe three colleges offering WL scholarships in the US and the money available seems far less than a lot of other sports like track and filed, football and random sports like lacrosse.

It's interesting that the women seem to be a lot more competitive and it might be because weightlifting is a more legitimate pursuit when options for a professional sports career are far fewer compared to men.

And I was only joking about communism but religious fundamentalism seems to do well too so maybe the US will have a shot soon. Joke.

Whatever the reason it's not more deadlifts and presses.