Why I love Olympic lifters
4 October 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
This blog/website is not aimed at elite athletes there are plenty of periodicals, publications and sources of information for and about them. Go to any newsstand and in the fitness section the latest collection of muscle freaks stare back at you from the covers of the muscle publications. These magazines contain the routines and methods used by champion bodybuilders and are written by ghost writers: I know I used to be one of the ghost writers. At the other extreme is the softball fitness publications designed to lure John Q. and Mary J. Public with promises of effortless physical transformation. While the muscle publications contain undoable routines used by guys who devote their entire lives to living in the gym, the softball publications are useless because they dilute the effort and intensity required down to nothingness. Without strain there is no gain and without brain there is no gain. So youre left with the extremes: undoable routines or ineffectual routines. Todays stream post is not about fitness magazines. This post is about the three major iron pursuits and the men who pursue them at the highest levels: the Iron Elite. Bodybuilding on the elite level is about as unhealthy as humanly possible; chemical warfare and Doctor Strangelove medical procedures, crazed experiments done routinely to gain any edge. Pro bodybuilders spend 30K a year or more (at their discount rates) on human growth hormone, steroids, insulin, blood agent procedures to dry themselves out without detection prior to competing. Its all incredibly ironic because natural bodybuilding, sans chemical enhancement, is the healthiest, sanest, most effective system of physical renovation, general fitness and anti-aging life extension known to man. Bodybuilders do all the right things: they lift weights, perform cardio and watch what they eat.
What is off-putting about bodybuilding is the intrinsic and inherently narcissistic weirdness of the bodybuilders competitive display: the posing, preening, and muggingladen with oil and fake tan, the whole spectacle always has been and always will be downright strange. Likely this is based on the underlying reality that bodybuilding is form without function, more akin to performance art than sport. Powerlifting is just as weird at the elite level. Always a splinter sport, it has splintered itself into a thousand shards of glass. A small sport to begin with, self-immolation is compounded by what I call the Tower of Babel syndrome: anyone anywhere can declare a new worldwide organization and suddenly crown world and national champions by the dozen. The sport is so diluted that I would guess there are no less than two dozen national and world federations some reaching no further than a state or two in any direction. Dilution is compounded by equipment insanity: I wrote a recent article for Powerlifting USA magazine (soon to be published) where I point out that the modern bench shirt is adding 40% to the bench press ability of top lifters. A man capable of a modest 300-pound bench press equipped with a properly fitted bench shirt can bench press 420 while still being capable of no more than 300 without shirt enhancement. Guys are lifting poundage they are not remotely capable of. The top guys are benching 900 to 1000-pounds and frankly are not one bit stronger than athletes of bygone eras: men like Jim Williams, Kaz and James Henderson, retired for decades, still have raw (no shirt benches) just as strong as the modern guys benching 200-300 pounds more than the venerable Ancients.
Williams benched 700 in 1971 without a bench shirt and a huge deal was made recently that a modern fellow benched 715. Fifteen pounds in 34-years can hardly be called a strength breakthrough. We wont even bring up the modern chemical advantages pro powerlifters have (no drug testing) or the fact that back in the day, men were required to pause a bench press for two full seconds on the chest before receiving the press command. Modern benches are touch-and-go efforts. Pro Squats are sky high, done on a monolift that eliminates walking out and setting up a weight and competitors wear two and three squats suits at a time. The numbers are so seductive, despite being more inflated than a hot air balloon: one lifter I know is capable of a 420 bench no-shirt press weighing 275 pounds pretty poor fare for a card carrying competitive lifter. With the shirt he recently bench pressed 585. He considers himself a 585 bench presser. I consider him a 420 bencher. An interesting phenomenon is occurring among the power elite: their bench press poundage is exceeding their deadlift poundage. Is this not an Alice-in-Wonderland Though the Looking Glass topsy turvey world? Squats poundage is equally inflated and the lifters are in love with the numbers they are posting. Gear is here to stay. The American Olympic lifting scene is pretty sparse but there are some bright spots. I attended an Olympic lift competition last spring and had the great pleasure of seeing a 22-year old drug tested American athlete lifting in the 242-pound class snatch 363. From a physique standpoint he was unimposing and looked capable of maybe deadlifting 363. That he snatched it (from floor to overhead lockout in one motion) was miraculous.
He epitomized what I call the looks like Jane lifts like Tarzan adage. Twenty five years ago I saw a Mr. Olympia bodybuilding competitor content himself with 195-pounds in the bench press workout when he visited the gym I was training at: he looked like Tarzan and lifted like Jane. The kids snatch was significant to me because it matched the world record snatch the immortal Norbert Ski Schemansky made in 1963. Ski weighed a Herculean 263. Ski looked like he could stroll through a cinderblock wall while the kid looked like he used magic and mirrors to hoist the poundage my old idol lifted. The 42-year gap was worth the wait. The boy didnt even wear a lifting belt. My pal over at Iron Mind, Randy Strossen periodically sends me training hall tape videos that capture the exploits of the international O-lift giants. Their casual, offhand attitude towards lifting incredible poundage is a joy to behold and reminds me of the early days of powerlifting. All lifts are done in a relaxed, no big deal fashion. No one wears any supportive gear, other than an occasional flimsy lifting belt. How about the Greek God Dimas front squatting 616 weighing 201, this backstage a competition he wasnt even competing inthe Cuban 170-pounder doubling 633 in the squat, going rock bottom deep using the ass-on-ankles squat style O-lifters learn to recover from cleans. This two days after taking second place at the world championshipshe didnt even have spottersNaim Sulymanaglou doubling 440 in the front squat weighing 132 then talking on his cell phone while smoking Marlboros between setsBotev cleaning 550 and squatting 704 for a triple (no belt nor spotters) in the same workout weighing 280Ivanov squatting 600 for three ultra-deep reps weighing 185on and on it goes.
The Bulgarian training hall tape is priceless; the best collection of O-lifters in the world train in a dingy converted grammar schoolroom. Randy said they were trying to cut down on the heating oil bill by keeping the temperature at 55-degrees. Ivan the Butcher, the head coach, sat at a broken down school childs desk and the sum total of equipment consisted of half a dozen barbells and some portable squat racks. No dumbbells, no machines, no heat and wooden benches for the athletes to sit on between sets. Five world record equaling or exceeding lifts were captured by Randy in this one session. The lifters rubbed their hands together between sets to stay warm and Randy said the guys were ecstatic because at the training hall mess that night the cooks had scrounged up some eggs. Normal fare for this world team champion squad consisted of a chunk of flavorless pork and a heaping helping of the eternal Iron Curtain vegetable: cabbage. Past that and the food was whatever they could scrounge up that day. Green vegetables and beef were nonexistent. Nutrition is piss-poor in former Iron Curtain countries yet these lifters consistently turn in world record performances. Contrast their incredible performances to their awful diets and one wonders if our expensive supplements, miracle pills and magical powders are not vastly overrated. The Olympic lift elite perform in a casual, nonchalant, unassuming way and give the impression that they always lift within their limits. Even when they miss lifts they dont give it a second thought. They display pure power in refreshing fashion totally devoid of overwrought theatrics. Olympic lifting is all function; no fluff or filler. I dig it.
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