Olympic Weightlifting - Page 12

On August 16 2012 08:13 stevarius wrote:


I saw awesome technique lifts with one red light.

I don't trust those judges lol.

On August 18 2012 23:49 Daigomi wrote:

Yeah, but doesn't it need to be locked out? I always understood that the bar is only locked out when the elbows are straight.

On August 16 2012 09:58 infinity21 wrote:

How do I learn how to control it?

edit: Wait, I'm in the wrong weightlifting thread lmao

On August 08 2012 21:45 Daigomi wrote:

His lifts looked terrible though. I was honestly surprised he didn't get his lifts disqualified since his elbow was clearly bent on a few of them. Also, the C&J was amazingly painful. Honestly, he cleaned the bar more slowly than I lift my 5RM DL, and then somehow gets his chest under it. The numbers were good, but the lifts really weren't (imo).

On August 10 2012 07:02 Drowsy wrote:



Definitely. Iran's wling program is just awesome. And for them lifting weights is a pseuo-religious experience, and anything done with religious conviction will always be done with a higher level of effort and dedication. Copied from another forum:
"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..."

Iran just has the prefect cultural and economic circumstances to foster a good national wling program. They're too poor to have effective national anti-doping agencies, and for the most part their athletes only need to worry about infrequent wada tests and competition tests, they attach religious connotations toward strength and physical hardship, and nationally appreciate it as a sport, making it easy to get kids in relatively early. Their fundamental flaw seems to be technique (As Daigomi alluded to); like they are just miles behind a country like China which almost has a national system of teaching the lifts consistently and seems to produce excellent technicians. They're probably the worlds "strongest" weightlifters in terms of basic strength, just not quite there in the technique used to express that strength in the classical lifts.