There must be a glitch in the matrix, as I am experiencing déjà vu after watching our U.S. men's team at the recent World Weightlifting Championships. Once again, our men walked away with no Olympic team spots and the team has to scramble to perform well at the Pan-American Championships in May in order to qualify. Not only does this cause stress for the organization, as not having men's slots for the second Olympiad in a row shows a real lack of progress for U.S. Weightlifting, it ruins the appeal for the Olympic Trials, as the men will not be competing for Olympic spots. Watching this performance (or lack thereof) again begs the question, "Why can't we perform internationally?" I have some theories, but let's first look at a comparison of the performances of the men in 2007 and 2011.

2007 Team Member	2007 WWC	2011 WWC	2011 Team Member
69kg	51st	27th	56kg
77kg	24th	16th	77kg
77kg	32nd	19th	85kg
85kg	Bomb	29th	94kg
105kg	Bomb	22nd	105kg
150kg+	11th	29th	105kg+
105kg+	19th	Bomb	105kg+

Looking at the comparison of placements between both years, it is clear that the men, overall, performed better in 2011 than in 2007. There was only one bomb out in 2011 versus two in 2007 and at least no one placed 51st in 2011. However, when you get right down to it, the only thing that matters in the qualifying year is to gain as many spots as you can for the Olympics. Our best performance of the entire championships was by Darren Barnes, who once again broke the senior American Record in the snatch. Darren is only seventeen years old, and the senior worlds was his third world championship of the year: He successfully competed in both the youth and junior world championships as well, again breaking American Records at each. The rest of the team did not break a personal record, let alone an American Record.

In 2007, there was a huge uprising in weightlifting, and the fingers were pointed at the then board-of-directors and coaches of the team, who, incidentally, were the same people. Those administrators have since lost their positions and yet nothing has changed. I do not believe coaches of a world team can directly influence the performances of the lifters because they are merely figureheads to manage the lifters at the championships, but they have no influence over the lifters preparation leading up to the contest. It is the responsibility of the personal coaches to make sure that their lifters are ready for any environment, any conditions, and any level of health.

Lately there has been much tough talk on the internet via Twitter and YouTube by certain lifters regarding their weightlifting prowess and even claims of winning world titles. I love when lifters post training videos, as it allows the weightlifting community to stay up to date on the lifters’ preparation for the upcoming championship. However, it can make them look a bit foolish when lifters continually post training videos where they are lifting much more than they do in the competition. I understand weight loss can cause a small drop in performance, but some lifters are boasting huge jerks or squats and yet have trouble clean and jerking much smaller weights in competition.

So what could be the reason for lack of performance on the international level? It is my belief that our lifters are simply not prepared effectively to handle the pressures of the world championship platform. The training of some of our lifters is more fitted towards powerlifting than weightlifting. We focus on getting lifters as "strong" as possible, but the development of technical skill in the snatch and clean and jerk (the only lifts that matter) are treated as an afterthought. Bring up any U.S. lifters’ YouTube page and you are likely to see just as many, if not more, videos of deadlifts and back squats as you do snatches and clean and jerks. Deadlifts and back squats can provide internet entertainment but beyond that, they do little in preparing lifters to compete against world-class weightlifters.

The videos of deadlifts and backsquats (and other partial lifts) do provide one more argument - steroids are NOT the reason for our poor performances. I have heard the drug excuse since I began weightlifting ten years ago and it never seems to go away. Every time a world-class lifter tests positive, there seems to be a resounding "told you so" from the U.S. community. The truth is, many of our top-level lifters are as strong if not stronger than the current world champion in their weight class, and I will provide a few examples.

The 85kg lifter on the world team recently posted a montage video on YouTube of highlight lifts from 2011 (they were all training lifts). Two feats of strength that particularly stand out are his 273kg back squat for a triple and a 225kg jerk from the blocks. I doubt there are many 85kg lifters in the world who can match these performances, but yet he failed to transfer them into world-class lifts at the worlds. For example, Yurik Vardanian, perhaps the greatest light-heavyweight lifter of all-time, had a best back squat of 250kg...for a single! Yurik's best jerk from the rack was 235kg, but he clean and jerked 228kg (weighing approximately 86kg in 1982), only a 7kg difference. The U.S. 85kg has a best official clean and jerk of 203kg, a 22kg difference in the opposite direction.

The technical skills of our lifters cannot be compared to that of the world champions. If this was a pure strength contest, I assume we could hold our own and maybe even win a class or two. The problem is that weightlifting is not purely a strength sport; it is a sport that requires high levels of strength, precise technical skill, and superior athleticism. The slow lifts only improve the strength aspect of weightlifting and even the relative value of the strength developed is a hotly debated topic.
I believe part of our poor performances is directly related to our training. Most of our lifters appear to be training for a powerlifting contest rather than weightlifting. Deadlifts and back squats are powerlifting, snatches and clean and jerks are weightlifting. I agree that building basic strength through fundamental exercises is necessary for the beginning lifters who can barely hold up their own head, but in the U.S. we tend to keep these exercises as a staple of the training well past the point of diminishing returns. Once a lifter reaches the world level the training needs to be specifically focused on producing the highest results on the competition exercises. At some point, increasing strength in the deadlift and back squat will fail to transition to greater results in the classic lifts and essentially the training time has been wasted. There needs to be a disproportionate amount of the training focused on the competitive lifts. Not partial competitive lifts, but the full lifts, done with maximum effort consistently. If you lift weights that require less that 100% effort, you will not be able to summon it on command when the pressure is on at the world championships.

When you get right down to it, there needs to be a competitive fire burning in our athletes that drives them to the next level. The secret does not lie in the training center or having a national training program; our athletes need to focus on winning at the world level instead of winning the nationals or becoming a YouTube sensation. I have heard the suggestion before that if our lifters could train together in a central location they would be much better because they could push each other. This may be true but they will still only be pushed on a national level, their eyes have to be focused on the number one lifter in their class, in the world to achieve the highest levels of success. Tommy Kono said, "The secret is between your ears." Tommy lifted in a time when there was no national training center and he trained in his basement and became one of the greatest weightlifters of all-time.

Tommy also said that he never produced his best results on U.S. soil; he always broke world records at international events where he was pushed by other world class lifters. Again, the U.S. only had one male lifter make a PR at the worlds and he was lifting in his third world championship of the season. It frustrates me when I see lifters come back from the worlds, go to the Americans, hit PR's and are applauded. They should be ashamed. To quote Ivan Abadjiev, "Greatness cannot be achieved by staying in one's comfort zone." As long as our lifters continue to produce PR's only in their comfort zones (national meets) they will never achieve greatness (world medals).