The internet is amazing. It’s one of the most important technological developments in the history of modern society, and almost anybody can use it for almost anything. The internet has opened the gates for pure, wonderful experiences such as two old friends reconnecting on Facebook after they lost touch with each other twenty years ago. Likewise, the internet can also be used for evil, immoral purposes such as the perverts we read about in the newspaper who troll around cyberspace looking for victims to abuse.

Somewhere between these two extremes, we have the discussion of lifting weights to get strong. As with everything else, the internet has been the catalyst for miles and miles of discussion on how to get strong and how to be a successful weightlifter. A few days before I sat down to write this article, I decided to check out a few weightlifting message boards and forums because I thought it would be a good way to see what the lifting crowd is talking about the most. In other words, I wanted to direct this month’s article at a subject that has been buzzing lately. It probably took me around six or seven minutes to bump into an online conversation about an area that I never get tired of talking about. Apparently, a lot of other people feel the same way.

Here’s where I’m going with this. The topic of how to improve Olympic weightlifting performance is endless, and it’s not just weightlifters who have their two cents about it. Many powerlifters, and powerlifting coaches, have strong opinions on how our American weightlifters could lift bigger weights and rise back to the top of the world scene. Because they’re powerlifters, they usually simplify the whole conversation by going through a soliloquy that sounds something like this:

“American weightlifters just aren’t strong enough. They might have solid technique, but they just don’t have the squatting and pulling strength to lift the same weights as the Europeans. If Americans wanted to get back to the top of international competition, they need to start putting more emphasis on just getting stronger. And some of the methods used by powerlifters and top powerlifting coaches could accomplish this.”

I wrote these sentences in quotation marks, but they are not a direct quote from anybody. The reason for the quotation marks is that it sounds familiar because we’ve all heard it before. I’ve read articles from at least three of America’s leading voices in powerlifting that basically say this same thing. The first one I read was in a Muscle and Fitness magazine over twenty years ago, so none of this is new. As you can guess, the Olympic weightlifting community greets these articles with varied responses. Some lifters and coaches believe that there is some merit to the ideas of the powerlifters, and others think that the articles should be used for toilet paper.

And this article is not going to permanently settle anything. Fifty years from now, when Matt Foreman is competing (hopefully) at the National Masters Championships in the 85-89 age group, the iron community will still be arguing about this. The only people who will be listening to me at that point will be the waitresses at Denny’s when I blow a gasket because my senior special Grand Slam breakfast was overcharged by four cents.

Here’s how we’ll do this: I’ll throw out a common statement that I’ve read over and over throughout the years, and then I’ll hit it with a double-barrel hot blast of wisdom. This should be sufficient to get some wheels turning and... who knows? Maybe this article will make enough sense to somebody that these words eventually get carved into a stone tablet and buried in some kind of lost-ark-of-the-covenant thing which contains all of the universal, irrefutable truths of weightlifting.

I’ve heard it said many times that, “A lot of powerlifters and strongman competitors can power clean and muscle snatch pretty big weights the first time they try it. This is because they’re stronger than American Olympic lifters and it means if the Olympic lifters trained like the powerlifters and strongmen, they’d be stronger and more successful. If these powerlifters and strongmen converted to Olympic Lifting full-time, they would dominate.”

I know that it is absolutely true that many powerlifters and WSM (world’s strongest man) competitors can power clean, power snatch, muscle snatch, etc. pretty impressive weights when they first try them. I can even name a few specific ones. 1) I personally witnessed world powerlifting champion Bull Stewart power clean 150 kilos in his first workout. The lift looked the way you would imagine; he grabbed the bar, ripped it off the floor, and straight-pulled it to his shoulders like it was an empty bar. 2) Ed Coan, probably the greatest powerlifter in history, told me in a conversation that he occasionally used power cleans in his training back in his early days and that he had done “four and a quarter for a double” (425 pounds for two reps). Knowing the strength of Ed Coan, I have no problem believing this. 3) One of the top strongman competitors in the world, Kevin Nee, has a video on YouTube of himself power snatching 130 kilos in training.

All three of these athletes come from a non-Olympic training background and all of them are remarkably strong. Coan has officially deadlifted over 900 pounds at 220 bodyweight, Stewart has done well over 800 at 242, and Nee has competed with the top athletes in the world in the brutal strongman events such as stone lifting and the fingal fingers. With this non-Olympic training background, these men have all been able to dabble with Olympic movements and lift weights that many full-time American Olympic lifters cannot do. With that knowledge, the idea is that if individuals like this converted to Olympic lifting full-time, they would be highly successful at the national and world level. How many American Olympic lifters can power clean 425x2? Probably none, except for maybe the occasional 400 kilo totaler like Shane Hamman or Casey Burgener. And even for them, it would probably be a battle.

Here is something to consider. When a powerlifter or strongman competitor performs the Olympic lifts, they usually use very rough technique. We all know what types of images we’re talking about... rounded back, lots of arm pull, no double-knee bend, catching the bar on straight legs. For this article, let’s call this “rookie technique.” Now, one thing we know for sure is that a superheavyweight weightlifter who wants to compete at the top of the world level will have to snatch around 195 kilos just to be in contention for a medal. Just to compete at the top of the US National level, a superheavyweight will have to snatch around 165 kilos. Keep those numbers in your mind.

There is absolutely nobody on this planet who can snatch 195 kilos with rookie technique. You heard me... nobody. It can’t be done. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that there very few athletes anywhere in the world, if any at all, who are strong enough to snatch 165 kilos with rookie technique. To snatch 195 or 165, an athlete has to have a fantastic level of technical skill. The type of technical skill we’re talking about can only be developed through intense focus and practice on the actual competition movements of Olympic Weightlifting, the snatch and the clean and jerk. Let’s wait until we start turning on NBC every four years and watching the Olympic Games and hearing the commentators saying, “Now walking to the platform is Bob Bronsen. Bob is a powerlifter who converted to Olympic weightlifting two years ago and now he will be attempting a 260 kilo clean and jerk to win the gold medal. Let’s watch!” When we hear sound bytes like this, then there might be some merit to the idea that an exceptionally strong athlete from another iron sport could quickly switch to Olympic lifting and rise to the top. The point here is that many of the conversationalists in the strength community speak the belief that converting over to Olympic weightlifting and reaching the top of the mountain is a relatively easy task if the athlete already possesses an ungodly level of pressing, squatting, or strongman-type strength. This is wrong, plain and simple. I saw Shane Hamman compete in his first US national Olympic meet at the 1996 American Open in Savannah, Georgia. Shane snatched 157.5 kilos and got a 175 clean and jerk. He had only been training for a short time before this.

Everyone from every area of the iron game would agree that Shane Hamman’s strength level before he began competing in Olympic lifting was the stuff of legend. An official 1003 squat with strict IPF rules and equipment? Come on, this guy was from another planet. He went on to become the best American superheavyweight ever, eventually totaling 430 kilos. How long did it take one of the strongest squatters in human history to total 430 kilos? Eight years, of full-time concentrated Olympic training. And where did 430 place him at the Olympic Games? Seventh. It just ain’t as easy as it looks, Jack.

So let’s stay with the dialogue about squatting, Shane, etc. as we get back to our original point. The statement is, “American Olympic lifters just aren’t strong enough to compete with the best lifters in the world.” (That quote will be included in the next issue of Duh! Magazine.)

Of course our top US Olympic lifters are not strong enough to compete with the top lifters in the world. This is obvious because we don’t lift as much weight as they do when we compete against them in weightlifting contests. Nobody is arguing that we aren’t as strong as the Europeans and the Chinese. At least nobody should be arguing about it; it’s obvious that they’re stronger than we are.

BUT...

The real question that should be asked is, “How do we develop the specific type of strength that will be necessary to snatch and clean and jerk world-class weights?” That is the Riddle of the Sphinx. And for most of the iron enthusiasts who sermonize this subject on the internet, it all comes down to SQUATTING.

Squatting is the best way to get strong! If you increase your squat strength, you’ll snatch and clean more! All the top weightlifters in the world have huge back squats! These are the points that, supposedly, every weightlifting coach in America is too stupid to understand. In fact, these points are so important that I think I’ll nail one of them individually.

“Squatting is the best way to get strong.” Yes, squatting is the best way to get strong... at squatting. But is it the best way to get strong at snatching? NO! Now don’t get me wrong and think I’m saying that squatting is unimportant for weightlifting success. Squatting, in my opinion, is the most important assistance exercise in weightlifting. I don’t think you can be a good weightlifter without being a good squatter. But by itself, it will not make you a better snatcher. Snatching does that. I personally went from a 120 snatch to a 135 snatch in one calendar year (April 1993-April 1994). During that same period of time, my back squat increased 2.5 kilos. I would never argue that increasing squat strength is not an important contributor to the development of success in the competition lifts. However, the operative word there is ‘contributor.’ Squatting is a very important piece of the puzzle in weightlifting, but it is not the only piece.

Let’s get back to Shane Hamman and the man who beat him at most of his international competitions, Hossein Rezazedeh. Shane snatched 197.5 kilos and Reza snatched 213. Shane clean and jerked 237.5 kilos and Reza did 263.5. Now, Shane’s best powerlifting back squat was 1003 pounds (455 kilos). Reza best back squat was 859 pounds (390 kilos). Shane’s 455 was done with powerlifting equipment, granted, and Reza squatted raw. But even squatting raw, Shane could go toe-to-toe with Reza. I have personally seen Shane squat 365 kilos casually after a hard workout with no equipment at all, so hanging with Reza’s 390 should be a reasonable assumption. Considering their comparable squatting ability, why could Reza clean and jerk 26 kilos more than Shane?

The reason is because Reza was stronger than Shane, and Olympic lifting strength is not completely connected to squatting. When an athlete performs snatches, cleans, and jerks, there is a strengthening effect that develops very precisely with the movements. All of the muscles and connective tissues of the body move in a very exact way, and they grow stronger and denser in the positions of the lifts themselves. The forearms get stronger in the specific way they must get stronger to support a snatch. The rhomboids get stronger in the specific way they must get stronger to pull a clean, etc. Every fiber of soft muscle tissue, along with the athlete’s tendons and ligaments, increases in strength and power when the athlete performs thousands of snatches or cleans. Bone density even increases in the supportive posture of the lifts. And this type of specific strength takes millions of reps and several years to accumulate. Shane Hamman began practicing the Olympic lifts and strengthening their positions in 1996 when he was twenty-four years old. By any standards, this is a late start. Hossein Rezazedeh began training the Olympic lifts when he was a small child and he had already snatched over 200 kilos when he was twenty-one at the 1999 World Championships. One athlete had a giant head-start over the other, end of story. And all the squatting in the world would not be able to change this.

That’s the truth, Ruth. But there should be a quick clean-up mentioning of a few other assorted components in this discussion.

Drugs Drug use is a subject that applies to every point in this article, but it just isn’t the one I’m going to discuss at the moment. Needless to say, every element of weightlifting changes when you start throwing banned performance-enhancing substances into the equation.

Non-Olympic “experts” How should I put this politely? Well, let’s look at it this way. I coach football for a living; and every single time I walk out onto the field for a game, there are hundreds of “experts” in the seats right behind me. These are the male fans, mostly fathers of the players, who played football in high school and have never coached a day in their lives. Yet every one of them knows how to coach the team better than me, judging by their comments, and we would all be much more successful if they were calling the plays. You can probably guess how much stock I put in their opinions. This is exactly the way I feel about “experts” who have never coached Olympic Weightlifting but claim that they have the answers to fix our sport in the US. Teaching a man to bench press 800 pounds is not the same as teaching a man to snatch 400 pounds. It might seem like the same idea and there might even be some common ground between the two, but they just aren’t the same thing.

Perhaps the best way to put a cherry on top of this is to say that some people are simply more talented at certain things than others. Nobody ever taught Jimi Hendrix to play the guitar the way he did. Jackson Pollack didn’t learn his “drip technique” from attending a painting seminar. Both of these men achieved greatness in their fields because they were born with something special that nobody else had. But Jimi didn’t perfect the guitar by playing the violin all day and Jackson didn’t create masterpiece paintings by spending years drawing crayon pictures. They focused on their specific medium until they eventually broke new ground and created works of art that seemed more like they were dropped onto this planet from an alternate universe. They completely drowned themselves in playing the guitar and painting. This is what athletes have to do if they want to break new ground with the snatch and the clean and jerk. It’s as easy as standing next to a mountain and chopping it down with the edge of your hand.