How Do Light Weight Olympic Lifters Lift So Much?

Training
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[quote]nighthawkz wrote:
You’re 6’1 or 6’2, no? A weightlifter at your height would have to be at least 185 ripped to be competitive.[/quote]

A weight of 185 would more likely fill out a height of 5’8"-5’10".

Edit: Whoops read that wrong the first time that you said just to be competitive.

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[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]isdatnutty wrote:

  1. Asian is not a bodytype. That’s 100% absurd.
  2. If you want to clean and jerk 315, you don’t need to be able to front squat more than 315, although for the purposes of controlling the weight, I’d say a 350 front squat would be beneficial. And any weight on top of that would be nice but not necessary.
  3. The oly-lifter look is essentially the bodybuilder look, just a tad smaller. Look up Lu Xiaojun and Klokov. They have great chest development. Both guys also have large biceps. There is definitely a trend in oly lifting to do bodybuilding-type accessory work.
  4. you’re fat right now. 20% is very high if you want to have a good strength-to-bodyweight ratio.
  5. At your height, you could certainly accomplish the goals you have outlined, if you are dedicated to these goals. Xiaojun is actually taller than you at 5’8, and snatched nearly 400 lbs at a bodyweight of 170. You’re only trying to snatch about half that.
    [/quote]

Your post encouraged me to watch this.

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It’s also worth noting that there is a serious culling process involved in making the national team of a dominant weightlifting nation. A lot of people feed into the system, the very best wind up competing at the Olympics.

I think people overrate genetics in a lot of contexts- if you’re not in the top few percent or the bottom few percent of the genetic lottery what you do is more important than your genes. But… people who win gold medals at the Olympics almost certainly have ridiculous genetics, especially since explosiveness is more genetically determined than strength.

Onh top of that most of these guys have been training since they were very young under great coaches, and devote themselves to their training 100%. When you add up the genetics, the coaching, the early start, the dedication, the lack of external pressures (in the case of athletes who are pretty much supported to train…) well, they perform at the edge of human capability. It’s inspiring, but it’s not surprising that most of us are not going to get to that level of performance.

Of course that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can learn from how they train, but I think it does mean that trying to train just as they do is likely to end badly for most people.