I am pretty new to this forum, and the last thing I want to do is start a fight, but all of the huge support for Gary Frank following my last post made me wonder what the general opinions are about olympic lifters. Someone said Gary Frank was born to be the strongest man–what about Reza Zadeh? I ask because I love both sports, and admire the athletes in both, and I always like to hear the verying views about their respective strengths and weaknesses.
To start things off, I would say that to my mind the best clean and jerker should be considered the world’s strongest man. Its simply a tremendous combination of pulling, squatting, and pressing, and they usually have a tremendous squat, press, and power clean to prove this. Also, there seems to me something primitively more satisfying about lifting a weight from the ground over one’s head.
Ok I usually don’t post, but I can’t miss a PL v. OL dispute. I would love to say that the world’s strongest man is an OLer, that is simply not the case. Although Gary Frank and Reza Zadeh are both very very gifted athletes, I do not think the two can be compared. It would be like comparing Jordan to Sousa, it’s not possible. They both excell at their sport. Frank has developed absolute strength while Reza Zadeh has developed power (speed strength). No need to compare the two sports or place one above the other. My hat’s off to PLer’s, they’re strong suckers. I hope that they think the same of my sport.
I agree with Olympic Lifter…why does one have to be “better” than the other. One involves absolute strength, the other Power. And if you were just trying to figure out the Strongest man, you would have to figure in the World’s Strongest Man winner. Although it has become a sport with alot of muscular endurance events, they are some strong men…especially at a wide range of events.
it would be interesting to see an all out event between powerlifters, oly-lifters and the men competing in WSM. The event would include all the olylifts powerlifts and some WSM events. They only problem i see is that oly-lifters posses a tremendous amount of flexibility and know their lifting techniques while the other lifters might not have those intangibles. laters pk
Sure, and from what I hear, one might even figure in Ronnie Coleman (I’d like to get some bodybuilders in on this too), and in the end I imagine I have to agree with both of you, but this distinction between absolute strength and power is really not that clear to me (it never has been). There is an obvious way in which a powerlifter seems to need a slower gear strength, or the abillity to apply maximum force at each point along the path of the barbell’s motion, but on the other hand, both athelete’s have a similar task–too move a weight a definite distance w/o respect to time. Now the the definite distances over which the two men lift are different (in direction and magnitude), making comparison a challenge, but I tired to favor the o-lifter based on the greater comprehensiveness of his movement given possible human movements (an admittedly very rough approximation), and on some claim to universaly greater impressiveness to other men in the lift from the ground to overhead (as opposed to lying on an apparatus and pushing, or bending down with a weight on your back). This last claim ammounts to saying something like, “whether you admit it or not, the o-lifter really seems more impressive”.
Two totally different sports. You just cant compare them. They are all stong people and as long as they get stronger then thats all that matters. If you had a competition between OLers, PLers, and WSM I think you would find each person would excel in their own respective lifts from their sports. Dont think that will solve much. However they call it the Worlds Strongest Man for a reason.
they are compeletely diffirent sports…its like comparing apples and oranges…i have a ton of respect for oly lifters they are amazing so are strongman…i just choose to participate in pl not because it is a better sport but it interests me more…bm
I prefer watching elite Olylifters train (ironmind tapes), so effortless throwing around big weights they are -
most don’t even scream or shout, except the Bulgarians 
But IMO they are less functional than you think.