OL in Beijing

[RRod]

Hi coach,

Now that weightlifting in the Olympics has a 4 year layoff, I wondered what your thoughts were (if any) on the performance of American lifters this year. I thought it *very* interesting that the man you pointed out as using deadlifts/strength-work consistently in his training (Kendrick Farris) had one of the two best performances (placing 8th despite being in the B division and setting 2 American records). You can tell he has plenty of reserve strength (especially in his 1st pull, where he starts off like a rocket). His performance alone has convinced me that deadlifts do not "make you slow" as so many OL coaches seem to think.

There's also been a good bit of forum talk about improving recruiting for USAW, especially targeting those smaller youth who are not football/basketball material. Any thoughts on this matter?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Somebody posted a youtube video of Hossein Rezazadeh from the Athens Olympics doing a 263 C&J. Anybody that saw Rezazadeh clean the 263 saw a far-below-limit front squat with 578.5 lbs. that indicates a back squat of probably 850-900 lbs., and god-knows-what for a deadlift. I feel as though absolute strength is relevant to Olympic weightlifting, since the guy that lifts the most weight is the winner. I may be wrong, but Rezazadeh shows me I'm not, and Shane Hamman tells me I'm not. It has literally been decades since the USAW's program at the Colorado Springs OTC required the resident athletes to perform a 3RM squat, or deadlift anything. Our national program is not capable of sifting through the population to select for naturally strong athletes the way many other countries do, and it does not emphasize the development of absolute strength as a part of training to compensate for this.

Deadlifts don't make you slow -- failing to clean makes you slow, and failing to select your parents correctly makes you slow. The Chinese are very good at selecting your parents for you, and then in selecting you, and it shows rather clearly.