Here’s all three of his attempts at each lift compiled.  Notice the wild way he misses his last clean and jerk.  He gets driven down by the spring of the bar in the set up for the jerk, so that he can’t use the bounce to get the weight up.  Shockingly, he still rides it down to a full squat jerk and misses behind.  One strong dude, no doubt.

This is great stuff

Apolo Ono is no slouch on the ice.  No surprise then that he is no slouch in the gym.  Check out this video of one of his workouts that not only includes some great squatting, but some intense one-leg plyo jumping. Very cool.

Check out this great interview with Shane Hamman that Mark Rippetoe did (click here).  They cover a bunch of info in about 1 hour including Shane’s early powerlifting career where he dunked 1008 pounds in the squat.  His Olympic career. The state of American Weightlifting.  And what we can do about it.

What I enjoyed the most was their discussion on the importance of strength training for Olympic weightlifters (as opposed to a fanatic focus on technique).  Shane mentioned that the guys who beat him at the 2004 Olympics were much stronger than him (that’s saying something!) and as a consequence could pull things out that he couldn’t. He also mentions that the same was true for the lighter weight classes.  That is, our guys weren’t as strong as their competition.

Why this is relevant is that much of the American “style” is directed at technique work at all cost and speed development.  Both of which are clearly important. But, heavy deadlifts and heavy squats done throughout the year is rare.

One of the things I did differently this year with my athletes that I will certainly do again was a modified version of the Smolov Squat cycle.  They all nearly killed me for making them do it!  But, holy heavens, it did wonders for their overall strength levels which is paying dividends now 5 months later.

I think this type of training (a clear focus on strength development along with power and technique) is particularly useful for older and masters lifters who are always going to be behind the curve in their technique.  The more strength you have, the more you can pull out a not-so-perfect clean or snatch.

Of course, technique is majorly important.  Don’t take this the wrong way.  But, if you let strength levels hover in the background, and don’t pull heavy shit off the ground, then you’re selling yourself short.

I’ moved this here from my PDX weightlifting blog.

I hate this kind of whiny bullshit:

“This will be my last match. I wanted to take gold, so I consider this Olympics a failure,” he said.

Ara Abrahamian, a Swedish 84k wrestler, threw down his bronze medal in protest and says he’s now going to quit the sport.

Wow. It’s just a sport, dude. Seriously. If there is one thing i can’t stand, it’s athletes (and coaches) who take their sport too seriously (remember all those yelling coaches in womens/girls gymnastics). Training hard and competing hard do not preclude smiling, being gracious, and taking it all in stride. It’s a huge naive mistake to not see the possibility of working at full force while still being happy. You don’t have to get angry to win. In fact, it’ll probably hurt you.

The other night, I heard a broadcaster berate one of the Japanese gymnasts for laughing at himself after he didn’t do so hot on one of his events. What did the broadcaster think this was? War? Were lives on the line? Did someone die I didn’t know about?

There are people in serious peril (right now) all over the world who would LOVE to get last place at the Olympics, or even last place at a local contest if it meant they could get the hell out of their current situation.

Life can get WAY worse. If you don’t keep that in mind ALWAYS than you are kidding yourself. The struggles of life are NOT relative. Crying because you are caught in traffic, or because you didn’t do as well as you’d hoped and trained for in the Olympics is WRONG. It’s morally wrong. A bit of disappointment is natural and reasonable, but outright anger and melodramatic antics are signs of ignorance and selfish arrogance.

If you aren’t in control of your emotions enough to be gracious, you have no business competing.

I love sports. I love the Olympics. But, it’s all just a game. That’s it. Period. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be inspiring, no matter how you place. Being a selfish asshole should disqualify you. They should take his medal away.

Swedish coach Leo Myllari said: “It’s all politics.”

Life is politics. Get over it.