Why We Suck At Olympic Lifting

[BendtheBar]

Lyle's taking a crack...

Why We Suck At Olympic Lifting

Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 1 | BodyRecomposition - The Home of Lyle McDonald

[BendtheBar]

My theory...no one cares. Well, very few care. I say this respectfully, but I hope my point is understood.

It's not a sport that attracts a lot of young quality athletes in the US. It's not a sport we are passionate about.

I surely have no clue what I'm talking about though, so I'd like to hear your opinion....

[Off Road]

I's say you hit the nail on the head.
That, and it's just a crap load of work to get good at it.

[BendtheBar]

Most days I'm surprised we can field little league teams any more. My wife and I drove through our town of 50k yesterday on the way home and saw only 2 kids outside "playing". Both were riding bikes. Didn't see a single boy shooting hoops or playing baseball.

[MikeC]

I've been around weight rooms all my life and it's rare to see anyone doing Olympic lifts.

[glwanabe]

Steve nailed it as far as I'm concerned. The US lifting community simply does not care about Olympic style lifting.

Why we don't care isn't really important. We don't and thats that. We have other strength sports that we do like, and put effort into.

We could produce the finest lifters, if we had any passion for the sport. Frankly, most people simply do not see the need to work the olympic lifts.
They require time, and patience to learn. You need special equipment to fully practice the art form, as well as a knowledgeable coach to guide you.

We have the equipment, but we don't have very many coaches, and the pool of lifters that we have to pick from is not the cream of the crop as compared to the untapped potential of lifters that simply do not pursue the sport.

If we were t put our Countrys collective passion into Olympic lifting we would be dominate as anybody else. It's just not that importantto us, so our results manifest that attitude.

[Soldier]

I stopped reading when he said that everyone else is stupid and he's the only one who's smart enough to figure anything out. Anyone who thinks everyone else is stupid and wrong has nothing to say to me. I haven't read much of his stuff, but he seems like a mega-DB.

[BendtheBar]

Originally Posted by Soldier

I stopped reading when he said that everyone else is stupid and he's the only one who's smart enough to figure anything out.

I wasn't sure if that was a jab at Rippetoe or not. I don't know if they've kissed and made up yet.

[big_swede]

My theory -

I dont know about the US, but the reason for the european and eastern lifters sucess is probably due to not having a choice.

A russian kid with poor parent was doomed to live a short life and working his ass off in the mines, factories or the likes. Hard manual labour, lausy pay and long hours. The one way a russian (or ukrainian, or bulgarian, or ...) kid from the working class could be wealthy and sucessfull was in sports, if one had talent that is.

Thats also the way behind their training, doing hard manual labour long hours from a young age is or was common (I have no idea how these countrys are nowdays, but i think its a bit better), and what was the revard for the work? Food on table and mony for rent. By practicing sports, olympic events in particular, was as hard a work as in the factory, but atleast it gave them a chance to be sucessfull.

Thats my two cents

[MC]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

Most days I'm surprised we can field little league teams any more. My wife and I drove through our town of 50k yesterday on the way home and saw only 2 kids outside "playing". Both were riding bikes. Didn't see a single boy shooting hoops or playing baseball.

It's quite the opposite here. Here, you have parents forcing their children into 3-4 sports at a time, trying to make up for the fact that they, themselves, were never athletes. Parents whose kids are their sport, per sea.

The kids in my neighborhood ride their bikes, play b-ball and have named two open patches of grass after the MD and NY football stadiums. My son has tried every organized sport except basketball and wants to try that this year.

That said, the addictive nature of video games has put an overall dent in the physical activity of males in general.

/end threadjack