Thom Van Vleck
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Talked to John O’Brien again, he’s planning on coming. I’ll work on gettin’ him to send his entry form in.
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderAl…..errr…DINOMAN! I’m confused. ON the wall the the Dino gym and the many tshirts from the many Dino gym meets I have attended there is a T-rex that symbolizes the Dino Gym. This, of course, makes sense. But the Dino Strength Team uses a triceratops! I’m confused by this! They say the Dino Gym is in the slums of Salina! What gives! haha
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderIf we want to get technical “All Round” came from the “odd lifts” of Ed Zercher and his crew (of which my grandfather in law was a member which indicated NO BIAS on my part whatsoever…hahaha) which all start in South St. Louis, MISSOURI!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderHappy New Year! The wind was blowing hard last night, but we still shot off fireworks……the wind made it interesting!
Here’s to the best year yet!
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderDave, I agree 100%. Tom, I also agree that to me he’ll always be Alexeev. Having specialized in the cyrillic alphabet while in the USMC as a Manual Morse Intercept Operator with a top secret security clearance (yeah…I probably didn’t need to mention all that and it really doesn’t make me an expert since I never had to speak Russian…., but I have a reputation to live up to as the Big Top)it should be noted there are 33 characters….so lots of letters that don’t translate directly to english. Alexeev spelled his name with Russian letters that won’t download on this forum but look at his wiki page to see it and I’m sure, being the devoted Soviet that he was he likely could have cared less how we spelled his name. As is often the case, there’s a translation, that is pretty much accepted, then some smart guy comes along and points out that when you say “Alexeev” you don’t get the full “russian” pronounciation so he threw a few more letters in there to make it sound more like “Alexeev” does in Ruskie! I’m sure there’s a LOT of ways to spell it and none of them will get us saying it exactly right!
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-Rounder….that’s not the story Al tells….HAHAHA
See, cold water submersion does work! Rich folks pay big bucks for that! I just jump in a stock tank!
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderWhat’s really funny is when I’m laying on the floor and she’s working me over with that roller and I’m yelling “HARDER”……
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderAl, I want a copy. Thanks, Thom
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderSay, Al, I know you have some Iron boots in your guy, you ever try any of them “Leg Spreaders”.
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderI just can’t get over the irony of being able to “Cheat” on the “Cheat Curl”. My point is that it would not be as easy to say what an advantage is because some guys would be at at greater advantage in some ways. For example, we talked about the press. I’m a shoulder presser. If I don’t drive the bar off the chest I have no hope of finishing it. But to a guy like Eric who’s got tremendous tricep power…..What if the cheat curl would have went the other way and we were looking at 30lb drops.
Again, just talking, not trying to start anything. (now…..if we erase the cheat curl record, I can set it all over again!!!!).
PS I still think that the greatest Clean & Jerk of all time was Leonid Taranenko. Why is his lift still not the record (we all know why).
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderI’m pretty sure John O’Brien is coming as well.
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderI’m like Al, never heard of this, but I weighed every plate in my gym and it’s amazing how “off” some are. I have a set of Iron Man 50lb plates that weight 57.5lbs. Now, I do know these were “unmilled” which if you don’t know, back in the day they used to sell plates “milled” and “unmilled” meaning you could get them a lot cheaper unmilled. We had two sets of Ironman unmilled plates in the old JWC….one set was 57.5 each or 115lbs total and the other was 47.5lbs or 95lbs total…..made a BIG difference which set you used and you did NOT want to get them mixed up. My Uncle Wayne finally got rid of one set because he was tired of getting them mixed up!!!!
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderWe have a local weightlifting team at Truman State I work with. The old coach, who left recently, told his students if they qualified for the collegiant nationals he’d lift in a gorilla suit. They did so he did. I have a photo of him doing a 200lbs snatchat about 175 in a full on gorilla suit. Of course, he was DQed! HAHA
I am starting to feel like an old man…..I HATE change!
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-Rounder“Costume”!?!? Sounds like we are going disguised as weightlifters to meets…..maybe that’s more true than I want to believe!
I once wrote a story to Clark’s newsletter years ago that I think some took too seriously (I really only meant it for Bill to get a chuckle but I should learn that whenever you would send him something it was fair game for the newsletter!!!!). Basically, I suggested that USAWA lifters should lift naked like the ancient greeks did in the Olympics….not even a jock strap as that may be “supportive” and give the lifter a disadvantage. But even then, someone could get “excited” and inadvertently “assist” the lift in an unfair manner because after all….not all men are created equal. And please fellas, I’m just tryin’ to get a chuckle, not being sarcastic because as John Wayne once said in one of his movies….”If I insult you, you’ll know it”!!!!!
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-RounderAl…errrr…Dinoman,
I’m not vested either way, just my opinion. So, if we made a lift tougher to do you would leave the “old record” on there and expect someone to break the record with different rules….makes no sense. BUT, that being said, we need to bring the organizations in line or just do what the powerlifting groups do and change the “usawa” to the ISAWA and make our own rules.
If we are going to follow the IAWA (and I’m ok with that!!!!, don’t misread anything I’m writing as a beef with the IAWA as I’ve never been to an IAWA meet!!!!) then it would make sense that the USAWA would make a rule that whenever a lift or rule is modified by the IAWA then our rule book would automatically follow suit on common lifts. However, we could still have a USAWA “national record” in the cheat curl with feet flat on floor and an IAWA and USAWA record Cheat Curl using the common rules. MORE RECORDS FOR YOU TO KEEP TRACK OF! haha
Seriously, there’s a part of this that makes my eyes blur…..don’t put me in charge, I’d only do things that make sense to me…….and that’s the rub with whoever is in charge!
Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-Rounder -
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