[Tom Ryan]

Hello, Joe. I hope you are doing well. I spoke with Wilbur Miller recently and he mentioned that he had heard from you not long ago and he was planning to lift in a meet, a deadlift meet I believe he said, that you will be putting on in the near future.

Regards,

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

[b]Quote from KCSTRONGMAN on April 12, 2014, 09:26[/b]
Good article Thom. I do believe there is another category, though, that I probably fall into, and that is unintentially full of shit

That’s good, ET. And speaking of which, I believe you want “unintentionally”, right? As someone who recently won a teaching award, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give you some grief over that. LOL

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

Congratulations, Laverne.

[Tom Ryan]

Okay, thanks for the explanation, Thom.

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

Thom, I did not have the foggiest idea who you were referring to, but I assumed that this was probably a historical figure. If it is this guy http://elmerkeithwasdeadright.blogspot.com/, the “right” in the title is fine, but the “dead” isn’t, especially since I might get bumped off by some crooks!

Specifically, I got ripped off last year by two companies who engaged in conspiracy with intent to commit fraud. An investigator in my local PD advised me to contact the Governor’s Office of Consumer Protection (OCP) and I sent them a 3-page complaint letter. Incredibly, some idiot in the OCP forwarded my letter to one of the two companies about which I alleged criminal activity! The company then sends me a letter, copying the OCP and the state licensing board, and “requests” that I stop referring to them as crooks. If I could successfully sue a member of the OCP, I would certainly do so, although shooting the !#$@^&*& would probably be more appropriate!

Of course this makes me even more determined to have these crooks locked up, as the company that sent me the letter has been ripping people off for several years and they preyed on an elderly woman last year who was recovering from brain surgery. Real scumbags!

I will be speaking with a retired Attorney General I know on Monday afternoon and will find out what he suggests.

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

Congratulations, ET!

[Tom Ryan]

Yes,the IAWA name for the lift is nonsensical. It would be better for them to call the lift the “Continental and get it overhead somehow”. LOL

[Tom Ryan]

Yes,the IAWA name for the lift is nonsensical. It would be better for them to call the lift the “Continental and get it overhead somehow”. LOL

[Tom Ryan]

Yes,the IAWA name for the lift is nonsensical. It would be better for them to call the lift the “Continental and get it overhead somehow”. LOL

[Tom Ryan]

“Science is true whether or not you believe in it.”

Just one point of order on this quote. It is flawed.
————————————————————————–

As a “final” (?) comment, I want to respond to Dan’s quote about science and Eric’s response to it, both given above.

Studies are very often flawed — in many fields — so no true science will result from them. A case in point is the 1961 study by Professor Klein at the Univ. of Texas that purportedly showed that squatting below parallel is bad for the knees. Bill Starr was a participant in that study and Starr has stated in print that the measuring instrument that Klein used could be manipulated to produce whatever reading Klein wanted to see. So nobody should have paid any attention to the results of that study.

As another example, over 30 years ago a prominent statistician, whose name I can’t recall, read medical journals and wrote letters to the journal editors whenever he encountered analyses and conclusions that were flawed. He encouraged other statisticians to do the same.

Furthermore, it is often stated that the results of studies can be predicted from knowing the identity of the funding organization!

I would have various other thoughts to express (about leverages, etc.), but I am sleepy and I’m going to bed. 🙂

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

Dan,

I’m sure that a 90-year old man who has never lifted weights before can indeed make considerable progress, so Denny and I would agree with you on that. But how much would a 90-year old untrained man be able to lift? Let’s assume that he could press 20 pounds. Would he be able to reach 60 pounds with the best scientific knowledge available? Perhaps, but I would bet against it.

Now, let’s consider Denny and Art, both of whom have lifted weights for more than a few decades; have undoubtedly tried various methods of training; and know how their bodies respond to different training systems. No training system would allow them to increase their strength in standard lifts like overhead press and squat by 100% or anything close to that, regardless of how their training compares with what might be considered the best way for men their age to train.

Regarding age, it is indeed a major factor. For many years, 28-32 was considered to be the peak period for Olympic lifters and that is probably still considered to be the case. Master’s competition in Olympic lifting of course starts at age 35, with Bill Clark, for example, strongly opposed to the change from 40 to 35. Of course there are other factors involved, as you pointed out, but I set all of my pressing PRs between the ages of 30 and 32, my squat PR for 5 reps when I was 32 or 33, my squat snatch PR when I was 31, and my squat clean PR when I was 25.

Although some Olympic lifters have performed well at the age of 40, most lifters are on the decline when they are much past 30.

Body leverages DO have a major influence on how much a person can lift. Most people reading this have probably never heard of Dwayne Fely, yet at the time when he was squatting with more than Kazmaier, Bill pointed out that Fely had an advantage because Fely was 5-9, whereas Kaz is 6-2 1/2. A lifter who has long legs, relatively speaking, had better have wide hips, otherwise those long legs will be a major disadvantage in squatting. Paul Anderson had the best of both worlds as he was 5-9 and also had wide hips. So it is no surprise that he was such a great squatter.

You don’t know that the examples that I gave of joint replacements resulted from overuse injuries and I don’t know that, either. There is no doubt, however, that squat cleans and squat snatches can wear away knee cartilage, and there have been some serious elbow injuries when world-class lifters have attempted a heavy snatch.

Since you referred to myths, I’ll give you one. Undoubtedly many, if not most, college and even pro strength coaches believe that below parallel squats are bad for the knees. This is false and stems from an improper study by Professor Klein at the University of Texas in 1961. Bill Starr was a participant in that study and he commented on it many years ago. See also http://www.examiner.com/article/are-deep-squats-good-for-your-knees

There is a huge difference in the effect on the knees of a deep squat performed in a controlled manner and a squat snatch with the lifter hitting a very deep position.

You have probably heard the term “joint mice”, which refers to the noises that a person’s knees can make, especially when doing Olympic lifts but also even when getting out of a chair! This of course is due to the wearing away of cartilage. My knees made such noises in USAWA contests and in one contest Bill Clark, upon hearing my knees do their thing during one lift, was motivated to mention an old Missouri Valley lifter named Art Tarwater, whom they called “snap, crackle, and pop” because of the noises that his knees made. LOL

My knees never hurt but one day circa 1998 I was climbing some steps and it felt like my left knee shifted to the left! That was a bit scary and I started taking glucosamine/chondroitin shortly thereafter. I still have my original knees, and they don’t hurt.

So, yes, lifting in general is good for one’s health and most exercises are safe. Of courses the dangers in presses behind the neck are well known and box squats where a lifter sits on a box with each rep rather than just touching it is also not a good idea. I consider some USAWA official lifts to be risky, but I am not going to get into that. 🙂

I will close with a story which, quite frankly, will sound hard to believe, but it did happen to me.

In 1966, Bob Bednarski’s squatting program was given in S&H and it included 5 sets of 5 with the top weight that he used. At that time I was doing one set of 5 with my top weight. I have never believed in doing a lot of sets in training, and I’ve always felt that Olympic lifters doing a of sets with 80% or 90% of their max was wasteful.

But since Bednarski was going great, I decided to try the 5 for 5 system. I had no idea how my body would respond to that, so I used a light weight, 250, for the 5 sets of 5. I always concentrated very intently when doing squats, which I could do because I always trained alone. The next day I felt like a different person, mentally, when I went shopping, and that was scary! The following day I felt like my old self mentally, but I had a horrible headache, the worst I have ever had, and I never had headaches. I also had a fever, as my temperature went slightly past 101. Then both the fever and headache went away quickly and I was able to train that evening.

So what happened, did I blow a fuse in my brain by concentrating intently for 25 reps instead of 5 reps? I never figured that out, but suffice to say, I never did 5 sets of 5 again!!

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

Right, Denny, I don’t think that Dan lives in the same world as the rest of us old lifters. 🙂 Regardless of whatever methods you employed, Dan, you would not be able to increase Art’s strength by 100%, and although Denny would undoubtedly be thrilled if you could triple his strength, that isn’t going to happen, either.

Dan, you stated that with the proper type of training, a lifter will become MORE resistant to wear and tear and injury problems with age. No, I don’t think that is possible. Almost every Olympic lifter will have some type of joint problems eventually. That is inevitable and unavoidable. John Vernacchio had shoulder problems and Denny has mentioned a hip problem. Tommy Kono had a hip replacement in 1996 and Joe Dube has also had at least one joint replacement. Ben Green, a local Olympic lifter I know who just turned 71, had one hip replaced many years ago and the other hip replaced not very many years after that. I tried to make a comeback in Olympic lifting a few years ago but my shoulders told me to forget it. And so on.

The reason that I mentioned a Russian research result, Dan, was to make the point that the need to decrease training frequency as one ages has been known for a very long time.

Of course we are all different and do not age at the same rate. When I was corresponding with David Meltzer, he admitted that he was an exception, so that the Malone-Meltzer formula didn’t really apply to his lifting. His lifts are not dropping off much with age, even though he is now 61. He consistently wins the bronze medal in his class at the World Masters, just as he did last year.

Consider the following. If the age coefficients were “right” and everything else was constant over time (bodyweight, diet, training regimen, absence of injuries etc.), then for a fixed set of lifts, such as the snatch and clean and jerk in Olympic lifting, the total on that set of lifts multiplied by the age coefficient should be approximately constant from year to year.

If any of you wanted to chart yourself in this manner, the results might be interesting.

Al has stated in this thread that he feels as though the age coefficients for old lifters are not high enough and he is undoubtedly right because past a certain age, the coefficients should start increasing at an increasing rate. In general, the world is nonlinear, as is lifting performance over time.

Regarding bodyweight coefficients, anyone who has been a part of Olympic lifting for a long time knows that it is extremely difficult for a lifter in one of the heavier classes to win a best lifter award.

Another factor that I have never seen discussed relative to coefficients is that lifters in the heavier classes are generally much taller than lifters in the lighter classes and have to lift the bar considerably further. When about a quarter of a ton is being lifted, several inches can make a big difference. Salimi of Iran won the gold medal in the superheavy class at the last Olympics. He has snatched 472 at a listed height of 6-6!! Think about that. That is a huge accomplishment! I believe there was an Olympic lifter of some stature during the 1940s who was 6-8 and I think there have been one or two international-caliber superheavies during the past 10 years or so who are also 6-8.

I had some thoughts on determining best lifter awards that Bill Clark presented at an IAWA meeting with the British many years ago and he told me later that they didn’t understand what I was talking about. LOL

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

Dan, you stated “Your performance will continue to improve in one or several of the performance aspects tied to any sport until you’re in your 60’s”.

No, the Russians discovered over 50 years ago that workout frequency must decline with age, and this starts when an athlete is in his or her early 30s. Indeed, when I was in my early 30s I sometimes had to postpone a workout for a day because my body had not sufficiently recovered from previous workouts.

For many years I trained five times a week: Monday-Thursday and Saturday. I would do wide-grip military presses as part of my Monday workout and would do presses inside my power rack on Wednesdays, so that there was only one day between those pressing exercises. By the time I hit my mid-40s, I could press on only every 3rd day, then it became every 4th day as I grew older.

I have been pressing a bit too often during the past several weeks, with the consequence that I developed sore deltoids and had to back off a bit.

I will add that when I was 47 I went on a “pressing binge” and pressed three times a day for a few months. I would do a set of presses off the rack for 3 reps, rest about five minutes and then do another set of three reps with that weight. Then about four hours later I would repeat that, and repeat it again about another four hours later.

I had been unhappy with my pressing strength, which is why I decided to try something that was totally different from anything I had done before, as I never trained with very many sets or reps. I eventually reached 6 sets of 3 reps with 206.5 with that routine and I was pleased with that result for my age.

I was at my peak for pressing between the ages of 30 and 32, so what would I have been able to do if I had used this training regimen then? Well, certainly I would have been able to use much more weight, probably about 250.

So my body adapted to pressing three times in one day, but it certainly would not have been able to adapt to pressing, say, three straight days. The Bulgarian lifters, for example, trained as much as three times a day but steroids helped them do that.

In conclusion, strength is going to decline with age, partly due to the fact that weekly training volume must be adjusted downward as we age. So age does affect performance.

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

Okay, Dan, I will bite. There is a LOT I could say about the age adjustment issue because I have experience in comparing the Sinclair and Malone-Meltzer age coefficients for Master’s Olympic lifting and choosing between the two.

Specifically, about 20 years ago I was appointed by then U.S. Masters Olympic lifting chairman Walter Imahara to serve on a committee to decide which age coefficients to use. David Pursley, an MD and active Master’s lifter and official at the time, and Gary Glass, a PhD, also served on the committee. Donald Buchanan of Canada was the chairperson of the committee and Dresdin Archibald, a Canadian Master’s superheavy lifter, also served on the committee. I recall that Roger Sadecki attended a meeting when our discussions began in 1993, but I don’t remember if he was formally on the committee.

The formation of the committee was motivated by the fact that the use of the Sinclair coefficients was causing “Lifter X” to be judged superior to “Lifter Y”, when many Masters lifters “knew” that couldn’t be right!

Roy Sinclair is a retired math professor in Canada who has a PhD in math from M.I.T. He is a very bright guy, but he was never a weightlifter. I interacted with both Roy and David Meltzer, who is also a bright guy in addition to being a talented Master’s lifter who has done well in both national and world meets for many years. (You should have heard him sing the national anthem for every country that was represented at the 1993 World Masters in Newnan, GA. It absolutely blew my mind that someone could learn all of those national anthems and how to sing them, perhaps on short notice.)

At one point Roy told me that he thought I was the only member of the committee who could understand what he was saying. LOL (I have a PhD in statistics and have written several books, won awards, etc.) Meltzer’s PhD is in physics, IIRC, and he and I had some stimulating (for him) statistics discussions that resulted in him thinking more deeply about certain aspects of what he was doing.

I also heard from Jack Lano, a CPA and Master’s lifter with a very long track record of competitions who is now in his 90s if he is still alive. Lano felt very strongly that lifters should not be compared across different ages and he sent me articles to support his position.

To make a long story short, our committee recommended that the Malone-Meltzer age coefficients be used and that is what is still used today. See http://www.mastersweightlifting.org/. It has also been adopted by the CrossFit people, at least by some of them (see http://www.crossfit2232.com/2013/08/beer-city-beatdown/)

The 1% age adjustment that the USAWA uses is just intended to be a simple approximation to reality. There is obviously not enough data to determine what the adjustment should be for someone who is, say, 88 years old, or even 68 or 78.

Old age does indeed kill a person who has enough years on his or her odometer of life, but virtually all of us die before we reach the point where our bodies give out because it is “killed” by a combination of air pollution, radiation, harmful food additives, etc. Otherwise we would live about 120 years. A prominent and highly accomplished statistician died in November — at the age of 104 years and 9.5 months! So some of us live a very long time before we die from something other than old age.

Obviously athletic performance declines with age, however, so if we are going to give out Best Lifter awards, we need some way of comparing lifters across both bodyweights and ages. I don’t have a problem with that.

Dan, you stated “And as I stated before, chronological age is not a variable scientists have been able to tie to loss in performance (my emphasis), to injury, or to burnout.” You’ve got to be kidding! Willie Mays looked absolutely foolish trying to catch routine fly balls when he was 42 and his batting average that year, his last year, was .211 in 209 ABs. Have you ever watched oldtimers games in basketball or major league baseball? What a mess! Art Montini is still competing at the age of 86 or 87, but he lifted much more weight when he was in his early 60s. I know because I was there. And so on.

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

I think there are probably several factors involved, Thom.

We all know that Joe Garcia has been a great chain lifter for the past 20 years or so, as he has the all-time best hand and thigh lift and he has also been excellent at hip and harness lifts and variations thereof. But Joe never military pressed or deadlifted with either one hand or two hands in competition as much as I did, and ditto for the rectangular fix and a few other lifts. Somewhat similarly, Steve and I were close on some lifts and I would occasionally beat him on a lift. (That happened twice and I also tied him on a lift once.)

So I believe the main thing that separates the great chain lifters from the rest of us is probably tendon and ligament strength.

Another factor is the following.

Everyone marveled at Steve Schmidt’s huge harness lifts 20-25 years ago and I heard Steve say once that he had learned how to use his body. I realized after I had retired from harness and hip lifting that I had been giving the weight too much respect, as I tried to ease the weight off the floor rather than trying to drive it, as one would do with a deadlift, for example.

This became obvious to me when I did my last hip lift in 1993 and I did drive it some. I did a relatively easy 1,250 for a PR at the 1993 Zercher Meet and I undoubtedly was good for 1,300 or so.

Of course the weight must be respected, however, as I was there when John McKean destroyed a ligament doing a hip lift and Bill Clark once broke his leg doing a harness lift in his gym. I got off balance slightly on a hip lift once in competition and the weight came down at an angle rather than going straight down. That caused my leg to bend slightly in a way that legs aren’t supposed to bend and I realized that I might have come close to breaking my leg.

Speaking of railroad wheels, as you were, I had gotten up to 720 for repetition (partial) leg presses as a high school senior and I was interested in obtaining some railroad wheels. So I called Southern Railway and I think another company or two and the people I spoke with thought I was nuts!! LOL Typical responses were “Oh, you can’t lift those” and “Do you know how much those wheels weigh?” So I never obtained any railroad wheels.

Tom

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