Secondary World Team Qualifier Highlights



It's all weightlifting the first two weeks in March, with the World Team Qualifier and now the National Junior Championships this weekend in Indiana. There are three American records in this montage: Natalie Woolfolk hits 117 C&J for a 215 total (top 7 at World's this year), Chad Vaughn hits 190 kg C&J @ 77 kg bodyweight and Kendrick Farris hits 199 kg (and almost 203 kg) @ 85 kg bodyweight. 203 kg was the top clean & jerk in the 85 kg class at the World Championships this year. The US has not had a male World Champion in weightlifting since Joe Dube in 1969. Kendrick is not yet 21 and has the potential to place very high in international competition throughout his career if he continues to progress. Kendrick, Natalie and Chad (a 2004 Olympian) are good bets for the 2008 Olympic team.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I get a great workout just watching those athletes in action. Wow.

Great stuff!
6:25 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Form and Function

Image
Way back in 2002, I scanned these images by Howard Schatz from Sports Illustrated (October 14, 2002). A fascinating array of elite female athlete physiques, heights and weights, eh? These are some of the women featured in his book Athlete --a very cool pictorial essay that celebrates athletic form and function.
Read more

It's About Preparing People, not Preventing Injuries

ACL injuries do not happen in a void. People sustain injuries when their infrastructure is unable to manage a specific set of physical circumstances. To describe the mechanism of the injury without the context of the person and their level/type of sport, is to miss valuable insight. In sport, we prepare the person, to the best of our understanding, to meet the physical demands of that sport. We do not just work to prevent one particular injury; we prepare athletes to navigate the total sport physical environment. By "we" I mean the coaching and support staff -- specifically the athletic development staff.  Athletic development (AD) coaches prepare athletes through the development of physical literacy and movement competencies via movement progressions. It is more than strength, power, agility; it is the acquisition of knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors to manage themselves within the entire sporting environment. At the higher levels of sport, AD coaches coordinate wit
Read more

The 411 on Back Angles and Torque When Squatting

The angle of the torso, when squatting, is not a function of whether or not the bar is high or low on the back. The angle of the torso (and thus torque on the spine) is primarily determined by the angle of the shin, a.k.a how much the ankle dorsiflexes. AND IN MY BOOK, THIS IS THE KEY TO BEST BACK TRAINING PRACTICES. GET IT??? MAKE YOUR QUADS, HAMS AND GLUTES DO THE WORK. If your shin is perpendicular to the floor, then your torso will incline forward to keep the CoM over your BoS, regardless of how low the bar is on your back. And your back will be forced to handle higher torque. A good, general rule of thumb, IMHO, is to keep the shins and the torso parallel, from an inclination standpoint. This could change with femur/torso length issues (tight adductors and hips in general can cause issues too), but this method is pretty good to help someone figure out whether or not they have decent ankle flexibility when squatting. And this will minimize torque on the back, as we will d
Read more