How Olympic Lifters Stay So Skinny But Very Strong?

[Rampage jackson]

Hello everyone this question interested me a lot of time and I never knew the answer

Everyone knows powerlifters eat very much and they are working on strength Most of them very fat and big because it helps them to lift more weight, I think they even Weigh more than professional bodybuilders but if i not eat and just lift heavy ass wights i have big Percent to injure my self and stuck on the same weight every workout and not progress Can anyone explain to me how they do it??

Example They Weigh only 69 kg in this video They lift 140kg-200kg

It's even less than I weigh 75 kg and I'm only 16 years old I'm 169 cm Height

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uUVNzpNIjw

[lifesnotfair]

Where are you from?

Powerlifting has weight classes to, and in the lighter classes the guys are usually quite lean and, well, lighter than the huge beasts with the huge totals.

Olympic weightlifting as well. Check out Hossein Rezazadeh and you'll see he's not skinny at all. The previous snatch record was by Krastev who was also "fat". And Taranenko who had the previous C+J record was also "fat". Reza has both records now, I think, because they changed weightclasses and wiped all records.

So it's not as you say, that power lifters are big and fat and weightlifters are skinny.

[Rampage jackson]

So I ask my question a little differently how they are so strong at so low body weight ??

im talk about the Light weight category

Edited November 7, 2011 by Rampage jackson

[climber511]

If you compare similar weight classes - you will see similar body fat levels but differences in the way they are built. The PLs will have bigger upper bodies (in general) and the Olympic guys will have bigger hips and quads - simply as a consequence of the way they train. You will also see some other muscular differences that are very visible but harder to put into words for me anyway.

[lifesnotfair]

So I ask my question a little differently how they are so strong at so low body weight ??

im talk about the Light weight category

Well, I'm no expert, but I believe part of this is due to training with a Lower rep range. Remember these athletes (both weightlifters and powerlifters) are in a sport where they have to go and perform a 1 rep max in certain moves.... I think they train heavy and low-rep, think singles, doubles, triples and I guess at most, sets of 5. Also, to gain a lot of muscle mass you have to eat for it, I'm guessing these lightweights aren't killing 8,000 calories a day like some of those heavyweights report they do.

[jad]

I've basically had the same question for years with LW AWs. How does Zoloev or even Arsen back when he was a 165#, hang with the top HWs? The drug card seems to be the knee-jerk response but I'm not aware of any drugs that just make you inhumanly strong but don't add any weight.

[MIGHTYSAXON]

This is a difficult question to answer because some of it pertains to genetics. LIke dmitry Klokov is ripped up while some other guys in his class look just solid. BUt as far as strength goes for the lower weight guys. Its all more dense and explosive muscle. Look at a 230lb PL or strongman compared to an OL. Those guys are mostly big with not as much definition while olympic lifters generally look more athletic which means more explosion. And the training is a huge part as well. Olympic lifters train lower reps a lot but over and over and over again while strongmen will not do 8 sets of 3 of such a high weight. Their endurance is greater for lifting IMO. But also look at the lift itself. a clean is essentially a high shrug/pull and drop under the bar. THe jerk is mostly minimal press and drop under the bar depending on the lifter.

[KRC]

I also think that straining under a 1RM deadlift for sometimes up to 10 seconds has far different effects on mass than doing explosive, sometimes less than 1 second lifts do. The body responds differently to max effort powerlifts than max effort O-lifts.

[JasonL]

Genetics plays a part of it. Also muscle growth is part of time under tension and eating. Muslce needs to be exposed to a certain degree of time under tension, say 40 to 60 sec, hence why bodybuilders do a lot of sets...reps...and exercises !!..and eat a lot..

OLs keep it more neuro drive, not muslce drive aspect, low reps 1 to 3 mostly, not caring about slow aspects, since they want power..Eating depending on their weight classes, etc..

Funny how, espically woman say they are getting bigger with their program. Lets c the program..oh...ur doing bodybuilding...LOL...wonder y !..LOL..

Hence don't get me wrong, u can get bigger from low low reps, if the volume is extremely high and eating is high...

Hope this helps..)..

[tukkergrip]

The most important aspect is the fact that the olympic lifters train different muscle groups than the powerlift ones.

For instance an 60kg oly lifter does a 170kg clean and jerk vs a 166kg oly lifter does a 240 kg clean and jerk

And a 60kg powerlifter does a 300kg squat vs a 166kg powerlifter does a 555 kg squat. This may not be very precise but you get the point.

To get good at the big basic lifts you will have to need a lot of muscle mass in the big muscle groups wich mostly leads to big weight (powerlifts)

To get good at the olympic lifts you will have to need a lot of explosivness and agilty and such, and ofcourse have much mass and strength in those olympic lifting muscle groups..... In the end the muscle groups of an olympic lifter being trained to the max will not really have to get you that damn heavy to be succesfull in only the olympic lifts. Look at the lighter weights they mostly have huge quads traps shoulders and thats it. thats also all you need for snatches and clean and jerks basicly. now when you look at the heavier weights.. They can add alot of mass whatever they want, while they are already taller and have already more mass on the quads, traps they can also get more mass on the hams chest torso low back whatever, wich may superfine tune their clean and jerk by 1 kg while add 490kg to their max bench and squat etc. Its like lance armstrong was never allowed to do a pushup because he had to get all muscle for cycling only. no other than muscle functional for cycling was allowed in his body lol. Thats the same with light oly lifters (and powerlifters ofcourse if they really want to be the best).

Also for instance for a brute strength example besides the basic clean and jerk and snatch... They once tested an olympic lightweight lifter on his press and he could manage 100kg stricly while he could jerk 200kg amazingly.. An heavier lifter who could just jerk 250kg orso could press around 200kg lol.

Also the very heaviest and strongest of the SHW's can mostly manage HUGE weights overhead with any form, for instance the 188kg monster from russia chingiz mogushkov can do a what he calls a ''push press'' (the technique was so horrible it was more like a lay back strict press) amazingly with 235KG!!!! while he can jerk about 260kg orso max.

But then in the end this is pretty much the same for powerlifting, the difference is a little, and that bodystructure also matters with how much more weight you need to be succeshull in whatever lift. For instance Tom Martin is very light for someone his back strength and deadlifts huge and huge weights, squat is less but still reallt good probably due to light bw and bench is less but still really good...

O yeah last and not least, you have to consider the level of each sport, Olympic lifting mostly as you see it, is at a huge level, a level so high that all weightcategories are finetuned to the gills. While in powerlifting most of the time/ or a lot of the time anyway: only the heavyweights are pretty good while the lightweights are ''just entering for fun or whatever. When you look at powerlifting at the highest level you will see lightweights showing up with big weights believe me .