Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 9
So now let’s start to look at the United States. And no, I won’t be jumping straight to Olympic lifting, that would be too easy and more background is needed to adequately address this issue. To understand the US and Olympic lifting, we need to look at some of the other factors present in sports in America. Because it all ends up factoring on.
Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 7
Having looked in some detail at the former Soviet Sports machine in Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting Part 6, I’m going to move somewhat chronologically to talk about the East German sports machine (dominant in about the 80′s) along with Bulgarian Olympic lifting (which actually overlapped with both). While both share a lot of similarities to what the Soviets had done, there are a few key differences worth noting. Then just to fill some space I’ll briefly talk about Australian swimming.
Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 6
So over the next few parts, I want to take more of a snapshot of a variety of different sport systems that have shown success or outright dominance in various time frames. And since it makes some logical sense, I’m actually going to look at them in somewhat of a chronological order (that is, in terms of the times they were dominant) since this makes some other points about changes in training and focus some of which I feel are relevant to my ultimate topic of US Ol’ing.
Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 4
In Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 1, I managed to talk almost not at all about Olympic lifting, focusing instead on a couple of definitions and then a long discussion of a truly dominant sporting ‘system’, Kenyan distance runners. Today I want to look at an example of another group that jumped from relative anonymity to dominance in what is a fairly niche sport in a very short period of time. The sport is track cycling and the ‘country’ is the United Kingdom.
Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 3
Ok, picking up from Wednesday and Why Does the US Suck at Olympic Lifting Part 2; in that part I looked at some of the factors potentially to Kenyan dominance in distance running. This included looking at some potential physiological issues that might give them an advantage, the issue of genetics (in a general sense) and then briefly looked at sociopolitical factors and finally their training (where I spent the most time).
Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 2
And a question that has been posited since they started winning is why this is the case. Today I’m going to a VERY detailed analysis of the factors behind their dominance. That includes physiology, sociology, economics, culture, diet, etc. If nothing else, this should give you some idea of what I’m going to try to address in this series as a whole to answer the original question. And don’t worry, I won’t be going into this kind of nauseating detail for every sport and every group.
Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 1
Nevermind that OL’ing at one point did recruit a guy (Shane Hamman, a 1000 lb squatter) with more strength coming out of one leg than most have in their entire body and he still coudn’t medal. Make no mistake, he held his own at the highest levels but being strong as all hell didn’t put him on the podium. Because regardless of what many think, maximal strength is only relevant to OL performance up to a certain point; beyond that point it doesn’t help (and may even hurt). Despite this, this gentleman’s answer was that our lifters needed more strength. Things would be much easier if it were only that simple. Just make ‘em strong and watch the medals roll in. Right.
Because We Let Them: Part 4
Ok, I’m going to pick up where I left off yesterday and move straight into a quick discussion of when we use punishment at the Austin Humane Shelter. As I’ve noted, we ideally avoid this but the examples I’m going to provide are relevant as a segue to some more general comments and wrapping this up by trying to look at a whole shedload of different stuff. It’s going to be long today, had I planned better I would have done this across multiple weeks or every day this week but that’s not going to happen. So…grab a drink and get ready.
Because We Let Them: Part 3
Ok, as this has rapidly gotten out of my control here’s another update today so I can wrap up Friday and talk about skate training next week. So far I talked about some general concepts of behaviorism including positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment in Because We Let Them: Part 1. I also looked at the benefit of sometimes just ignoring a given behavior.
Because We Let Them: Part 2
In Because We Let Them: Part 1, on top of filling some space until I talk about my own training next week, I managed to tie a lesson I learned during one of the doggie training classes at the Austin Humane Shelter into a brief discussion of behaviorism and the 4 primary approaches taken to alter behavior. I also realized that this was going to be too long and I’d need more than my original 2 parts. Which screws up my scheduling but ah well, this is going to be a 4 update week.
