Essays covering a range of topics from weightlifting biomechanics; injury susceptibility in sport; weightlifting training; weightlifting sports science.
“Sometimes a lot of time is wasted developing muscles whose role in the performance of the snatch and the clean and jerk are very insignificant. The sportsman wastes time and effort in developing muscles which have little bearing on the competition exercises.
The idea that an athlete’s progress in dynamic sport can be gauged at least in part by the ability to relax muscles faster than he/she can contract muscles is a unique perspective. This is especially true of weightlifting; where, all too often, criteria defining progress; in addition to the actual results in the classic exercises; are results in squats, power snatch and power clean, push jerk, deadlift and the like.
As he did with Zdrazila, Roman (1968) found numerous faults with world champion and world record holder N. Ozimek’s technique. Both Zdrazila and Ozimek shifted knees under bar with heels raised and arms bent in the pull; which then straightened as the explosion phase was completed. Both are considered serious errors. Ozimek even jumped 11 cm backwards to squat under the barbell.
One would expect there to be many episodes of breath – holding – straining conditions over a person’s life time; and, such episodes, by the many thousands for athletes; especially in the power sports of weightlifting, track and field and so forth. A period of arrhythmia for 15 – 20 seconds into the recovery after straining is a natural manifestation; not a pathology:
once a concept such as weightlifting champions are short; becomes ingrained in a collective conscious; all the more so because mathematics has helped confirm it: “..the main features of the lifter’s physique are relatively short stature, thick bones and large muscles (N.I. Kurachenkov, 1956)”; it is very difficult to dislodge it.