Shane Hamman


I just watched the US Oly lifting trials and quickly saw why this guy is no good: he’s just too damn SMALL! Dude needs to bulk up a little! When I was snatching 400+lbs I was bigger than that. His 22 inch neck, arms, and calves make me laugh!
Okay, for real, he has the most ridiculous calves I have ever seen! He’s a MONSTER!

Have you ever seen videos of him squating…he is unreal…he dive bombs at 100mph to the bottom its unreal…bm

Here’s the link to the pic that didn’t come through

http://www.kraft.is/ymislegt/manadar/myndir/shane.jpg

I caught most of the olympic trials today also, this guy is amazing. I hope whatever station televises the games shows the olympic lifting competition. I’d rather see that and skip over some of the 1000 hours of gymnastics we normaly get.

He has a standing vertical leap of 36 inches!

If you have cable you should be able to see the lifting because NBC is doing 24 hour coverage between their four or five stations. The lifting will probably be on one of their lesser viewed stations such as Bravo.

I’m personally looking forward to some amazing freestyle wrestling as well as the O lifting.

Shane could do fairly well in Athens. He’ll need to do 205+ and about 240.

The problem with the Olympic coverage of WL is that you get so little. Usually highlights of the Supers, which of course leads people to think that O-lifters are all fat…like that idiotic comment by Alessi last week (about the last time a powerlifter or O-lifter had abs, Hoffman was the coach).

Your best bet is to buy Ironmind’s tapes after the OLYMPICS are done.

Word on the street is that Shane is going to make a comeback to PL after this olympics. Note that in this pic where he is squatting 1000lbs, he is wearing sneakers, bobo wraps, and a single ply suit. With todays gear, and other “implements” he should annhilate the current squat record.

              Joe

Until he does it, that is just empty speculation.

However, he stands a better chance than most people.

Of course it is…it is as pointless as trying to debate whether Garry Frank or Alexeev is stronger. I’m just excited to see someone of his caliber coming back to shake up the ranks. In the spirit of blind speculation, here are some interesting thoughts,

Shane’s 1007lb. squat which he walked out and dunked in a single ply suit, crappy white knee wraps, and sneakers still holds to this day. He set it as a junior too. Now, put him in an Inzer canvas/denim hybrid, slap on some Metal extra long wraps, let him use a monolift, and squat high like the rest of the WPO, and you are looking at a 1200lb. squat. Will he do it??? Who knows, but I can’t wait for the day when he and Eddy Coan lift in the same WPO finals. Now that’s entertainment. He may need to grow back the mullet though.

I don;t follow shane’s career very closely, but I have a feeling that he would be more likely to lift USAPL/IPF than APF/WPO (and before anybody gets upset let me hust say that I’m not criticizing the WPO with that statement).

Mattwhatchacallit-Have you ever been to a WPO event?

At the SOS almost all of the squats that I thought were high were red lighted and most were taken low according to the rules.

Are you a lifter or an internet guru?

I saw Shane compete at the World Weightlifting Championships last year in Vancouver and he really didn’t seem to come close to some of the other lifters such as Hossein Rezazadeh.

Goldberg,

Yes, I am a powerlifter, and I've competed at the national level in the USAPL.  And yes I saw the WPO finals at the Arnold.  Let me clarify my statement.  90% of the squats there are high by IPF standards.  That doesn't make them worthless, or illegitimate.  I'm just saying that if Shane did 1008 by IPF standards, he could easily done quite a bit more by the standards of the WPO.  I'm not hating on the WPO.  The way they do things leads to bigger weights and better entertainment.  I'd rather watch the WPO finals than a USAPL snore-fest any day of the week.  I just think those who do weights in the IPF with a walkout, single ply gear, 2hr. weigh-in etc. deserve a LOT of credit.  I won't even get into the whole drug debate, since I have my doubts that the IPF is all that clean.  

Peyton, at that event that I was talking about, Hamman was running back and forth between the Olifting and Plifting events to watch the squats, and he ended up not lifting cuz’ he got so caught up, so I think he might give the WPO a shot.

John K - Shane can’t hold a candle to Rezazadeh or Jaber, but that is because of technique. It is well accepted that he is by far the STRONGEST guy in the O-lifting circle. There is a story about all of the international lifters surrounding him in the training hall at worlds to watch him do a 375kg. No-no-no squat for a double.

                 Joe

I also have video of a WPO event from 2001. I would agree that the squats on that video were high. I haven’t seen any WPO events lately though.

beef

It would be awesome to see what Shane could do against the big boys at a WPO meet. No doubt. I’d love to see that, because it’s cool to see strong guys do stuff like that.

However, the only thing he might be able to guarantee is a 1007lb squat. More equipment is no guarantee of more weight lifted. Yes, it should help, and if he trained for it, I hope it would, but there is no guarantee of X more pounds getting lifted.

As for depth, that is a personal thing. Let’s take a look at his squat depth then. If he squats in a WPO meet like he does all the time (deep), then he gains nothing on his squat poundage. So let’s say he doesn’t go as deep. If he’s used to dropping fast, it’s going to be quite different calling the squat high. A lot of fast guys like the rebound at the bottom, which he’ll miss by squatting high. So will not going as low (while still breaking parallel - which is defined in the same terms in both the IPF and WPO rulebooks) help his squat? Perhaps yes, and perhaps no. Most likely it will help some, but until he actually does it, it is honestly all empty speculation.

It’s like saying that Garry Frank could set the WR bench if he did one-lift meets. Until he does it, no one could say either way. I am very tired of people whining and saying, “If this guy used better gear/drugs/higher squats/longer pauses, he could…” I’m more of the mindset that I would just really like to see what certain guys (Coan, Hamman, etc.) could do under different rules, just because it would be awesome to see them perform and nothing more.

Rick,

I agree with you to a point. I know that gear and drugs, and looser regulations aren’t some magic bullet that’ll give you 200lbs. on your total. I also realize that this is just speculation, but what better place to pose that question than on a message board. Like you, I really just want to see the best competing against the best on an equal playing field. I really believe that the WPO is a good place to do that. It’ll be great to see the likes of Coan and Hamman and Siders in there battling it out with these other guys. Personally, I’d rather see powerlifting become an olympic sport, and have everyone flock (russians included), but I’ll take what I can get. I mean I would honestly pay $75-$100 to see Ano, Shane, Eddy, and someone like Freydun or Tarasenko go head to head in a WPO-like event.

FYI, Shane’s best OL squat is 325kg X 5, and his best front squat is 290 kg. He attempted 300 kg in 1999 and strained his quad in the process.

There are several international OL lifters with comparble numbers, and Rezzadeh is probably much stronger.

I’ve read 375 for a double. I believe it was in the Pure Power Mag “You don’t know Squat” issue. I’ll see if I can dig it up. On the cover he is doing 295kg.

                Joe

Yeah, I’d really like to see them all get together, no matter the rules. I think PLing in the Olympics would be great, raw or whatever. I also think it’d be fun to see some of the IPF and OL guys competing for cash in the WPO. The more competition, the better the numbers for everyone.