You're An Olympic Weightlifter If...

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

In allusion to the “You are a Powerlifter if…”-thread.

You are an “Olympic Weightlifter” if:

  1. All your movements are explosive.
  2. You squat ass to grass and everybody asks you “WHY”.
  3. Powerlifters ask why don’t you use the “forearms crossed technique” on frontsquats.
  4. If you do heavy squats and deadlifts powerlifters ask: why don’t you use a belt?
  5. When you do overhead-squats then suddenly everybody stops to glare at you and you see them practically count your reps.
  6. You can clean a weight which 99% of gymgoers can’t even deadlift.
  7. You can frontsquat more than 99% of gymgoers can backsquat.
  8. Powerlifters envy you for your shoulderflexibility.
  9. You can jerk more than you benchpress.
  10. Your benchpress is ridiculously weak.

That’s my experience so far…

2

-You get done with a good workout and you’ve got bruises on your pelvis, thighs, or thumbs.

-Power cages can be ‘restrictive’.

-You leave the ground with weights in your hands intentionally.

-People talk about the bottom of a deadlift and mentally you correct them; “first pull”.

-You’ve ever had a problem with a bar that’s ‘too stiff’.

-You have both decent squat poundages and a decent vertical no matter how much you weigh.

-You think front squats are a great isolation exercise.

3

id have to disagree with the bench thing. i guess its weak in comparison to your back squat, but not weak by normal standards. most good olympic lifters i kno can bench 315.

4

your constantly jumping on the scales to make sure your not gaining weight.

your clavicles have calluses and your neck looks like you survived a hanging

you actualy stretch befor and after every training session, sometimes you just go to the gym to stretch

you workout whats on the bar from the colour of the plates not how many there are.

someone waving a flag in your face as you lift does not piss you off, unless its red

your rest periods are usualy less than 1 minute

you dont train biceps or chest for fear of the muscles getting in the way of the bar

you feel comfortable wearing tights and shoes with a heel

5

You got to the Olympics for Weightlifting? :wink:

6

[quote]eisenaffe wrote:
In allusion to the “You are a Powerlifter if…”-thread.

You are an “Olympic Weightlifter” if:

[/quote]

…anything over a triple is a high-rep workout.

…you are capable of instantly dividing or multiplying any weight by 2.2.

…your traps ‘stand out like some alien parasite.’ [Props to anyone who knows where that soundbyte comes from]

7

[quote]lucasa wrote:
-Power cages can be ‘restrictive’.
[/quote]

So true!

8

[quote]Ross Hunt wrote:

…your traps ‘stand out like some alien parasite.’ [Props to anyone who knows where that soundbyte comes from][/quote]

Haha! Pavel, of course. WRT Russian weightlifter David Rigert, if I remember correctly.

9

when your thumbs feel no pain

10

Oh man this is classic, even better than the powerlifter version, so true, so true …

Especially funny:

  1. All your movements are explosive.

and

  1. When you do overhead-squats then suddenly everybody stops to glare at you and you see them practically count your reps.
11

When somebody asks you a question to which you don’t know the answer, you shrug your shoulder violently and get up on your toes doing a full extension.

Oh and the classic, bloody shins if you set up wrong and almost take off your kneecaps.

12

Your average training session takes over an hour and a half for 75 reps.

13

[quote]Ross Hunt wrote:

…you are capable of instantly dividing or multiplying any weight by 2.2.
[/quote]

this is true only with you guys in North America!!

even conservative english in UK started to use kilograms in gyms (not pounds)!
Well, some are to thick so they stil count a number of plates on the bar

:wink:

14

…when you a callous on the back of your neck from lowering push-presses.

15

[quote]Deathroe wrote:
id have to disagree with the bench thing. i guess its weak in comparison to your back squat, but not weak by normal standards. most good olympic lifters i kno can bench 315.[/quote]

That is if you still train benchpress but i’ve trained with o-lifters that can c&j 140kg+ @ 62kg @ 17 years old and couldn’t benchpress more than 50kg for 2-3 reps…

Everything being relative, it shows your level of technique compared to heavier competitors who uses more brute strenght than pure technique.

16

[quote]lucasa wrote:
-You get done with a good workout and you’ve got bruises on your pelvis, thighs, or thumbs.[/quote]

hahah this is so true!

17

your quads are twice as big as your arms

whenever you need to pick something up, you drop down into a perfect atg squat and grab it as you ride the bounce up, and then realize you’re in a supermarket and quickly look around to see if anyone noticed.

on the way back to the car, you hook grip your grocery bags

you can spend 45 minutes lifting, yet have a total time under tension of less than 90 seconds.

18

Now that’s a good one ;o)

19

[quote]Kliplemet wrote:
eisenaffe wrote:
When somebody asks you a question to which you don’t know the answer, you shrug your shoulder violently and get up on your toes doing a full extension.

LOL, i actually do this[/quote]

I laughed too. Good thread.

20

  • When people tell you how much they can bench, you immeditly wonder if you can jerk that.

  • When people tell you how much they can deadlift, you immediatly wonder if you can clean that.

  • you can say snatch or jerk with a straight face

  • your idea of an awesome gym is a flat surface, rubber weights, and a metal bar.

  • you would rather add 5kg to your squat PR than 10kg to your bench