Meanwhile in the US …
Thanks to Kevin for sending this in:
3x bodyweight Squat at 13 years old.
My athlete, Harrison Maurus, squatted 200kg at 66.7kg bodyweight at the Washington State Powerlifting Meet today. His lift was RAW, high bar, ATG, and drug tested.
Other Youngsters:
What a complete freak of nature.
Holy crap….what did I just see???? He’s 13? my God.
Did a 13 yearold just squat 200?
FUCK IT, I QUIT!
Great work! This should be an example to everyone with a weak squat: no excuses. Being small or being young isn’t a reason not to squat big. Here is a young Caleb Williams, a 67.5 kg lifter, squatting 25 kgs over triple bodyweight… FOR SIX REPS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOzIXYC_ywo
On the contrary, this shows that the people with a weak squat has an excuse: genes. At 13, it cannot be hard work, simply because he has not lifted long enough to put in the hard work it takes for most people to reach 200. Its all genes.
Nope! I squat 289 kgs, and I have terrible genes. When I began lifting I couldn’t squat anything, and I have terrible leverages, but I’ve just put it tons of work. Yes, genes are an advantage, but anyone can get to 200 with hard work. I’m not trying to demean anyone, but 200kg, while rare in the real world, should be easily attainable by any male lifter.
People who use genes as an excuse are never going to get stronger. My wife squats 110 kgs with only a few months of training after having a baby–and this is more than many of the guys in my gym who complain they have bad genetics. I trained two guys who weighed roughly 75 kgs for 6 weeks and both of them squatted 145 kgs after this short training time. They had completely different genetics, but put in the same hard work, and got the same good results. One of them continued training with me and is now squatting 257.5 kgs @ 82.5 kgs bodyweight.
Obviously, someone who squats 200 kgs at 13 has good genetics–but he also has worked quite hard, and if a 13 year old can do it with good genetics, someone with average genetics or even bad genetics should be able to get there fairly easily. It just takes hard work.
Kevin has stated (at a different site) that his athlete (the 13 year-old) has trained with him since the fall of 2011, but only the last year or so started weightlifting. The kid has American snatch and clean & jerk records (for his age/weightclass?). Pretty much everything else Kevin says points to this kid having tremendous drive and a fantastic work effort, like getting up and training at 5:30am. He’s a WL first and foremost and just did the PL comp for fun.
Exactly. When people see above average results, they generally assume it’s just genetics, drugs, etc. But I have trained many natural lifters with average genetics who have had above average results. Work is an important variable! And IMO WLers should be able to squat at least as much as PLers. A back squat arguably has as much carryover to SN and CJ as it does bench press and deadlift. Of course, some WLers focus more on FS, but my main point is that the one big lift WLers and PLers should share in common is the squat! I’ve seen many oly lifters and PLers held back by a weak squat. For some reason it’s a lift many like to neglect.
He’s a WL first and foremost – ok, that explains the high-bar, deep squat! His squat awed me, but at the same time I was thinking, “Get that kid a coach! He’s leaving pounds off the bar squatting like a WL at a PL meet!”
While I do agree with your point that hard work will eventually lead most people to a 200 squat or something reasonable it still stands that a 13 year old BOY with very little muscle mass squatted 200 and over 3x bw with a couple of years of training. If those aren’t fantastic one in a million genetics than I don’t know what is. At the same time if he can hit 3x with a couple years of training it motivates me to think with maybe a decade or more I’ll be able to hit it.
It’s all about leverage, forget about the lack of will power.
A friend of mine squatted 305lbs for an easy rep the very first time he tried.
He was 15 y.o and 170lbs bdw. So the kid squatted almost twice his bdw as an beginner.
The 305lbs on his back where like nothing.
6 month later he squatted 305 for 20 reps.
This absolutely motivates me to do two things:
1. Get more kids into lifting seriously and intelligently at younger ages!
2. Get stronger so that the pre-teens don’t make me look bad (I’m 34).
yeah drug tested. ahaha
well he passed, he didnt get caught.
USA the land of the free, but not drug free