Curious why the article's title is "The LeBron James of Weightlifting" when the USA Weightlifting Exec was quoted as saying "The Michael Jordan of Weightlifting?"
Lebron also broke onto the scene as a 16 year old -- high school all american as a sophomore, lots of other media attention and coverage (edit: SI cover was a couple months after 17th birthday apparently).
There's a scene, one of my favorites, in The Wire, where a gang member goes into a hardware store to buy a nail gun. He asks an older, white sales dude to give him the skinny on the nail guns on display. The sales guy picks up one and says it's the Cadillac of nail guns. He buys it and goes out to the SUV where his compatriot is waiting, where he tells his co-worker that he got the Lexus of nail guns.
The writer's analogy is much more accurate. MJ is widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time. To say someone is the MJ in a sport is saying that someone is the best in history for that particular sport. This kid doesn't even have a single gold medal.
Lebron James, on the other hand, was extremely hyped up as a high schooler. Everyone pretty much said he was going to be the next MJ. The potential for LBJ was limitless; same goes for the weightlifter.
I disagree that the title was click bait. It's a common occurrence in sports to reference athletes against well known popular athletes--especially when it comes to how extraordinarily dominant certain athletes were in their sport.
These sorts of comparisons have happened long before "click baiting" was a thing.
In this case, I believe the original title should be restored to it's original, even if it is premature.
My questioning the title was specific to mentioning Lebron, while the article mentions Michael Jordan instead.
I'm sure if you do it safely that's fine, but boy does that look dangerous to me. Awesome feat for anyone, really pretty unbelievable for a 14 year old.
They aren't that well trained either. And most well trained people will never clean and jerk 300+lbs. Even if every single kid who tried a 300lbs+ clean and jerk died from it on the spot, that still wouldn't make enough of a dent to make lifting a high risk sport.
The thing worth keeping in mind that people forget when questioning whether kids should lift, is that kids lift, or try to lift large percentages of their body weight to failure all the time during normal play. They have a training capacity and recovery ability that makes me insanely jealous as someone who's turned 40.
If lifting the weights they are physically able to is dangerous for them, then so is a lot of their regular playing.
Oly lifts are terrifying to look at, but assuming you have proper training most of these lifts are pretty safe as there are usually plenty of ways to "fail safely". I don't do oly lifts, but on occasion do power cleans to get into position to do overhead presses without a rack. That tends to terrify people around me too
Power clean is similar to the first part of the clean and jerk (where he pulls the bar explosively upwards and catches it), but in power clean you drive the bar further up into a near jump, and catch the bar much higher up (in a clean you drop down pretty much in squat position when catching).
In clean type movements you can generally fail by pushing yourself and the bar apart so the bar crashes to the floor. Similarly when putting a bar overhead - your main priority is to ensure the bar clears your head, and frankly that's not all that hard as no matter what grip you use, making the bar clear your hands is likely to get it mostly clear of your head.
My scariest experience - once in 10 years of doing power cleans into press position to do my overhead presses - was on a 1RM attempt where I started feeling dizzy halfway into my press, and felt I had to ditch the bar. Even then, worrying I'd faint, it took just a little nudge to get the bar far enough out from me to crash to the ground without touching me. Only caveat was that my fingers didn't clear totally, so I was pulled down after it and ended up dazed and confused on floor, hands still on the bar, but unhurt other than some slight bruises.
I've failed to complete part of the movement (usually the press at the end - you can usually power clean much more than you'll be able to overhead press) many times, but usually you'll know when it's not going to work and can maintain enough rigidity to put the bar down in a controlled way.
It is dangerous, but also rather safe if done properly, just like say driving (which still kills as many people as 9/11 every month in the US alone, you'd think national security budgets would fund driverless cars... well they do, but more than now).
But yeah there've been some really tragic accidents. If you put your hand on the bottom of your neck and you feel your spine, some people have dropped the bar on there and couldn't walk for the rest of their lives. Which is why there's quite a bit of hate for Crossfit from the oly/powerlifting community because a substantial portion of their activity isn't safe. (where at times, either the exercises, or the guidance are inadequate for safety).
Generally though it's pretty easy to move the bar/body when you fail in the movement, and a proper trainer would let you go through those movements first so you get a feel of how to 'escape' a failed lift. The only danger is if you're inexperienced with this, or if you weren't watching your breathing properly and faint during the exercise. (that kind of training/experience is usually extremely solid if you do olympic lifting or powerlifting under guidance. You'll be hard pressed to find an olympic weightlifting trainer who doesn't know what he's talking about. Crossfit hasn't matured as much and there's just too many trainers out there who are novice lifters and teach lifting, and focus on ridiculous amount of volume, and it's dangerous)
There are a few of reasons that powerlifting (squat/bench/deadlift) is more popular than weightlifting (Snatch/Clean and Jerk). The technique is much harder to learn for the explosive lifts, as the bar and lifter must move very fast for the lift to work at all. Olympic lifts generally require bumper plates (significantly more expensive than iron), though it is possible if painful to lower the weights back to the floor. And there is a much bigger genetic component to your limitations in explosive lifts than in the slower ones; the fraction of your deadlift that you can clean is very difficult to improve.
That said, if you can get the technique down (internet coaching or otherwise) it's a wonderful feeling to rack a power clean.
Power cleans are great, but they also feel massively simpler than clean and jerk. I picked up power cleans on my own, but I don't know if I'd dare try to teach myself clean and jerk without a coach.
EDIT: It also really annoyed me to see how they described power lifting vs. oly. As if you don't need core and leg strength and for deadlifts and squats. And for that matter most power lifters will practice additional lifts like overhead press too (or power cleans..)
Yeah, it is very annoying -- perhaps they just talked to an oly lifter?
For power lifters, the measure of an athlete is how much he can bench
press—something not included in Olympic competitions.
That's just flat out not true, and not something anyone familiar with powerlifting would say, except perhaps in a pejorative sense. For those of you who may be unfamiliar, the standard measure of a powerlifter is your total: the combined single rep maximum in three attempts of your squat, bench, and deadlift.
Yeah unless you're Eric Spoto the bench press contributes by far the least to your total. Powerlifters and olympic lifters also typically have deep respect for each other, as there is a broad intersection between the two sports.
Man this is very cool to see. I know part of the reason the US has been traditionally been subpar at Olympic Weightlifting is the lack of emphasis at the youth level. That said, my understanding is American coaches are leagues behind the rest of the world in understanding how to train oly lifters. Hopefully this kid has a good coach.
And also the USADA is much stricter in testing for PEDs than the WADA. The countries which dominate weightlifting are pretty heavy into PEDs and american olympic lifters (and from other countries, like Germany) will always be at a disadvantage in international competitions. I'm not saying this is the only reason, and your points are also valid, but this is a pretty big deal too.
To paraphrase Mark Rippetoe, when you say these foreign athletes are better because they take PEDs, what you're saying is that they are stronger than American weightlifters. One of the problems with American weightlifting training, as Rip argues, anyway, is an overemphasize on technique, and not enough work on basic strength.
One of the interesting things about high level athletes is that their routines are often terrible and they are succeeding in spite of not because of them. People with even an intermediate understanding of weightlifting and program design can easily point out massive flaws in many top NCAA and professional training routines. The philosophy tends to be when you are working with monsters it's better not to break them than it is to train hard and risk injury (which I think is idiotic and ultimately leads to far more injuries, but who am I to say). So looking at this guy's routine probably wouldn't help you anyway.
As for diet, the vast majority of a professional athlete's diet comes down to getting enough protein and carbs, with minor tweaks for individuals around things like meal timing, micronutrient content and fiber content. A great place to start for a 200lbs male is 220g protein/250g carbs/50g fat/30g fiber.
Sorry I know that's a disappointing answer, but I can tell you the real answer isn't that much more interesting. Elite level athletes certainly work incredibly hard, but great genes are still a prerequisite.
People with a "intermediate understanding of weightlifting and program design" have a long history of not having the faintest clue what they are talking about. Given how frequently fashions have shifted over the past 20-30 years, the armchair experts can't have all been right about whose routines are "terrible" and contain "massive flaws". Plyos or no plyos? O-lifts? HIT? Bodybuilding? Draw-ins, bracing, stabilization or old fashioned situps? Linear or non-linear periodization? 4-times a day training or "lots of rest"?
It's almost like there might be multiple ways of doing this stuff and that a lot of it doesn't matter nearly as much as people think, especially in a population that has to play a ton of their actual sport.
A lot of this IMO stems from confusing two populations, to wit: "elite athletes who are already beastly strong and conditioned, and training skills on a near full-time basis" and "the pool of perennial beginners/intermediates who make up the vast majority of sport science study populations, internet fora and personal training $$$".
I think I mostly agree with your sentiments about armchair experts, but I think you're giving the professional sports industry way too much credit. There are things reasonable people disagree about when it comes to training (you did a good job listing them), but there are also a lot of things that are pretty uncontroversially stupid happening (texans banning all squats from the weight room, for instance).
> It's almost like there might be multiple ways of doing this stuff and that a lot of it doesn't matter nearly as much as people think, especially in a population that has to play a ton of their actual sport.
This is certainly true especially in skill sports like basketball and even to an extent like football. In strength sports like weightlifting and powerlifting you don't actually see a ton of variation in program design.
> A lot of this IMO stems from confusing two populations, to wit: "elite athletes who are already beastly strong and conditioned, and training skills on a near full-time basis" and "the pool of perennial beginners/intermediates who make up the vast majority of sport science study populations, internet fora and personal training $$$".
I think there's a lot of truth in that, but I still hold to my point that a lot of pro athletes are doing demonstrably suboptimal programming and winning in spite of not because of their programming.
This sounds like someone who's just read Ben Graham telling DE Shaw that they're doing it all wrong, and index funds are the way to go. A massive lack of understanding and experience in what professionals with cutting edge research and resources are actually doing.
> texans banning all squats from the weight room, for instance
Hu? I know Dan Riley does not like squats, but he uses several different alternatives and still says that they can be effective if you're built properly for them.
Yeah, I meant barbell squats. Dan Riley's school of thought is extremely 1980s/1990s and does not reflect the "state of the art" in terms of strength training. He advocates using machine based squats, which greatly decrease the training usefulness of the movements. This is because they both isolate the movement to one plane, and limit the number of muscles involved in the movement. A linebacker hitting another linebacker is essentially a back squat, and in real life this happens in multiple planes and with all of your muscles. There is no advantage to using a machine, and many disadvantages.
In one piece[1] Dan says things like "To minimize shearing forces on the knee, we ask our players to keep the knees over the ankles in the squatting position."
This demonstrates (along with many other idiotic things he says in that piece) a relatively massive misunderstanding of biomechanics and is kind of disgraceful to hear coming from someone who is a strength coach for people paid millions of dollars a year.
Absolutely true. Gym rats and Joes have been ridiculously complicating their diets over the decades to squeeze out an at-best theoretical 1% boost or something. Also being 15 helps with a natural abundance of virtually-side-effect-free ridiculous testosterone and growth hormone leveles. But hard work paired with good genes still trumps all other considerations by a wide margin.
Hormone levels don't explain a 15 year old's performance against other 15 year old's (Cummings is the nr 1 ranked 15 year old in the world in his division), nor does it explain a better performance than 18 year olds who have higher testosterone levels.
Anyway I think the original point wasn't so much the people who obsess over diet that he's perhaps referring to. Rather the fact I can name you a dozen top athletes from the top of my head who pretty much lived on McDonalds, drank 2 litres of soda a day or ate multiple candy packs a day. Changing something ridiculous like that to merely a sensible, normal diet, can actually help, and it's different from obsessing about replacing legumes in your diet with quinoa which probably isn't going to give you any gains whatsoever.
This is really cool to see an American with such potential.
The explosion of Crossfit is exposing a lot of people to Olympic lifting. However, Crossfit's programming can be incredibly dangerous - encouraging Joe Sixpack to do such complex and technical lifts "AMRAP" (As Many Reps as Possible) is a recipe for serious injury. Source: I got rhabdo and was nearly hospitalized.
You're the second person I've heard that exact same scenario about on HN. I wasn't even aware it was a thing before I heard about it in reference to crossfit.
CrossFit has done more than USAW ever has and ever will do to get barbells in the hands of Americans. Too bad that it comes with serious side effects...
The other horrible part (besides exhaustion) is that I see so many people with horrible form on the first rep when they're totally fresh, nowhere close to exhaustion, and the trainer just screams '1, 2, 3!' etc, as opposed to 'dude holdup, here's what you're doing wrong'.
And this isn't just at local small shitty gyms which couldn't find decent trainers and are run by a novice trainer...
If you have no time, just check the single lift that starts at 2:30, and consider that the judges passed it, and that they passed it according to the rules of the crossfit event. I mean that's criminal negligence if you ask me!
Yes. Lift to exhaustion encourages poor form, which in turn encourages injuries. One size fits all also encourages injuries. It's just stupid. It's one thing getting hurt in something like football or jiu jitsu where it's part of the sport, but weightlifting shouldn't have such a high injury rate.
Yeah, Rhabdo is really serious. A family friend of mine got it and was just going to 'wait it out" until I told him to get to the hospital immediately. Seriously people, if you do a workout and start pissing blood, get to the hospital: Rhabdomyolysis is a serious syndrome due to a direct or indirect muscle injury. It results from the death of muscle fibers and release of their contents into the bloodstream. This can lead to complications such as renal (kidney) failure. This occurs when the kidneys cannot remove waste and concentrated urine.
I made rhabdo 2 weeks ago after doing just 80 squats (I haven't exercised my legs for about a year prior). I think it's pretty hard to make it and a pretty rare encounter in the emergency room.
I recommend you to show the wiki page of the rhabdomyolysis at the ER if you think you have it so they won't send you home because you look healthy (I have to thank HN because I read about crossfit and rhabdomyolysis here a few years ago and that's why I searched the Internet when my pee was Coca-Cola coloured 2 days after doing the aquats).
I had a week of hospitalization but I think I'm OK now (I have to do another set of analysis tomorrow to confirm).
Although it's a diagnostic I'm pretty proud about having, I hope it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.
That's why there's a voting system. If enough people think it's interesting, then it makes the front page. Trying to tell people what to vote for is not productive.
For the record, there is a large number of long time users to this site that are very serious about lifting in general. Furthermore, as it's been repeatedly stated, articles that are submitted to HN are what interest the community and many members of this community are interested in lifting.
Every time an article that has something to do with diet, exercise, or lifting gets posted we come out of the woodwork. Awesome goal by the way, I wish best of luck with it.
Powerlifting for 10 here. Just hit 40, and I'm stronger than I've ever been. What scared me into seriously exercising when I hit 30 was that it started being painful for me to walk up a single flight of stairs, and when I went to my doctor she looked at me with utter disdain and handed me a sheet of basic bodyweight exercises and sent me packing...
Now my 1RM squat is 192.5kg / 424lbs and my knees never give me trouble any more.
I think quite a few of us get into lifting partly because we need something to counteract the damage office jobs and sedentary lifestyles out of work do, and partly because it's something that fits the hacker mindset - weight lifting, whether oly or powerlifting or body building, lets you endlessly tweak programs and diets and measure results fairly precisely.
Hmm, I learned a bit about something I didn't know I didn't know much about. And then through the comments I learned a bit more. I'd say that's exactly why I come here :)
Of course we don't think that. Some people found it interesting, and it's good for HN to have a wide range of stories.
Most times when someone has a fixed idea of what this site is supposed to be about, they get it wrong. HN is supposed to be about literally anything, as long as it's intellectually interesting. We don't mean that in a highbrow sense—topics not traditionally thought of as intellectual are welcome. This story is perhaps borderline by HN's criteria, but at worst it's not far off, and the thread is substantive, so we decided not to call it off-topic.
Story diversity is super important here. No one would call Rust off-topic, yet we don't want a front page of all Rust stories. At least most of us don't!
Definitely not going to be a medal in Rio, that's now less than 1 year away and he's totalling just under 300kg, when the bronze in 2012 took a total of 332kg alone, and everyone who's lifting in the 330 range is about 20 years old. He'll make gains but I think it'll be too early for him at 16 to win a medal. (like his trainer said).
In 2016, very possible. He's definitely well on his way. I think the main thing to know is that he's not just a US nationals champ at his age (a country who won 0 WL medals at the olympics in 2012, i.e. not super significant). But rather that at his age, he is the nr 1 ranked in the world by the international weightlifting federation. 20 people lift more than he does, but they're all older by at least 1 full year (and others well into their 30s by now). One can wonder if he has what it takes to increase by 35-40kg in the next 5 years. He added as much over the last 12 months, but of course it gets exponentially more difficult as you go up. On paper it looks like he can do it but 5 years of dedication is a long time, and it's likely that he'll have to jump a weight division as he grows into an adolescent body. We'll have to see!
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[ 6.4 ms ] story [ 140 ms ] threadHere's the scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDpvkwBBu6U
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicia_Pearson
The writer's analogy is much more accurate. MJ is widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time. To say someone is the MJ in a sport is saying that someone is the best in history for that particular sport. This kid doesn't even have a single gold medal.
Lebron James, on the other hand, was extremely hyped up as a high schooler. Everyone pretty much said he was going to be the next MJ. The potential for LBJ was limitless; same goes for the weightlifter.
Also one has to point out, this is an article on the WSJ, whose majority of readership would likely know who Michael Jordan was.
These sorts of comparisons have happened long before "click baiting" was a thing.
In this case, I believe the original title should be restored to it's original, even if it is premature.
My questioning the title was specific to mentioning Lebron, while the article mentions Michael Jordan instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v8OexNKrug
At the age of 14. Most people can't deadlift that. This kid's a prodigy.
The thing worth keeping in mind that people forget when questioning whether kids should lift, is that kids lift, or try to lift large percentages of their body weight to failure all the time during normal play. They have a training capacity and recovery ability that makes me insanely jealous as someone who's turned 40.
If lifting the weights they are physically able to is dangerous for them, then so is a lot of their regular playing.
Power clean is similar to the first part of the clean and jerk (where he pulls the bar explosively upwards and catches it), but in power clean you drive the bar further up into a near jump, and catch the bar much higher up (in a clean you drop down pretty much in squat position when catching).
In clean type movements you can generally fail by pushing yourself and the bar apart so the bar crashes to the floor. Similarly when putting a bar overhead - your main priority is to ensure the bar clears your head, and frankly that's not all that hard as no matter what grip you use, making the bar clear your hands is likely to get it mostly clear of your head.
My scariest experience - once in 10 years of doing power cleans into press position to do my overhead presses - was on a 1RM attempt where I started feeling dizzy halfway into my press, and felt I had to ditch the bar. Even then, worrying I'd faint, it took just a little nudge to get the bar far enough out from me to crash to the ground without touching me. Only caveat was that my fingers didn't clear totally, so I was pulled down after it and ended up dazed and confused on floor, hands still on the bar, but unhurt other than some slight bruises.
I've failed to complete part of the movement (usually the press at the end - you can usually power clean much more than you'll be able to overhead press) many times, but usually you'll know when it's not going to work and can maintain enough rigidity to put the bar down in a controlled way.
But yeah there've been some really tragic accidents. If you put your hand on the bottom of your neck and you feel your spine, some people have dropped the bar on there and couldn't walk for the rest of their lives. Which is why there's quite a bit of hate for Crossfit from the oly/powerlifting community because a substantial portion of their activity isn't safe. (where at times, either the exercises, or the guidance are inadequate for safety).
Generally though it's pretty easy to move the bar/body when you fail in the movement, and a proper trainer would let you go through those movements first so you get a feel of how to 'escape' a failed lift. The only danger is if you're inexperienced with this, or if you weren't watching your breathing properly and faint during the exercise. (that kind of training/experience is usually extremely solid if you do olympic lifting or powerlifting under guidance. You'll be hard pressed to find an olympic weightlifting trainer who doesn't know what he's talking about. Crossfit hasn't matured as much and there's just too many trainers out there who are novice lifters and teach lifting, and focus on ridiculous amount of volume, and it's dangerous)
That said, if you can get the technique down (internet coaching or otherwise) it's a wonderful feeling to rack a power clean.
EDIT: It also really annoyed me to see how they described power lifting vs. oly. As if you don't need core and leg strength and for deadlifts and squats. And for that matter most power lifters will practice additional lifts like overhead press too (or power cleans..)
As for diet, the vast majority of a professional athlete's diet comes down to getting enough protein and carbs, with minor tweaks for individuals around things like meal timing, micronutrient content and fiber content. A great place to start for a 200lbs male is 220g protein/250g carbs/50g fat/30g fiber.
Sorry I know that's a disappointing answer, but I can tell you the real answer isn't that much more interesting. Elite level athletes certainly work incredibly hard, but great genes are still a prerequisite.
It's almost like there might be multiple ways of doing this stuff and that a lot of it doesn't matter nearly as much as people think, especially in a population that has to play a ton of their actual sport.
A lot of this IMO stems from confusing two populations, to wit: "elite athletes who are already beastly strong and conditioned, and training skills on a near full-time basis" and "the pool of perennial beginners/intermediates who make up the vast majority of sport science study populations, internet fora and personal training $$$".
> It's almost like there might be multiple ways of doing this stuff and that a lot of it doesn't matter nearly as much as people think, especially in a population that has to play a ton of their actual sport.
This is certainly true especially in skill sports like basketball and even to an extent like football. In strength sports like weightlifting and powerlifting you don't actually see a ton of variation in program design.
> A lot of this IMO stems from confusing two populations, to wit: "elite athletes who are already beastly strong and conditioned, and training skills on a near full-time basis" and "the pool of perennial beginners/intermediates who make up the vast majority of sport science study populations, internet fora and personal training $$$".
I think there's a lot of truth in that, but I still hold to my point that a lot of pro athletes are doing demonstrably suboptimal programming and winning in spite of not because of their programming.
Hu? I know Dan Riley does not like squats, but he uses several different alternatives and still says that they can be effective if you're built properly for them.
In one piece[1] Dan says things like "To minimize shearing forces on the knee, we ask our players to keep the knees over the ankles in the squatting position."
This demonstrates (along with many other idiotic things he says in that piece) a relatively massive misunderstanding of biomechanics and is kind of disgraceful to hear coming from someone who is a strength coach for people paid millions of dollars a year.
http://assets.houstontexans.com/assets/fanzone/installment48...
Also, you can get incredibly strong just on 3 squares and water and sleep. Either you have the genes and do the work, or you don't.
Anyway I think the original point wasn't so much the people who obsess over diet that he's perhaps referring to. Rather the fact I can name you a dozen top athletes from the top of my head who pretty much lived on McDonalds, drank 2 litres of soda a day or ate multiple candy packs a day. Changing something ridiculous like that to merely a sensible, normal diet, can actually help, and it's different from obsessing about replacing legumes in your diet with quinoa which probably isn't going to give you any gains whatsoever.
The explosion of Crossfit is exposing a lot of people to Olympic lifting. However, Crossfit's programming can be incredibly dangerous - encouraging Joe Sixpack to do such complex and technical lifts "AMRAP" (As Many Reps as Possible) is a recipe for serious injury. Source: I got rhabdo and was nearly hospitalized.
https://medium.com/@ericrobertson/crossfits-dirty-little-sec...
Cult of Work Past Exhaustion = Injuries.
And this isn't just at local small shitty gyms which couldn't find decent trainers and are run by a novice trainer...
I mean if you want to laugh and cry and watch a slightly offensive video, check this out: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22p3g0_deadlifts-from-the-...
If you have no time, just check the single lift that starts at 2:30, and consider that the judges passed it, and that they passed it according to the rules of the crossfit event. I mean that's criminal negligence if you ask me!
In no way this is related to what this site is about. There're hundreds of site where stuff like this is supposed to be posted and discussed.
I wouldn't care if I wouldn't need to read to all those cs and startup unrelated headlines.
I've been powerlifting for the last 2 years with the goal to be stronger at 40 years than I was at 30.
Now my 1RM squat is 192.5kg / 424lbs and my knees never give me trouble any more.
I think quite a few of us get into lifting partly because we need something to counteract the damage office jobs and sedentary lifestyles out of work do, and partly because it's something that fits the hacker mindset - weight lifting, whether oly or powerlifting or body building, lets you endlessly tweak programs and diets and measure results fairly precisely.
Most times when someone has a fixed idea of what this site is supposed to be about, they get it wrong. HN is supposed to be about literally anything, as long as it's intellectually interesting. We don't mean that in a highbrow sense—topics not traditionally thought of as intellectual are welcome. This story is perhaps borderline by HN's criteria, but at worst it's not far off, and the thread is substantive, so we decided not to call it off-topic.
Story diversity is super important here. No one would call Rust off-topic, yet we don't want a front page of all Rust stories. At least most of us don't!
In 2016, very possible. He's definitely well on his way. I think the main thing to know is that he's not just a US nationals champ at his age (a country who won 0 WL medals at the olympics in 2012, i.e. not super significant). But rather that at his age, he is the nr 1 ranked in the world by the international weightlifting federation. 20 people lift more than he does, but they're all older by at least 1 full year (and others well into their 30s by now). One can wonder if he has what it takes to increase by 35-40kg in the next 5 years. He added as much over the last 12 months, but of course it gets exponentially more difficult as you go up. On paper it looks like he can do it but 5 years of dedication is a long time, and it's likely that he'll have to jump a weight division as he grows into an adolescent body. We'll have to see!