Here’s a question from the other day by domjo54:

I feel like this is a dumb question, but going back to Justin’s other post about good vs bad barbells, why are wrist injuries common on the olympic lifts when using shit BBs?

domjo54 is referencing the post I did about York Barbell products, and I commented how I power cleaned with a shitty bar at a fitness facility and “almost broke my wrists”. Bars are like beer: you can have some bars that are elegant and satisfying while using others is analogous to drinking fermented deer piss. Cheaper bars are made from a shittier cut of steel, and that’s why you’ll usually find thicker bars in a fitness facility. If the crappy piece of steel is going to have similar tensile and yield strengths to a good piece of steel, it will have to be thicker to account for its inherent weakness. Thus, bars in fitness facilities are thicker bars at 30mm and sometimes up to 32mm. It’s like Burt Reynolds wearing a giant cowboy hat: ridiculous.

Bars are also put together differently. Better bars have some spin so that the rotation of the plates doesn’t torque the shaft on your back or in your hands (even powerlifting bars spin for this purpose). When an experienced lifter talks about training with good or bad bars, they are usually referring to the steel’s properties and the spin. The bar I was using to power clean with was a bit thick (probably 30mm) and it barely spun. When my wrists would turn over during as I power cleaned, there was resistance to the natural wrist flexion and then extension. The resistance irritated the ligaments on the back of the wrist. The pain didn’t limit me, but it was just irritating because I can’t use my good bar that is sitting in the garage.

There can be other wrist injuries associated with Olympic lifting, but they are often the lifter or coach’s fault (racking a clean or snatch, jerk position, rack position in the jerk, etc.) and aren’t caused by how shitty the bar is. I had pain just from doing some easy power cleans, so I decided not to even attempt snatching since the snatch has a much faster turnover at the wrists with a greater distance traveled. There is more potential for stress on the wrists during a snatch even though less weight is used. Wrist irritation or injuries during the turnover phase of a snatch or a clean can occur from a bar that doesn’t spin well, and this is why Olympic lifters are particular about the quality of their bar.
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Edit:Kendrick Farris (85kg) will be competing tomorrow. Good luck, Kendrick.
The 2010 Olympic weightlifting World Championships are pumping out videos. I am very impressed with this video of Liao Hui (69kg) who attempted a world record in the snatch (missed it), and had a world record in the clean and jerk and the total.
Snatch 154, 160, 166x WR attempt
CJ 184, 198 WR, –
Total 358kg WR

PR Friday

Every Friday we post our personal records in lifting, eating, busting through clothes, or my speedo pictures. This is done so we can show support for one another, but I like it because it keeps me updated on the regular posters of the site. If you haven’t had any PR’s of late, then you can just give an update of your training. I like that.