Monthly Archives: September 2012

Qualified: Sarah Robles and Holley Mangold

Weightlifting has always been a male dominated sport. It started in the 1800’s and has lasted for centuries and has increasingly become popular through World Championship competitions. However, women’s Olympic weightlifting had only been implemented at the Olympic Games in 2000 in Sydney Australia, where Tara Nott took home the Gold for the USA Women’s Olympic Weightlifting team.

According to livestrong.com, the very first known female weightlifter was Ivy Russell from England, who started her career as a weightlifter at the age of 14 in 1921. Russell was the first woman to win a weightlifting contest in the 1930’s. It was not until the 1960’s and on that weightlifting competition championships and bodybuilding started to become popular because of athletes like Arnold Schwarzenegger and the popular rise of bodybuilding championships in California. Since then female athletes started to join the championship ranks; Karyn Marshall who competed internationally in (Jakarta, Manchester and Sarajevo) and Judy Glenney who competed in the Women’s National Championships, the Master’s National Championships and the World Master’s championships.

Both women were popular competitors in the early 1980’s and won several championship titles. The rise in popularity among women weightlifters eventually led to the Olympics introducing weightlifting as a competition in 2000. The men’s Olympic Weightlifting has been in place since the late 1800’s.

The qualifications to be an Olympic weightlifting competitor are pretty tough to meet. Countries are able to enter up to 10 athletes into the qualification round split between men and women. There are also individual qualification spots for athletes ranked in the top 15^th places within each body weight category.

There are seven different body weight categories in the Olympic games;

–          48 kg (106 lb)

–          53 kg (117 lb)

–          58 kg (128 lb)

–          63 kg (139 lb)

–          69 kg (152 lb)

–          75 kg (165 lb)

–          75 + kg; which the two USA women’s team members are competing in

Olympic Weightlifting is judged by two succinct moves; the “snatch” and “clean and jerk.” According to Olympic format rules; “each lifter is allowed three attempts at the Snatch and three attempts at the Clean and Jerk and their best lift in each is combined to determine their overall result. If an athlete fails to make a valid lift with any of their three attempts in the snatch, they are eliminated. When a tie occurs, the athlete with the lower bodyweight is declared the winner. If two athletes lift the same total weight and have the same bodyweight, the winner is the athlete who lifted the total weight first.”

For the US women’s team, the athletes that will be competing in the 2012 games are Sarah Robles from San Jacinto California who was named “America’s strongest woman” and Holley Mangold, from Dayton Ohio who is popular from her appearance on MTV’s True Life: I’m the big girl, TV documentary and also because she is the younger sister of Jets center Nick Mangold. Both women are competing in the 75+ weight class.

Us lazy, nonathletic couch potatoes can finally be happy, athletes suffer from health problems too and their health problems might just be worse.

Aside from the rigid diet that overloads their system with high levels of protein that can hurt the liver, the heart is effected by the levels of stress, the release of high levels of electrolytes without replenishment, low potassium levels, and an imbalance of sugars can lead to diabetes and heart failure, not to mention the stress and strain put on joints and muscles.

One of the main reasons an athlete can suffer from physical ailments is by having poor form when lifting heavy weight and some injuries take time to become noticeable, and by then the damage has been done. But there is no time to heal, a true athlete must push through the pain or use alternate muscles to move the stress to another point of their body, where eventually that pinpointed pressure will result in another injury.

In some more gruesome cases, when an athletes form is really off, the weightlifter can lose balance and it may cost them a ligament.

Panida Khamsrri of Thailand drops the weights with an injured elbow in Women’s 48KG

Us lazy, nonathletic couch potatoes can finally be happy, athletes suffer from health problems too and their health problems might just be worse.

Aside from the rigid diet that overloads their system with high levels of protein that can hurt the liver, the heart is effected by the levels of stress, the release of high levels of electrolytes without replenishment, low potassium levels, and an imbalance of sugars can lead to diabetes and heart failure, not to mention the stress and strain put on joints and muscles.

One of the main reasons an athlete can suffer from physical ailments is by having poor form when lifting heavy weight and some injuries take time to become noticeable, and by then the damage has been done. But there is no time to heal, a true athlete must push through the pain or use alternate muscles to move the stress to another point of their body, where eventually that pinpointed pressure will result in another injury.

In some more gruesome cases, when an athletes form is really off, the weightlifter can lose balance and it may cost them a ligament.

Panida Khamsrri of Thailand drops the weights with an injured elbow in Women’s 48KG

Yoga + Cross-fit Training

Since yoga has hit the workout scene, yoga mats, bags and all types of yoga gear have been flying off the shelves especially among women consumers/gym rats. But with the new craze of cross-fit and eager women who flock to sign up, yoga has taken a back seat for a bit.

Cross-fit is not your average workout fad, but since it has become more accessible and marketable because of the Reebok cross-fit games and the growing popularity of women’s Olympic weightlifting; some cross-fit gyms have been accommodating women by creating classes just for them.

But what does that mean for yoga? Are we not going to see yoga mats tied to the backs of gym rats anymore? Not necessarily. Its more than likely that once newbie cross-fitters start to truly understand the benefits of adding yoga to their workout, yoga will stick around longer and even grow stronger because of the benefits that add to cross-fit training.

For instance, a typical cross-fit work out does not contain a long period of stretches; cross-fitters just jump right into a “warm-up” that is normally the average person’s workout, ie; jump-roping at high intensity for 15 minutes. So stretching is not necessarily a fundamental part of the work-out.

However, yoga offers 90 minutes of stretching, muscle relaxation and strengthening and  breathing techniques to improve blood circulation. Yoga thus improving cross-fit workouts that may put stress on muscles that need the extra care which may probably prove that it will never die and has lived beyond its “fad” years.

Yoga + Cross-fit Training

Since yoga has hit the workout scene, yoga mats, bags and all types of yoga gear have been flying off the shelves especially among women consumers/gym rats. But with the new craze of cross-fit and eager women who flock to sign up, yoga has taken a back seat for a bit.

Cross-fit is not your average workout fad, but since it has become more accessible and marketable because of the Reebok cross-fit games and the growing popularity of women’s Olympic weightlifting; some cross-fit gyms have been accommodating women by creating classes just for them.

But what does that mean for yoga? Are we not going to see yoga mats tied to the backs of gym rats anymore? Not necessarily. Its more than likely that once newbie cross-fitters start to truly understand the benefits of adding yoga to their workout, yoga will stick around longer and even grow stronger because of the benefits that add to cross-fit training.

For instance, a typical cross-fit work out does not contain a long period of stretches; cross-fitters just jump right into a “warm-up” that is normally the average person’s workout, ie; jump-roping at high intensity for 15 minutes. So stretching is not necessarily a fundamental part of the work-out.

However, yoga offers 90 minutes of stretching, muscle relaxation and strengthening and  breathing techniques to improve blood circulation. Yoga thus improving cross-fit workouts that may put stress on muscles that need the extra care which may probably prove that it will never die and has lived beyond its “fad” years.