The First Perfect Lift I Ever Saw

Last night at the workout, Adam was talking about snatching 110 kg. if everything went perfectly.  I told him that perfect lifts are not very common and that in truth in my 47 years of watching weightlifting I’d only seen a few perfect lifts.  It brought to mind the first perfect lift that I saw and it generated some thoughts about how my weightlifting eye had to develop in order to tell if I was actually seeing a perfect lift.

I saw my first weightlifting meet at an auditorium called the Playhouse in downtown Los Angeles in 1962 when I was a 10th grader.  Because it was an auditorium we had to watch from the front so even if we knew what to look for it would have difficult to see it from that perspective.  Isaac Berger, the 1956 Olympic gold medalist, was clearly the best lifter there, but all of the lifts looked impressive to me, the first time observer.

I started training at the Los Angeles Downtown YMCA in 1967 with a number of very good lifters and had attended some top meets so by this time I was developing an eye for technique.  When I started coaching juniors in 1969 I was forced to sharpen by visual acuity even more but it wasn’t until 1972 that I was sure that I’d seen a perfect lift.  I’m going to leave the two-hands press out of this discussion because the judging standards from 1962 to 1972 were constantly changing, and I don’t think anyone that was around during that period could define what a perfect lift might have been in that event.

The competition was the 1972 Olympic Games weightlifting in Munich.  The Amateur Athletic Union had offered a package deal that included airfare and hotel for $350.00 so I decided to go over with my coach, Bob Hise and take in the greatest weightlifting event on the planet.  The event venue (I believe it was called Messegelende), was fantastic with a huge stage and seating three quarters of the way around.  The railings were painted in bright colors and festive banners added to the mood.  Germany and the city of Munich had gone all out to present a cheery facade to the world which would be watching on 24 hour telecasts every detail of the Games.  I remember that we were able to get seats about half way up the stands and to the side of the stage–a perfect vantage point from which to watch a weightlifting competition.

The first day of competition was for the 52 kg. class or flyweights as they were called at that time.  The eventual winner was Zygmunt Smalcerz of Poland who would later go on to become an outstanding coach of the Polish national team.   But the performance that left me aghast was the fourth attempt snatch of 114 kg. for a world record.  The lifter taking this weight was a lesser known Japanese lifter named Koji Miki.  Although he held the world record at 113.5, he failed on his third attempt at 115.  The rules at the time allowed for fourth attempts to be taken but only for world record attempts with the weight called for being as little as .5 kg. over the existing record.  So Miki asked for a 4th attempt with 114 kg. or aproximately 251.5 lbs.

I watched him address the bar, set his grip and then pull.  In a twinkling of an eye the bar was locked overhead while he sat in a deep squat.  I was aghast.  In every lift I’d ever seen previously I could have pointed out something that could have been executed better.  This time–NO!  Miki could not have pulled the bar any higher, straighter or faster.  He could not have flashed under the bar in any less time and he could not have positioned himself in a squat any lower.

Although I was to witness many more outstanding, inspirational efforts over the nine days of weightlifting competition in Munich, only one lift was flawless.  Only one lift was perfect.  I feel fortunate to have had the eye to see such a perfect lift.  Thank you, Mr. Miki.

Foundation for Sports Conditioning Opens Venice High Teen Fitness Program

Last year one of my clients, Deborah Robinson, asked me to get involved with her then newly founded group, The Foundation for Sports Conditioning.  At the time Deborah had come to me to learn more about training on the snatch and clean and jerk so that she could more successfully coach her students in a pilot program at Venice High School.  She had set up a program which was essentially an outsourcing of strength and conditioning for the girls basketball and volleyball teams.  I found this to be a novel approach since so many inner city schools did not have the staff or facilities to conduct adequate strength and conditioning for their athletes.  What she was doing was bringing in the equipment, setting it up and coaching the students, all with the blessing of the school administration and the athletic department.

Deborah has a background in dance and track and field and is the most flexible and enthusiastic person I’ve trained in the past few years.  I don’t want to divulge her age, but she is north of 25.  She and her husband Charles put together the foundation, organized a board of directors (I’m on the board), and applied for a grant from the California endowment to cover the expenses of running the program.  Recently the grant was awarded to the Foundation and the initial program will take wing on September 18th at Los Angeles Venice High School.  Athletes and non-athletes will be encouraged to participate in the program where they will learn about the benefits of proper physical exercise and nutrition.

Athletes from girls soccer, girls basketball, boys basketball and boys soccer will join in the program and non-athletes are being referred by the school.

The name of the program is It’s All About the Ball/Teen Fitness Program, and it has the blessing of principal Lonnie Wallace.  The 8 week program will stress overall strength development, dynamic flexibility, cardiovascular fitness, balance and trunk stability, nutritional education, mentoring and counseling and evaluation.  If this program is as successful as it promises to be, the plan is to expand it to more schools.  Deborah and Charles eventually plan on involving interns from local colleges interested in getting involved in the strength and conditioning field who are in need of real world experience.

I was able to connect Charles with my friend, Dr. John Garhammer  who was able to direct some graduate students from the Exercise Science program at Cal State University Long Beach to provide evaluations of the program.

I think that this will serve as a great model to members of the strength and conditioning community as well as the public education establishment to show how private organizations can develop relationships that will prove to be beneficial to students and society in general.  Eventually this program could be brought to a large number of inner city schools in need of good strength and conditioning and fitness instruction.  It would serve as a training ground for upcoming strength and conditioning professionals and it would eventually influence the lives of a large number of students who might not otherwise be exposed to these concepts and practices.  In the long term Deborah and Charles are hopeful that they can interest some large sports oriented corporations to get involved as well.  This would create an effective union of private industry, a non-profit organization, and the public school systems working to improve the lives of many otherwise disadvantaged students.  A big thumbs up to Deborah and Charles!!!!

Mr. Miyagi coaches at a weightlifting meet

My hair is grayer now and more "Miyagi-ish"

A couple of weeks ago Marta and I were having lunch at the Wonderful Chinese restaurant which has a pretty good lunchtime buffet.  As you should know weightlifters are pretty good at finding buffets.  At the adjoining table, a fairly large, gregarious guy kept looking over at me and he finally decided to ask me “Who do people mistake you for?”  I pondered briefly and then replied that some people occasionally refer to me as Mr. Miyagi.  “That’s right,” he proclaimed, “and you do.” 

“I used to manage Pat Morita (the actor who played the Mr. Miyagi character for in the Karate Kid movies) and you look just like him,” the guy said and then we got started talking and I found out that he was Dave Wilder, the women’s softball coach at nearby Glendale Community College.  He invited me over to watch a practice and offer my strength and conditioning take on his team.  I never made it because of a case of food poisoning (not from the wonderful food at Wonderful Chinese!), but it was just another thread in the Mr. Miyagi theme that occasionally pops up in my life.

When I was coaching the U.S. weightlifting team at the Goodwill Games in 1990, my fellow and long time coach John Thrush was doing the color commentary for television Turner Broadcasting and he said that the chatter between all the tech people kept referring to me as “Mr. Miyagi”. 

Then during last year’s writers’ strike here in L.A., one of the producers came up with the idea of a reality with celebrities competing in Olympic events.  A film crew was sent out to shoot some footage of me coaching one of my athletes, Adam Zuckerman, to see if I would be appropriate as one of the coaches for the celebrities.  Out of curiosity I asked whom I might be coaching and (some pipe organ riffs here) the answer was Ralph Macchio (yeah, the Karate Kid).  Fortunately or unfortunately the writers’ strike was resolved and I never got the chance to coach Daniel-san on the tube. 

Yesterday, I put on my best Mr. Miyagi face and went down to coach Adam at a meet at a Crossfit in Lake Forest.  I stood there with that dispassionate Mr. Miyagi look on my face as Adam snatched 95 kg., cleaned and jerked 121 kg. and totaled 216, the latter two being personal records.  It was a good day!