I remember when I was a teenager in the early eighties and seeing John Davis featured in some of the old Iron Man and Strength and Health magazines. I love how he gently puts the bar down under extreme control. What a beast and a great man.
This is a lot more common than you think... If you've never seen someone snatch split you need to get out more. My weightlifting coach had me start with this due to mobility and not having shoes
John Davis, one of only 3 to win a World or Olympic championship 8 times. This, despite having his career interrupted by WW II, and weighing only 210 to 230 lbs, when all competitors over 198 lifted together. He often defeated men who outweighed him by 50 to 100 lbs. What could he do today with modern technique, training and gear? I doubt we'll see his like, again.
Not to mention he was a black dude during that time. Read his book talking about how gyms wouldnt let him train, top weightlifters wouldnt mentor/train with him & how he would miss meals and sleep out in his car due to segregation. Davis overcame all that and still became the champ.
Could you imagine trying to split clean 350 pounds, failing, and then crashing down on your back knee. I feel like there were quite a few knee injuries back then.
The USA was still dominant in WL then. In just a few years, having recovered from WW2, the Russians and East Bloc countries would pull ahead and stay ahead for years to come. By the way, Norb Schemansky won gold in these Olympic Games in the 90k class. He'd go on to win 2 more Olympic medals (he won silver in London, 1948), both bronze in Rome and Tokyo.
На олимпиаде в Риме золото взял Юрий Власов. Величайший советский спортсмен супермэн. Но американцы действительно молодцы, их легенда Пауль Андерсон был вдохновителем Юрия Власова. Юрий Власов недавно умер. Это была ещё эпоха чистого спорта. После юрия Власова был Леонид Жаботинский, а потом был великий Василий Алексеев который поставил более 80 мировых рекордов. Великий железный спорт одним словом.
Different times, different standards, different understanding of technique. Let's not forget that davis could lift the appolons axle overhead. Many world class 300+ lb strongmen of today cannot.
The technique is amazing. I can't tell if this is an early crossfit meet or just a bunch of powerlifters who decided to try the olympic lifts for a laugh.
it was actually good technique at the time. Rules were different back then. The bar was not allowed to make contact with any part of the body aside from hands ( and shoulders in the event of the press/jerk..) this made for the lifts looking much different. Also setting the weight back down under control was required as well so that adds another difficulty to how the lifts had to be performed.
its too bad no-one split cleans or snatches. the weights they were doing back then were only slightly less heavy than they are today for their weight classes.
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Yes but 1030 pounds what the total that he lifted, they combined the total amount of weight lifted in the snatch, press and Clean & jerk into the total.
People ate real food 3 times a day back then. Now it is mostly ultra processed so people are fat and their eating window is 16 hours not 8 hours what it was back then.
@@embro6474??? I agree with you to some degree but processed foods mostly affect lower class or uneducated individuals who eat fast food or canned foods etc. It is not exclusive but more extreme in the states too it's not as bad everywhere. Top athletes are almost always going to have their diet on lockdown, so your point is moot. The cause is msot likely the advamcement of the agriculture industry and technology increasing accessibility to food and verities of food, and the types of lifestyle that can sustain more time to eat and recover
Better drugs now...hellyah...there's this Russian 235 lb barbell babe Tatiana Kashirina same weight as John Davis who easily would have beaten these guys by 30-50lbs per lift !!! LOL How embarrassing that would be huh!!! LOL Gotta love those drugs. But her technique is unbelievably advance too tho.
+bthvnyt Yeah, definitely. But remember, these guys were using the split snatch and split clean, both of which are biomechanically far inferior to the squat snatch and clean.
clayoliver555 Beyond that, Kashirina actually may outweigh someone like Davis and the so-called "heavyweights" of the time. Wikipedia has her at 100 kg.
It was a different time. These men were very very strong even if they did not lift as much as much as they did today. As pointed out new techniques were developed for the snatch and clean and jerk. Yes they used steroids which were introduced by the Soviets but their drug protocol was nothing like it is today. Hepburn, Paul Anderson, John Grimek et al were very strong.
@@odessafile75 in 1952 i doubt there were much steroids at all, the only one that existed was testosterone which was not easy to get and was relatively inaccessible and unknown by 99% of lifters at the time. Only a small handful of lifters were using it at the time and it was largely the Soviets
