To the 100th anniversary of Russian weightlifting
The Development of Youth Weightlifting in Our Country
English summary of Tyazhelaya Atletika. Ezhegodnik 1985 (Moscow: Fizkultura i Sport, 1985), pp. 8–11: the text is paraphrased, not translated.
High results in modern weightlifting come not only from scientific training methods and sound technique but also from early specialisation. Boys now start lifting in youth sports schools (DYuSSh) at 12–13 and compete at 13–14, but the conclusion that heavy exercise is good for the growing body was reached only gradually. Over twenty years ago even doctors thought weights suited only adult men, and rules and syllabuses restricted age sharply: the rules of 1920, 1924, 1927, 1930, 1933 and 1936 admitted only men of 20 or older.
Early practice against the ban
Despite the ban, some teenagers trained young and did well. Merited Master of Sport A. M. Petrov of Leningrad began at 16 and at 20 took third place at the seventh USSR individual and team championships in the 58 kg class. He stayed at the top for twenty years (1927–1948) as USSR champion, nine-time medallist and record holder (world record, 1947). Coaches' experience gradually refuted the notion of harm, and from 1937 competitors had to be 18, with training allowed from 17.
The war did great damage to Soviet sport: in 1946 only 256 people lifted in Moscow, just 62 of them ranked. In 1947–1948, on an order of the All-Union Committee for Physical Culture and Sport, an All-Union strongmen's contest, a mass event on an elementary programme (two-hand press, clean and jerk, and a deadlift from the platform), was held for men of 17 to 40 to find able youngsters. Yet the 1948 and 1950 rules admitted men from 18, and 17-year-olds only with a doctor's permission. Syllabuses were equally inconsistent: the 1946 programme for club sections allowed training from 16, the one of two years later again set 17.
No research yet confirmed or refuted the belief that lifting harmed teenagers. Coaches were convinced that early starts were possible, but doctors lacked a scientific basis to allow them. Nevertheless, in Tbilisi, Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev coaches unofficially took younger boys after the war. The Olympic champion R. A. Chimishkyan, who began at 15, became USSR champion at 19 in 1949; other young lifters were less gifted and won no big titles. Abroad, the six-time world champion (1938–1951) John Davis of the USA won the light-heavyweight title (then up to 82.5 kg) before he was 18.
The youth school and the myth of stunted growth
In the late 1940s leading coaches in many cities enrolled gifted teenagers. In 1950 Merited Master of Sport N. I. Koshelev started a youth sports school of the Leningrad trade-union council, taking in 15–16-year-olds. Results had risen so far that top lifters could no longer be trained quickly, and experience with teenagers pointed to the need for a children's weightlifting school. Koshelev and the coaches set out a sound case for the benefits of lifting to the young body, which helped convince the physical culture department of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (VTsSPS) that weightlifting sections in children's schools were needed.
The warning persisted that barbell work stunts growth and harms the spine, and opponents pointed out that most lifters were short, stocky men with well-developed shoulders and arms. Two factors shaped their build. First, from 1934 to 1951 there were six classes (56, 60, 67.5, 75, 82.5 and over 82.5 kg), and in four of them relatively short men competed: taller men who gained muscle became heavier and had to move up, and without gaining muscle their results did not improve, so taller youngsters moved to the heavyweights or left, and coaches picked short, well-muscled novices. Second, training relied on repetitions with many lifts per set and on exercises building mass in legs, trunk and above all arms and shoulders, with the biceps in particular. Method still affects build: after the press was abolished, average height in the light classes rose by 1–3 cm, since less arm and shoulder work meant less bulk, so a lifter of the same height could compete in a lighter class.
The 1953 experiment
To settle these disputes, the world's first experimental children's sports school of VTsSPS opened in Leningrad in 1953, largely through Z. A. Fedorenko of the VTsSPS student-youth sector. Boys of 14–16 trained there and were studied under Professor A. I. Kurachenkov (LNIIFK), with the coaches observing pedagogically and Dr M. F. Savelyev medically. Over two years the team asked whether barbell work harmed normal development, slowed skeletal growth, caused flat feet, produced spinal pathology or affected posture, or disturbed the cardiovascular system. All lifters were examined when groups formed, during training and after two years, and swimmers of the same age served as a comparison group in the same medical, electrotonometric and X-ray tests, since swimming was then thought to speed growth.
The results refuted the idea of harm. Barbell exercise had a marked health effect and favourable functional and morphological changes; heart and lungs tested sound; the skeleton grew normally; the spine showed no pathology and, with a stronger muscular corset, posture improved. Feet did not flatten, and sometimes the arch even rose. The study concluded that the claim of harm had no scientific basis and that early specialisation should be decided positively.
Slow progress
It took many years for the Leningrad experience to spread. Many specialists and doctors still doubted and, though not objecting openly, held youth lifting back, so age limits fell slowly: syllabuses of 1954, 1957 and 1962 admitted youths only from 16–17, and the rules of 1953, 1957 and 1962 allowed competition from 17, occasionally 16. Some coaches worked with younger lifters anyway: Ye. I. Lopatin in Moscow, S. I. Rozenfeld in Rostov-on-Don, V. P. Agudin in Tallinn and Ya. R. Krinitsky in Kiev; in Kharkov the two-time Olympic champion Leonid Zhabotinsky began at 15 in 1953. But for years the country had only one weightlifting school, in Leningrad, and no official syllabus, so no new departments opened.
In December 1957 the presidium of the scientific and methodological council of the USSR Committee for Physical Culture and Sport resolved on weightlifting among teenagers and youths, calling for programmes and a methodological letter for children's and youth schools and sports society sections for those of 15 and over. A programme for youth schools appeared in 1959, and in July 1960 the Central Council of the Union of Sports Societies approved one for weightlifting departments of children's schools, admitting boys from 15. All-Union competitions began in 1957 for lifters up to 23 (1957–1958) and up to 22 (1959–1962); USSR junior championships for those up to 20 have been held yearly since 1963, and all-union competitions for 17-year-olds since 1968. Teenagers needed a different approach from adults, so a methodological letter, Weightlifting: Work with Youth Groups (1958), covered training for 15–16-year-olds, and a textbook, Weightlifting for Youths, followed in 1961. Still, opponents kept citing the lack of further research and held youth lifting back.
The last barriers fall
In 1965–1966 L. I. Stogova examined the health, physical development and growth of 466 young lifters, novices, ranked lifters and Masters of Sport who had begun specialised training at 13–18 and trained for 3–5 years. Health deviations were no more frequent than in other sports, though lifters caught colds more often, from poor hardening and neglect of general physical training. Their lungs were well developed, vital capacity differed little from track and field athletes', and lifting did not harm growth.
After this study rejuvenation accelerated. From 1968 DYuSSh accepted boys from 14, and from 1974 from 13; club sections lowered the entry age to 14 in 1974. Competition was opened to 14-year-olds in 1969; from 1973 there were two groups, 14–15 and 16–17; in 1981 the groups became 13–15 (junior) and 16–18 (senior). Since 1982 13–14-year-olds (younger group) may enter republican events, 15–16-year-olds (middle) all-union events and 17–18-year-olds (older) USSR championships.
At the end of 1984 the USSR Sports Committee approved new regulations for weightlifting schools, in force from September 1985. First-year training groups of DYuSSh and SDYuSShOR (specialised Olympic-reserve schools) take boys from 13, and beginners' groups of DYuSSh from 12; under the 1974 regulations on health groups, boys of 10 may join general fitness groups with a strength emphasis. The new structure, with clear continuity from general fitness to top-class groups, will surely benefit youth lifting and raise Soviet lifters' skill.