Stuart sent me this vid. Quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. Seriously.
Tagged with: cormax • funny • idiot • lift • machine • olympic • smith
Filed under: News
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Cormax: Weightlifting for Idiots
Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at
8:51 pm
9 Comments
Leave a Reply
Follow Me!
Olympic Weightlifting
wow. that is really sport specific conditioning right there. something I never thought I would see. lets lift heavy without training our bodies how to control the weight. sounds like and acl tear waiting to happen
These machines have their place believe it or not. Compensatory Acceleration can be done not only safely but more importantly, while training alone which greatly improves CNS. Of course these machines will never take the place of Olympic Lifts, but they were not meant to do so. If I was training an athlete and wanted them to do weighted jump squats, or weighted chest throws these machines would be the BEST choice. And these movements are used a lot in sports like track and field. So as everything, it has its place depending on the goal.
I used a lot of these type of movements on machines on “light” days to keep the CNS stimulated while achieving a 190kg clean, 180 jerk and 150 snatch in training at Ironworks.
Thanks for your reply D. Of course, I did “mostly” mean it as a joke (I’m prone to that and outlandish titling of posts, it’s a curse). I think the presentation of the video has a lot to do with making it seem particularly funny (snatching with those things is more than hilarious looking, you must admit).
Like curls and the smith machine, I realize these things have there place. And the applications you’re talking about seem reasonable.
However, I think I’m always skeptical of machines, not for their lack of usefulness, but because of their price tag (once a poor poor boy, always a poor boy). The cost-benefit ratio is rather low when looking at their astronomical cost. So, outside of the range of large schools and mega-gyms, they just aren’t realistic.
A few med-balls, some blocks to jump onto, etc will suffice and you’ll likely get very similar results. Of course, without supervision, some exercises like jump squats with a bar could get hairy! But, it’s all a question of need when money is tight … and it always is.
By the way, it sounds like you are quite accomplished in your lifts. Do you still compete? And Tom Hirtz is a great guy. The whole Ironworks crew is awesome. We’re all lucky in Oregon Weightlifting.
All of you guys including YOU are great for keepin the sport going in Oregon! I trained under Tom, and Gene and Jon are like my fathers!
But no, I do not compete anymore. I too was a poor boy, so the best choice for me was to put my focus on business and leave weightlifting for a bit. I ended up in Dubai, where I am in talks to be the youth coach for the UAE Olympic Team. So I guess it paid off, but time will tell:-) My Brother is the Basketball coach there.
Keep up the great site and work, and I am sure I will see ya at a Oregon meet or International meet soon!
Thanks for the encouragement. It’s a great sport. And tons of fun!
It sounds like you and your brother are doing great. Good luck with your adventures! It’s a small sport, I’m sure we’ll run into one another.
From the sound of these posts, none of you have ever used the CorMax machines before. I was a powerlifter in high school and college, particularly with power cleans and snatch. These are not designed to do the exact same movements because these machines pneumatically slow the lift process, requiring a much farther pull than standard training. In fact, they are designed to be, essentially, plyometric lifts of all types. This includes traditional olympic style (within the constraints of the machine, obviously) but also jump squates, plyometric bench press, plyometric shoulder press, etc. The additional stress of the pneumatic “brakes” force a longer press, but a slowed descent. Which, for me, actually made the lifting harder, the landing softer, and the overall workout made me nearly throw up, and my brother did. For me the double hit of lifting the weight explosively, and the aerobic strain of the plyometric movement was more than enough for me.
This system is preposterous. Tantamount to leg presses being awesome for productive hip extension. I guarantee the guy that made this device probably said that dumbbells are the same as kettlebells “everything you can do with a KB you can do with a DB”. Terrible.
What’s wrong with moving some serious Iron around? When did that become too simplistic? Why is hard work so disdained by our society?
I retort: being weak is a choice.
One more thing, Alexeyev, Siff and more importantly Verkhoshansky would be having a complete meltdown about this.
I agree that there is a strange disdain for doing anything remotely related to hard work in America.
The myth in America is that we are a nation of workaholics. I don’t buy it. There’s a reason the Squat rack in most gyms is never used … except for curls, of course!