Who's stronger Olympic weight lifters or ESPN's Worlds Strongest Man?

[tom1]

I'm wondering how the super heavy weight olympic lifters compare in strength to the world's strongest man competitors seen on ESPN? The olympic guys are mostly fat, but still strong and more WSM guys are cut, like Marius Pujenaski (sp?). In general who's stronger?

I would say they are probably comparable strength wise. Where the WSM guys rule would be on their cardiovascular conditioning. But I'm sure there would be some oly lifters who could hold their own.

[Tuna Fish]

I think it depends on how you measure their respective strength.

The two types of events (strongman & Olympic lifting) are totally different. The only way to really know would be to have some type of event that pits the two types of lifters in a head-to-head competition.

Until then, there will only be speculation.

Tuna

[georgep]

I have to say that Iranian bloke who broke the world record for the clean and jerk looked like he'd be able to look after himself.

[abarlament]

Originally Posted by tom1

I'm wondering how the super heavy weight olympic lifters compare in strength to the world's strongest man competitors seen on ESPN?

In short, they have different kinds of strength. As far as maximal strength, they are probably comparable.

The olympic guys are mostly fat, but still strong and more WSM guys are cut, like Marius Pujenaski (sp?). In general who's stronger?

It has to do with the requirements of their sport. The heavy weight weightlifters (the only ones who are "mostly fat", the others have to make weight which results in them being lean) do not need to be lean to do good at their event, on the contrary, the bigger you are, the more you can lift.

The strongmen, on the other hand, do more work in hte anaerobic threshhold level, and they don't have an advantage by having more mass.

[soul ja]

The OLYMPIC lifters are stronger... don't you think that if the guys in the "World's Strongest Men" competition could lift heavy enough (and have good enough form) to participate in the Olympics, they WOULD? But they can't... and they have to settle for some wack annual competition on ESPN2 that nobody really cares about.

[DaRkAnGel]

Originally Posted by soul ja

The OLYMPIC lifters are stronger... don't you think that if the guys in the "World's Strongest Men" competition could lift heavy enough (and have good enough form) to participate in the Olympics, they WOULD? But they can't... and they have to settle for some wack annual competition on ESPN2 that nobody really cares about.

The two competitions are way different man. Sure a strongman cant clean and jerk 600 pounds, but i'd like to see an olympic lifter put up all bolders or do the farmers carries these guys do.

[abarlament]

Originally Posted by soul ja

The OLYMPIC lifters are stronger... don't you think that if the guys in the "World's Strongest Men" competition could lift heavy enough (and have good enough form) to participate in the Olympics, they WOULD? But they can't... and they have to settle for some wack annual competition on ESPN2 that nobody really cares about.

Wow, what an ignorant post... Darkangel's got it.

[Gooseneck]

Originally Posted by DaRkAnGel

The two competitions are way different man. Sure a strongman cant clean and jerk 600 pounds, but i'd like to see an olympic lifter put up all bolders or do the farmers carries these guys do.

Exactly. Olympic lifters do primarily one lift. WSM guys have overall brute strength in a variety of lifts. Those guys are just raw.

[soul ja]

I don't know how you can even debate this... I bet if any of the super-heavyweight Olympic lifters entered one of these World's Strongest Men competitions, they would dominate.

Lifting 600 pounds >>>>>>>> chopping wood blocks and pulling ball n chain's.

It's no contest... if they could qualify for real world class weight-lifting competitions like the Olympics, they would... but they can't. They are not even in the same league. I'm mainly talking about the Olympic super-heavy weights since most of the World's Strongest Men competitors are around that weight. I bet even some of the athletes in lower weight classes could lift heavier than the WSM.

[Cort]

Chopping wood blocks and pulling ball and chains? Dude, they drag f'king train cars uphill and place multiple 400 lb round stones on pedestals one after the other with time restrictions, 6 reps of deadlifts with barrels starting at 600 lbs and moving up to 800 for 6 repetitions...you make it sound like they're doing nothing.

In a strongman competition they are lifting fairly unweildy objects, so it is different from olympic lifting.

You can't really compare olympic lifting, powerlifting, and strongmen competitions...they're all different and include very different lifts.

[soul ja]

Ok lemme ask you this... if you had to pick, who's stronger... one of the guys in the World's Strongest Men competition or an Olympic medalist in the same super heavy weight class? I don't even have to blink to know...
The Olympics are what these "WSM" dream about participating in. You can't say that the Olympic athletes can't compete in WSM events... simply because they've never tried them! (or would want to). But on the other hand, the WSM have most definitely entered many different weight-lifting competitions in the past... and obviously they never made the cut for the Olympics, or were even close... which is why they are not in the same league and which is why you CAN say that they can't compete in Olympic events. It's just my opinion... everyone is entitled to one.

[Cort]

It really depends if you consider those two specific olympic lifts that matter as the superior lifts to determine someone's overall strength...and there is no guarantee that an olympic lifter is going to have a superior bench, squat, or deadlift over the people in the world's strongest man competition, or all the heavyweight powerlifters out there. They are different sports, they judge based on different lifts and feats of strength.

Just because someone can clean and jerk more or snatch more doesn't necessarily mean that is going to carry over to bench, dead, or squat...or even to the unconventional things done in a strongman competition.

[Gooseneck]

The two are totally different. On a smaller scale, look at farmers. Some of those big guys throw haybails around like there shoeboxs, but get some guy who can benchpress 500 lbs. out there and he probably couldnt do the same thing. This goes off into another topic of slow and fast twitch muscle fibers as well as secondary muscle groups.

[abarlament]

It's obvious soul_ja is just trolling guys, why bother with him?