1940 USA Championship

good grief, old footage !

OMG!! My father told me about his older cousin Steve coming over doing great feets. I wonder if this is that Steve?

no one of them could keep the balance :D Still awesome footage :)

@BGMilenium Back in those days, very few weightlifters did squats. This is why very few if any manage to drop into a deep front squat and all of them are very wobbly recovering. Also dont forget that this has been shot with very low frame rate and then sped up making it look a lot more jerky.

I'm fairly certain Louis Abele is the one lifter wearing the dark lifting costume.

@morganmueller16 I'm fairly certain Louis Abele is the one lifter wearing the dark lifting costume

To Morganmueller I think that's your grandfather at 0:39. There is more information on him and photos at Ironmind.com. Actually a book about him and his training methods.. He's the guy who was quoted as saying " I worked so hard on my squats my teeth hurt from the breathing" The title of the book is Training Programs of Louis Abele authored by Chester Teegarden. Great read. Your grandfather was The Man.

BGMilenium -- Actually, almost everyone in the video kept their balance. Some were quite shaky, but that tends to happen more with split cleans/snatches (which they all did) than it does with squat cleans/snatches.

@thesku11s-- Quite correct. One thing, though -- no one in the video was attempting to do a "front squat" -- the common & preferred method at the time was the "split clean" & "split snatch." Although some lifters did them, "squat cleans"/"squat snatches" really didn't become popular until the late 50s/early 60s.

Thx for posting such old footage. It's great to see people I've only read about lifting.

Which one is John Terpak

All splitters, no squatters.....now the opposite