Re: Udo Beyer

[Guest guest]

For those who don't know, Udo Beyer was the 1976 Olympic Shot Putt Champion at

the age of 20. He has a personal best of 22.64m. Beyer's lifts are credited as

follows (from memory):

Squat 440kg

Hip Snatch 190kg

Jerk behind Neck 300kg

Strict Bench 305kg

Ballistic Bench with chest pad 360kg

[His jerk behind the neck exceeds the heaviest jerk ever achieved in Olympic

competition, namely 266kg by Leonid Taranenko in 1988. Are you sure that

figure is correct? Maybe 200kg. Also a hip snatch of 190kg

would imply that he easily could have broken the 216kg world snatch record.

Once again are you sure about these figures? Mel Siff]

There are a couple of pictures available at

http://athletics-heroes.net/displayhero.asp?HeroID=100

http://athletics-heroes.net/displayhero.asp?HeroID=101

Beyer stood 6ft 6in tall, and weighed 350lbs at his peak. There have been

numerous witnesses to his lifts, I can recall the following.

In his book, Speed Trap, Charlie Francis (coach to 100m sprinter Ben )

claimed to have witnessed Beyer doing very easy dynamic 1/4 squats with 400kg.

There is also video footage (which I haven't seen) of him doing touch-and-go box

squats to parallel with the same weight.

The renowned biomechanist Klaus Bartonietz has stated that Beyer's compatriot,

Ulf Timmerman, could use 500lbs for 4 reps on the ballistic bench press, and

Beyer outweighed Timmermann by nearly 100lbs. I have this statement on video.

Bartonietz also shows sequences of a slender female javelin thrower performing

Hip Snatches with 95kg. Ulf Timmerman has also performed 165kg in this lift.

Do not confuse the Hip Snatch with the classical lifts, it is very different in

execution. It is explained well in an article by Bartonietz (Bartonietz, Klaus,

E. " Biomechanics of the Snatch: Toward a Higher Training Efficiency. " Strength

and Conditioning 18(3):24-31) which is well worth a read.

The British thrower and strong man, Geoff Capes, witnessed Beyer performing reps

with 260kg in the Jerk behind Neck.

Further evidence of Beyers' ability was shown in his success despite his poor

technique. He had a standing putt in excess of 22m, and Bartonietz thought he

could throw 24m if he developed his technique.

Unfortunately I cannot provide any more concrete evidence of his abilities, but

it is almost certain that he could have set the world record out of reach for

many years if his technique had matched his physical abilities.

Iain Styles

Birmingham,UK

ibs@...

[Guest guest]

,

Udo was VERY strong. For a brief time Ulf Timmerman

was a part of throwing discussion group and he

mentioned that Udo had performed a " hip snatch " of

183kg. The DDR throwers loved this movement. It was

basically a straight legged hang snatch starting from

a very bent-over position. They would land in a deep

split with their blocking leg forward (left leg for a

rt hnd shotputter).

Ulf himself had hip snatched 160 kg but switched to a

less stressful exercise. He would do jumping

goodmornings. All the way down, and then jump up and

forward. He got to 10 x 10 @ 120kg.

The DDR throwers trained their throwing very hard and

did their lifting only to supplement their throwing.

They did not consider these lifts that much.

Rande Treece

Denver, CO

>Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 18:36:47 -0000

From: specimen20@...

>Subject: Udo Beyer

>Do any group members have any knowledge of Udo Beyer,

>the great

>German shot-putter? I have heard/read many claims of

>his feats of

>strength (300kg behind the neck power jerk, etc.),

>and wanted to know

>if any or all are believeable.

> Hartman

>Wichita Falls, TX

__________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Iain Styles wrote about Udo Beyer´s lifts:

Squat 440kg

Hip Snatch 190kg

Jerk behind Neck 300kg

Strict Bench 305kg

Ballistic Bench with chest pad 360kg

Mel Siff asked:

<Once again are you sure about these figures?>

These are the numbers Louie stated in his article " The Factor of

Time " PL USA Jul. 2001:

992 lbs. squat at 352 without equipment

672 pause bench without equipment

418 snatch

push-jerk behind head 660x1x10 in one workout

Louie once told me that he owns some old material from the DDR, so I´m sure he

is right, saying Beyer was " to say the least, ungodly strong " .

[Claims to hip snatch and jerk behind the neck more than the strongest

specialist weightlifters

in the world still leaves me totally skeptical, even if Louie saw it in a DDR

publication -

and not for one rep, but 10 singles in one workout. I would have to see photos

with lifts

being executed using official genuine Olympic plates, not the frequent plastic

style BB

pics allegedly used in Weider publications. Even 250 kg behind the head would

be

exceptional. I need much more convincing. Mel Siff]

Hermann Korte

korte@...

Witten, Germany

www.k3k.de