We should account the body composition in between
the weight category to optimize the body composition
if weightlifters because too much fat mass it's
no good for best performance at the competition.
Hi Bartosz, it's my pleasure to have you on the
Evidence Strong show. If you could briefly introduce
yourself. Hi Alex, I'm appreciated and thank
you for inviting me for your show. My name is
Bartosz Malak. I'm a weightlifting coach at first
and a scientist at second. My work is dependent
on my graduation because I graduated in sports.
Sports in Poland is something mixed about coaching
and sports sciences program as well. as neurobiology.
Today we will be talking about young weightlifters,
youth weightlifters and what are the factors
that relate to weightlifting performance in young
athletes. So why this topic? Why this study?
So first thing what has happened in science mostly
we find a gray area something gap in knowledge
about very youth the first stage athletes of
weightlifting between 13 and 15 years. old and
we want to we plan to determine whether the sex
differences in weightlifting performance among
youth athletes and that can be explained primarily
by the differences in fat free mass because we
reading and searching author science paper that
shows in sprinting performance and the fat free
mass explain around 80 percent of sex differences
so You want to check that in weightlifting. Okay.
So how did you plan the study? As you know, probably
in science, the power of statistical test is
very important. And weightlifting, it's not national
sport in Poland. And I think in the mostly country,
all around the world. So we want to check something
in a specific age group. So our study conducted
two years. We take measurements from the youth
in 2010. 20 and 2025 because I have assets and
I am coach so I can planning also the training
schedule. We taken measurement 10 days before
the national championship and waiting that's
long time to engage enough participants. So finally
in our study, we include 53 competitive youth
weightlifters, 28 boys and 25 girls were from
six. labs from Poland and all the participants
had a minimum one year of experience and train
at minimum three times per week. So after that,
we take the measurement and find some correlation
between what we've taken, that being the anthropometrics,
physical test, body composition with performance
10 days later at the national championship and
what is important to... Underlying is not just
an experimental study. It's just a snapshot of
a specific time frame. So we know just correlation
and the study creates another new question for
us. Even in higher amount, them get answer to
us. That's how it is in research. Could I ask
you why 10 days? Yes, we have two reasons for
that. First reason is depends of time organization
of sports camp because... was taken on the sports
camp and the second time is the time in the training
schedule that we are after the one day rest and
starting with a tapering for a national competition
so the probably the athletes in near the maximal
performance that 10 days and we don't want to
interrupt the training process just before the
championship so we find some compromise between
what we want to do as scientists and what is
the best for the athletes and coaches. Right.
And what you mentioned that you did some anthropometric
measures. Could you say a little bit more about
what you measured and what tools did you use?
So the tools are easy. It's just types, metrics,
some circles. We've taken almost all... anthropometric
dimensions that we can take because we not really
sure which one will be that's fit for the, our
study. At first we have height, sitting height
and body mass as well as body composition, because
it is a main topic about that. Searching in literature,
we saw that many dimension was measurement in
the past. However, there is lack of knowledge
is ratio between the limbs, limbs and trunks.
So it's another type of measurement or calculation
from our measurement that we take, as well as
a skin fold. Also, we have a questionnaire for
parents about adult day mid -parents height to
use a predicted adult height based on Camille
Rocher because 13, 15 years old is quite a specific
group when the growth spurs can occur. So from
amount of all athletes, we want to take this
one that is maturity stats. is on time. It's
not early or late maturation status. However,
of times, because it will be much easier to conduct
another statistical analysis for that. What else
did you measure? You had some physical tests.
That's some fun stuff, I assume. What was it?
The idea was to use the simplest test that coaches
could perform in the future by themselves. So
we use hand grip strength. We use quad jump power
test and isometric mid -type pull. It was the
three basic tests that we use. And what is more
tricky for mostly coaches, we adjust results
from this test to three FADMAS to explain, to
determine how the three FADMAS also influence
the results in that specific test. One more thing
maybe I can add about this subject because we
want to catch the wider range of sports performance.
So athletes that participate. In our study, it's
from the first to third places in range on four
to eight places at national team and lower than
eight places. So we have youth athletes from
really high performance to beginners with one
year or more experience. However, we don't only
focus on the high level youth athletes. Okay,
so you had bigger range of youth. Yeah. You know,
I had an interview with a researcher last week.
and that's what we were exactly talking about.
His research was about relative age effect. So
how the day or the part, the quarter of the year
the athlete is born is influencing the performance.
And what he said is that very rarely the youth
champions and junior champions become senior
champions. So it seems like whoever is performing
very well as a youth athlete in weightlifting,
for some reason we lose them by... the time they
get to senior athletes. Would you say that it's
similar in Poland? Not exactly, because we don't
have a specific research for Poland. I know the
research of the relative age effect in weightlifting.
They exactly show what you mentioned, that the
most successful athletes at the senior level
is the first quarter of the year. However, it's
not observed at the Olympic level. So it is really
interesting. And I think... Weightlifting in
Poland, because it's not the school sport, it's
not the national sport, it's the relative age
effect. It's not that common because many athletes
who engage in weightlifting have some experience
in other sports. They don't reach their success
in other sports, so they start to train in weightlifting.
So that's a common way in Poland from where we
find for when youth athletes engage. in weightlifting
training. We also want to control that. In our
study, we have a wide range of athletes born
in different parts of the year. So our specific
group didn't show relative age effects. Interesting.
Even more of athletes engaged in our test is
in the second and third quarter of the year,
not from the first. Interesting. Okay. Are we
ready for the result? We are ready. results so
how everyone could accept it relative free fat
mass highly influence the performance it's easy
and when we have more free fat mass we supposed
to reach better results also in a physical test
so what is also obvious boys shows a significantly
higher absolved strength and performance than
the girls and as well in in both both sexes free
fat mass significantly and highly correlated
with all measurement tests. However, when we
adjust the results from the competition of results
of physical tests, the lower body power measured
by squat jump was the strongest predictor of
best results and effects and sex depends effects
in boys is higher than in the girls in all lifts
in snatch and clean and jerk and combined in
total as well so fat free mass was correlated
to weightlifting performance yes and both in
boys and in girls and for all the lifts yes and
strongly correlated with performance with in
boys than in the girls stronger for the boys
than in the girls And in terms of squat jump?
Yeah, the squat jumps is the best predictor of
snatch, clean and jerk and total hazards. However,
the best predictors when we adjusted it from
free fat mass. All right. And what is most interesting
about that, the free fat mass don't explain all
of the differences between boys and girls. So
there is another area of... many questions that
we want to answer we find also one specific things
for predictor of clean and jerk because waist
to hip ratio is specific for deadlift and it's
mostly specific for boys so we can have some
conclusion from that results that the distribution
of body mass in the area hip and leg muscle is
important for specific predictor for clean and
jerk in between boys and the So I assume that
it's better to have more muscle in lower limbs
for weightlifting performance. Yeah, lower body
muscle mass is much more important than, for
example, arm mass. However, just some kind of
assumption based on just two kinds of physical
tests, because we have just a hand grip strength,
no full arm functional test. Well, you use the
tests that actually are practical. and can be
used in the normal weightlifting gym environment.
So it is not force plates. It is not complicated
contraptions where the athlete has to push levers
and it's measured on force plates. So this is
something that coach can actually do. Did you
find anything in relation to the level of the
athletes? So were there differences between medalists
and athletes who were just starting or were a
little bit weaker? in their respective categories?
So it's hard to ask correctly for your question
because we suppose that the differences will
exist. However, it's not the aim of our study
and we do not conduct a specific calculation
of that. And we don't have that enough of participants
in each weight category and even in between medalists
or non -medalists. We also find something interesting.
We don't public that data. However, in... Our
group, the athletes with lower maturity status,
performance better than the older ones. So it's
something unusual, but we have some explanation
for that. I mentioned you that in Poland, weightlifters
came from other sports and probably less maturity
youth athletes who don't selection for the team,
for example, in football, handball or basketball,
drop out for... from the sports and their possibility
of movement, possibility of their performance
is underrated, but that coaches from the team
sports and stay engaged in weightlifting. And
that's the reason why they are younger in biological
maturity point of view. However, perform better
than the older one for whose weightlifting is
first sports. Interesting. So weightlifting is
collecting all the talent. unrecognized Aki we
won't do that it's one aim for the next year
for me is or organized in poland some talent
transfer from the other sports to weightlifting
because many sports in poland starts in a really
young age at about six to eight years old child
engaged in team sports and after few years they
try to searching for something new and for weightlifting
11 12 years old is perfect time After everything,
we should talk about a main message for coaches
and athletes because the science is important
when they explain something or give society,
give the population some practical takeaway.
so if i have thinking a little bit about that
what is the practical takeaway one is obviously
the free fat mass and lower body explosive power
are crucial for performance in youth weightlifting
and we know it from the study from the past coaches
i think should routinely monitor squat jump performance
and if they can adjust it for free fat mass because
in youth and low experience athletes the technique
is not stable so this kind of measurement could
tell coaches about development pathway of young
athletes with is not indirectly and is not technique
dependent and so it's a nice monitor for a progress
this is a hard and tricky question because we
know a little bit that the training should be
sex specific however it's hard to give the final
conclusion about what kind of differences that
they should incorporate in their training program
but i think the girls should more work on the
upper body strength and as well they can more
focus on technique development because in boys
the higher amount of body or muscle mass and
higher amount of strength could be the most important
factor of weightlifting performance. Yeah, I
think also it's important. It also indirectly
came for our study. We should account the body
composition in between the weight category to
optimize the body composition if you're weightlifters.
Because too much fat mass, it's no good for best
performance at the competition. Do you manipulate
body mass? for youth weightlifters or you just
let them grow and then worry about muscle mass
later? We don't manipulate that with body mass,
especially when we want to decrease the mass.
However, we educated about how their nutrition
should look like. We have some lectures for youth
athletes. We talk with youth athletes because
to have nutrition, choose the proper food behavior
is the most important thing. beginning we don't
really know who from the pool of youth athletes
will be the next champion so we thinking mostly
about education now push the athletes to manipulate
their weight however in Some part in older group
between under 17 years old when we talk about
national and European championship. If we need
to regulate about 2 -3 % of body mass, we do
that. I see. Okay, I have two more questions.
The short ones. The first one is what is your
favorite lift? Snatch or clean and jerk? Snatch,
definitely snatch. Why is that? Two things. It's
smooth. And when you try to lift your personal
best in snatch, it could be like a light load.
And compared to the clean and jerk, when you
aim to your personal best, it's always heavy.
That's true. All right. And the last question
is where people can find you if they want to
follow what you do or ask a question, where should
they go online? The best way to find me is just
searching on Google, my email address, or I have
account on research. gate. I have noticed on
my phone from research gate. However, I not checked
every day message from that. So I think the email
is the best way that people can find me and can
contact with me. Awesome. Thank you so much,
Bartosz, and all the best for your research.
Thank you.