Assistant Professor Southern Utah University Cedar City, Utah, United States
Abstract Details: Previous work has examined performance changes in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting in youth/junior US national level female weightlifters from 1997-2015 and earlier. However, as youth female participation has seen large increases, such as at the USA Nationals from 2012 (only 96 female athletes) to 2015 (230 female athletes) to 2023 (520 female athletes), much of the previous research was on minimal participation years. In addition to the rise in female athlete participation since 2015, best training practices have also evolved and thus there is a need to examine more recent trends.
Purpose: To determine how performance trajectories of American youth female weightlifters changed in the snatch (SNT), clean and jerk (CJ), and combined totals (T) from January 2015 to June 2023, using USA Weightlifting’s (USAW) publicly accessible results archive of sanctioned events. Methods: Included athletes participated in Youth or Junior USAW National-level events and all athletes (N=960-2245) were ≤ 20 years old at their initial competition. Strength-to-mass (SM) ratios of competition results were used to control for the impact of bodyweight on performance, tracking the highest SM ratios (SNT, CJ, and T) in 3-month intervals for the first 3 years and 6-month intervals over the study period (~9 years). Analyses include percentage change in SM and Cohen’s d effect size (ES) compared to the baseline or previous intervals results.
Results: For 3-month interval analyses the principle of diminishing returns was supported with the largest initial improvements between 3 to 6 months for the SNT (12.44%; ES=0.00), CJ (11.12%; ES=-0.01), and T (11.50%; ES=0.00) and lower later improvements between 30/33 to 33/36 months for SNT (3.11%; ES=0.08), CJ (2.36%; ES=0.03), and T (2.74%; ES=0.04). For 6-month analyses, the findings were similar, with large improvements occurring from 6 to 12 months for SNT (SM=0.77 ± 0.30 to 0.80 ± 0.20kg, 14.91%, ES=0.11), CJ (SM=0.99 ± 0.36 to 1.03 ± 0.25kg, 13.34%, ES=0.10), and T (SM=1.76 ± 0.65 to 1.82 ± 0.45kg, 13.87%, ES=0.11) with potential performance peaks/plateaus observed around year 7 (78 to 84 months) for SNT (-0.25%, ES=0.04), CJ (-2.68%, ES=0.07), T (-1.90%, ES=0.07).Over the study period, the total performance enhancement for the SNT was 282.64% (Year 1 SM=0.77 ± 0.30 to Year 9 SM=0.96 ± 0.29kg, ES=2.36), for the CJ 233.87% (Year 1 SM=0.99 ± 0.36 to Year 9 SM=1.16 ± 0.32kg, ES=1.93), and for T 253.49% (Year 1 SM=1.76 ± 0.65 to Year 9 SM=2.12 ± 0.60kg, ES=2.12). Lastly, there was a significant reduction in participation rates from the first 3/6 month intervals (N=2245) to the next 6/12 month intervals (N=970-1209) that continued for all intervals until the final (36/102 month), which cannot be strictly attributed to aging out to older competitions.
Conclusions: These results suggest that compared to previous years trends, Olympic weightlifting performance from 2015-2023 in youth female athletes in the USA have higher starting performances (SNT, CJ, and T), higher initial participation rates, greater performance gains over years of training, but potentially earlier performance peaks/plateaus. However, there is a reduced participation rate overall across years for individual athletes. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: These results provide updated insights for weightlifting coaches involved with female youth athletes, serving as a gauge for evaluating the effectiveness of training programs over recent years.
