It's a familiar story: anyone who outlifts you is taking something you're not, or they are taking more of it.


Shane Hamman (USA) ripping a 197.5-kg snatch at the 2002 World Weightlifting Championships (Warsaw, Poland). Shane holds the US super heavyweight records in the snatch, the clean and jerk, and the total; plus he holds the IPF super heavyweight world record in the squat . . . each of these lifts was done under the strictest conditions in the field. IronMind® | Randall J. Strossen, Ph.D. photo.
Right.

But how much can people lift without taking banned substances? One very famous super heavyweight told IronMind® that he felt a 200-kg snatch and a 250-kg clean and jerk were the limit for clean lifts - numbers that he had hit while lifting clean, which can be taken as both proof that they can be done without doping and that someone else could come along and do more.

How much can you lift clean? It's simple: It depends on how strong you are.