The physics of how Olympic weightlifters exploit barbell's "whip"
whip it good
The type of bar matters when it comes to how it bends and recoils, but why is still a mystery.
Olympic weightlifting consists of three basic movements performed on a barbell: the snatch, the clean, and the jerk (with the latter two executed in combination). At such an elite level, athletes seek to exploit every possible advantage, including how a barbell bends and recoils in response to loaded weight and applied force—a property known as flexural bending in physics and dubbed the “whip” by Olympic athletes. Scientists are learning more about the underlying mechanisms of the whip, according to a presentation at this week’s meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Philadelphia.
Joshua Langlois, a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University, competes in Strongman competitions as a hobby. He also has friends who compete at the national level in Olympic weight-lifting events. “They told me...
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