[John Strangeway]

I have only scanned the comments so apologies if I have misunderstood anything.

Regarding RD vs Meets, I too was lucky enough to set many records per meet during my run, but I don’t think Dan is considering not all lifts in a meet generate a new record for that lift. For record days, you are purposely choosing a lift you know you’ll score in (barring any personal challenge to attempt a record set close to your current best). As the records director I can confirm if it’s a record day, or post-meet records, I key in 99% of those lifts to the list (although 84% of all percentages are made up on the spot).

IMO the first level is to the organization to keeping it growing. So, IMO limiting the records to 5 helps the organization by making those wishing to progress in the Century club do more meets and more record days.

I don’t understand why the 5 record limit is a detriment to the Century Club. Limiting the lifts makes the lifters “choose” what they really want. Let’s face it, if you can do 20 lifts at a RD, all we are going to do is pick a few we are good at, pick a few we want, then pick a ton of obscure open slot lifts we probably don’t even like or respect. Just for the sake of the Century club number. So, I feel the opposite- unlimited records would make the Century Club pointless.

Dan, if the first level of thinking is to go towards the lifters, why propose the 10-year jump? With the mentioning of the burden on the records director even I am in favour of the 5 year jumps to allow more aging members to have achievements and goals. Switching to 10 year blocks would cut out half.

I appreciate the thanks and consideration of the records director in changes. Above all I am happy to do what’s best for the organization and agree with any decisions which benefit the growth of the organization. I will continue to do my best until it is unsustainable (for me). My only suggestion would be to retire a lift if we add a lift.

[John Strangeway]

I don’t think anyone is saying its fair as it is. Seems we are talking in circles. From what I see people are not disagreeing, those who deal with it are giving reasons why its the way it is. This just may be a case of; yes it isn’t perfect but its something.

I must admit when I first started in the USAWA from Strongman I was pleasantly surprised how inexpensive meets and dues were in comparison. ET can speak more on the behind the scenes of that but for what we pay here, compared to what we receive, there’s no comparison for value for money.

So it’s important to note everyone one of us putting in work behind the scenes for this organization, website and record book etc. does not receive a paycheck to do so, and sacrifices their own personal time to do these things for everyone.

Speaking of Worlds, another hitch in this is we are trying to alight our organization with the IAWA, they don’t track senior records either.

Nothing wrong with bringing up a topic for discussion but you also have to accept other insights.

[John Strangeway]

From what Al said and Denny, it seems senior lifters having their own group all along, just titled ALL instead of an age.
And if a Master is strong enough, they can dip in and “steal” a spot.

[John Strangeway]

Hey ET, I don’t really know, this may be a case of “that’s how its always been done so that’s why we do it..”
I would like Al’s input on changing this and also it may need to be put to a vote incase other members utilize Excels capabilities for their own meet/record planning. I used it a lot.

Yes I believe that would make the CC harder to track, you’d have to keep a separate running list maybe, which adds margin for error, and there’s already a big margin of error updating/adding them in the first place.

I am unsure how Al tracked the century club members, Al???

If I was to do it I would add a column using the COUNTIF formula; =COUNTIF(column containing names, name in adjacent on row) on all records. This would give the total of occurrences of each name.

ET, I’ll email you a copy of the sheet with this formula added

*If this counting column is something everyone would like added I can put it in the next update. *

I’m in two minds, the grid would be far easier especially if we are planning to expand it, but by having a list in Excel you have the ability to manipulate the data which is also nice.

[John Strangeway]

I did not include the Women in the process above, yes they do add yet another set of filter checks but there are so few women competing that updating their data doesn’t even register compared to updating the men.

I’m not sure you understand how updating a record works and why its not straight forward. Which surprises me to tell the truth. At times you also go to a bit of an extreme to argue points, such in my first post about lifters in there prime vs masters, you took that and suggested masters should then be allowed to break rules and cheat because they are old. Such a suggestion is, well, never mind.

Also I did agree it was unfair but as the one currently doing it I wanted to clarify its impact.

To reiterate, for every lift you must check every lifters weight class and age group in the list. This is a VERY large list, currently at 15,305 lines. The fastest way is to filter by lift/ ALL and age/sex/weight group. See if it beats the record. reset the filer, filer again for the next lifter. Then do all this again for the next lift. If we add one more group, that’s another 21 possible filter checks per lifter under 40, per lift, per meet. I don’t understand why you think that isn’t a significant increment.

Having the sheet in Excel is very powerful. You can filter for any data you like including your own records as well as plan your next record lifts, even quickly find lifts with no records.

If we expand this (and maybe even if we don’t) I will be pressing to move away from the list and track the records the way Chris Bass does on the Worlds database. (This is where I got the idea for sheet 2, it takes the data from the list and populates into the grid). Chris keeps no such list, he opens the grid for the lift and hard codes the data into the grid. This is simple, fast and easy. The only searching you do is with your eye on the page, no filters, no scrolling but the ability to make custom queries or play with the data yourself.

Copy and paste is never your friend for long lol

I initially started this to help Al as he had a busy workload already, I am fine if someone wants to take the reigns. If someone is more excel savvy and can streamline it, all the better!

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by John Strangeway.

[John Strangeway]

Thanks Al, amazing job through the years, it just won’t feel the same.

[John Strangeway]

Valid points by Al. Being familiar with Excel, initially started helping Al update the records because I could see how the sheet work and knew what he was needing to do to keep updating was a lot of work and extremely tedious. Props to anyone who thanked Al as you are sure told if something is messed up.

For those unfamiliar with the process I’ll give an outline so you can see why there’s some resistance, and why Al was hesitant in doing this in the past as its not as simple as some may think. You are checking multiple ages groups and weight classes back and forth, adding a senior line, or two or three in 5 year jumps doesn’t sound like much but as it stands right now each lifts has the ability to have 336 records. The more popular the lift, the more records exist, thus the more changes need made.

Every time we go through the results of a meet, we have to prep the data because everyone submits this differently.
* actually, creating a procedure for a standardized result posting would go a long way.

-The weight class has to be double checked and converted to KG
-The age category has to be double checked and rounded,
-If its World, the KG has to be converted to LBS
-The wording of the lift has to be changed to match the official lift name in the record list.
-The lifter name has to be formatted to match their name already listed in the record list, e.g. Rich Smith needs to be changed if his previous records are under Richard Smith.

Working through the results, we start with the first lift + first lifter and scan the record list to see if its either a new record or an updated record in their class.
This means checking the Open and Jr/Masters categories for the appropriate age and weight class.

New records are few, but easy, after finding none exists for that age and weight class, the data is simply keyed into a free row.
If its a Jr/Master lifter, another row must be created for their age group too.

Updated records are more work.
You have to filter the sheet by age and class to find it, then make sure the weight beats it, then either delete the row and recreate a new one or edit the existing row making sure to update all information (easy to miss a cell!)

If its a jr/master lifter, this is repeated for their age group and weight class.

Now this process repeats for every lifter, for every lift contained in the meet. The math for how many checks you are making is basically lifts x lifters, if they are masters or juniors that’s an extra check each.

So competitions are usually 4-5 lifts, maybe 8-10 lifters, isn’t terrible.
Postals are usually larger competitor wise.
Record days are even larger with more lifters and an inconsistent span of lifts.
Deadlift dozen and meets like that have a LOT of checks. The last one was 13 lifts with 5 lifters, including masters and a record day after it.

Excluding the task of having to back fill existing records I hope this explains why adding more groups creates a lot more work going forward. If anything, I would like to reduce Master groups by jumping in 10 year increments, not going the other way of adding 😉

[John Strangeway]

I have no real answer, I agree it is unfair to the 20-39’s as far as record keeping goes for everyone to be equal.

The thought process could be that 20 through 39’s is the peak range (I know you don’t agree Dan), the young are just getting into the groove with their potential while the 40+ are dealing with possible injuries, family life etc, its not that black and white but its the gist.

With the 40,45,50++++ groups added because its harder as you age to compete in the ALL group, they have an opportunity to still advance. If a 46 year old manages to take an ALL record also, that’s more impressive than a 25 year old IMO, and I can’t argue they deserve two counts for that. While that 25 year old, if the senior groups exists, gets two records while he’s in his prime; less impressive.

From that point of view, if they want to start climbing the record charts they have to commit to staying in the organization for the long haul to obtain the double record opportunity.

Just some random thoughts I had about it..

[John Strangeway]

I agree it is nice to have physical representation of your achievements be it a trophy, medal or certificate. I, myself have somewhat of an ego wall in my garage gym where I pin my awards and competition t-shirts.

Saying that, I believe the postals are a nice yin to the yang of “regular” meets. To me these meets are welcomed relaxed events to hang out with your mates and throw your name in the hat of a little test of strength through the organization. Relaxed not only for the practitioners but for members who run regular meets and I’m sure for those behind the scenes (except Denny as he gets it all rolling).

Dan, although your idea was an award or certificate maybe you can do something similar what I did on one of the postals below?

I was pretty proud to tie Al for first place, I believe 2018. So I simply copied the web posting into Word and tweaked it a little to make a nice single page of results. I printed this with the goal of framing and placing on the “wall” but hasn’t made it yet. Its with some other certificates in poly pockets in the back of my rulebook binder. Just an idea.

[John Strangeway]

I’m glad we still got the postals. The IAWA cancelled those too.
Terrible year for sure.

For this years meeting, can I propose a six-million dollar man award? for those of us who keep breaking lol
How about the WD40 and duct tape award!

Are we still going to do awards for 2019?

[John Strangeway]

If a lift is for a world record or held at an event by the IAWA, we are at the mercy of the IAWA rulebook. I printed a copy of both so that I could cross my T’s and dot my I’s.

I believe the rule for the clean is to rest on the clavicle or chest so this is probably the rule that got you.

I think gradual progress is being made to align the rules between us. Al could speak more to if that’s happening. Unified rules would help everyone but it will take time.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by John Strangeway.

[John Strangeway]

I’m in!

[John Strangeway]

Yeah thanks Denny! Lots of fun. Glad you’re back in the game ET.

[John Strangeway]

Yeah this sounds like a good one!

[John Strangeway]

I’m pretty sure Dean is indestructible.

[Author]

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