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Understanding Blindt Coefficients

Blindt Coefficients (BC) were developed around 2002 by the English lifter Adrian Blindt.  The purpose is to equalize all lifts in a meet.

I recently received the BC spreadsheet from Paul Barette (IAWA President).  After review, I can make some observations.

Everything is normalized to the 2H Barbell Clean & Press (BC = 1.0000).  Deadlift (able to move more weight) will have a lower BC (0.3837).  Little Finger Lift (able to move less weight) will have a higher BC (0.5675).

The BC utilizes Senior Men's Records and does not take into consideration Junior records, Masters records or Women's records.  The men's records are adjusted to create a smooth curve.  For example, if the 80kg record is 100 pounds, 85kg record is 80 pounds and 90kg record is 110 pounds; the 85kg record will be changed to 105 pounds.  These anomalies are handled manually and quite labor intensive.

Next the records are normalized by Lynch which should create a straight line.  This is not the case as the Lynch formula is imperfect based on the lift being contested.  The Lynch formula is a step in the evolution of comparing the Snatch, Press and Clean & Jerk.  The Lynch formula provides a reasonably straight line for these lifts and other well contested lifts.

However, across all of the USAWA lifts with records, anything but  a straight line is achieved.  Taking 1 standard deviation / mean is less than 25% about 1/3 of the time.

Criticism aside, the average Lynch adjusted Senior Men's records are averaged for the 2H Barbell Clean & Press and then normalized to 1.0000.

Next a BC is generated for every other lift, by comparing the average Lynch adjusted Senior Men's records of that lift to the 2H Barbell Clean & Press.  

Some lifts are not contested enough to generate a BC.  However, with records in at least 5 weight classes, a reasonable estimate can be made.


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