CORRELATION BETWEEN THE LIFTED WEIGHT TOTAL AND WEIGHT CATEGORIES OF THE COMPETITORS IN OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFTING

Abstract

Olympic weightlifting is a dynamic sport with dominant explosive strength that manifests itself in two complex liftings (snatch, and clean and jerk). During these complex movements, the athletes have historically measured and reported incredible levels of strength. The aim of the research was to determine whether there is a statistically significant correlation between body weight and lifted total weight in the elite sample of the world record holders in the period from 1972 to 2015. Based on the results of the correlation analysis in the overall sample of the results from 1972 to 2015, it can be seen that the overall sample of linear correlation is extremely strong, thus the mutual influence of the variables "weight category" and "total" is extremely strong, and with the increase of the former, the latter increases linearly, and vice versa. Based on the results of the analysis of the correlation between the weight classes of the competitors and the totals, separately for each period, one can see that every period reports a strong linear correlation between the variables of "weight category" and "total". Based on the obtained results, we can conclude that the male category does not report statistically significant differences in arithmetic means of the totals for all weight classes. The female category, on the other hand, reports statistically significant differences between groups 1 and 3, which indicate the periods 1988-1992 and 1998-2015. Generally, the female category suggests an increase in the average total value from 1988 to 2015, in contrast to the male category in which this trend is reversed. Considering the results of previous research, starting from the 1980s to the present, we can conclude that the results of the aforementioned conducted research agree almost completely with the previously tested and proven facts.