Eighteen-year-old weightlifter CJ Cummings had some initial difficulty when he made the transition from split jerks to squat/power jerks in 2017, but the man has certainly come into his own and has been lifting enormous weight in his latest training sessions.
The newest lift: a titanic clean into two jerks of 185 kilograms, or 407.8 pounds. He competes in the -73 kilogram weight class though he presumably trains a little heavier, with 185 kilograms probably hovering at around 2.4 times his bodyweight.
This post brought to mind a video he uploaded to his Instagram back in February, when we watched him do another clean into two jerks, then with 182 kilos (401.2 pounds) on the bar (and a nice deep squat on the second lift).
[Throwback: Read our interview with CJ Cummings when he was just 15 years old.]
These lifts are remarkable in and of themselves, but especially when you take into account his previous competition lifts. It was only this past December at the World Weightlifting Championships that Cummings hit a Junior world record clean & jerk of 187 kilograms (412.3 pounds), a lift that was all the more nail-biting given that he’d missed his second lift of 186 kilos (410 pounds).
[Check out the VICE documentary on CJ Cummings that premiered in 2017.]
That lift also earned him a Junior world record total of 335 kilograms (738.5 pounds) and earned him 10th place overall, the youngest competitor to finish in the top 20.
If you recall, the previous year at the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships, Cummings was unable to complete any clean & jerks. Since then, however, he’s been setting records left and right, so we think it’s safe to say he’s found his feet. We can’t wait to see him compete the next time he’s on stage.
Featured image via @cj__cummings on Instagram.