Much of USA Weightlifting’s World Championships squad is in Columbus, Ohio, for a training camp at Rogue Fitness HQ. While big lifts are bound to happen when lifters of this caliber get together with some of the nation’s top coaches, one massive snatch has stood out to us so far. And it comes from American Record holder Wes Kitts, who lifts in the 105kg weight class.
Kitts — a former football player and functional fitness athlete — found weightlifting a bit later than some, but that hasn’t done much to slow his rapid rise to the top of the American ranks. Earlier this year, he set a new Senior American record in the snatch with 175kg and won silver in the snatch and total at the 2017 Senior Pan American Championships. And he’s somewhat routinely clean & jerking within spitting distance of the American Record clean & jerk (220kg, held by Wes Barnett since 1999).
Oh, and he’s also jerking 237kg from the rack, which you can watch here. That’s over 520 pounds for the kilogram-challenged.
So we weren’t totally surprised to see Kitts take this 180kg snatch for a ride. Check out the lift below.
This makes Kitts — by a fairly significant margin, as far as we can tell — the best non-superheavyweight snatcher in the US (and there are only a couple American superheavyweights who can claim they snatch more).
Later in the training session, Kitts hit a 215kg clean & jerk, which follows a replay of his snatch in the video below:
That gave Kitts a 395kg total on the day, 5kg about Wes Barnett’s longstanding American Record total (also set in 1999).
We’re excited to see Kitts and the other American lifters battle it out on stage later this year. The 2017 World Weightlifting Championships take place in Anaheim, California, and begin the last week of November.
