In the Spotlight: Jeff Michels - Mark LeMenager (1982)

 Strength & Health May 1982

*this one gets a little long-winded.  If you just want to see how Jeff trained skip to the end*     

The 1978 Charleston (IL) Open – in addition to featuring such young lifting stars as Ron Crawley, Curt White, Stewart Thornburgh and Tony Sims – achieved some notoriety in lifting circles as it was the meet which catapulted Guy Carlton to fame when he made his first American record with a 165-kilo snatch in the 100-kilo class. (For more on Guy, see the January issue.)

Now, however, that Charleston Open may become known for something else – on that February 4^th, a skinny, 16-year old from Chicago made his weightlifting debut after just six weeks of training. 

The lifter, of course, was Jeff Michels (pronounced Michaels). He weighed in at 78.6 kilos and made four-of-six attempts, totaling 185 kilos via an 80 kilo snatch and a 105 clean and jerk. 

Going back to the Charleston Open one year later, we saw another top caliber meet. Thornburgh and White began their push to the top of the Juniors with Thornburgh’s 140.5 kilo clean and jerk in the 60-kilo category still the Junior American record. 

Carlton also had the best day of his career to that time by snatching 165.5 for another American record and by jerking 200, thereby taking his place among America’s best. 

Michels could no longer be described as the skinny Chicagoan as he had grown to 86.3 kilos. Lifting in his seventh meet, he didn’t really fare all that well as he made only three attempts, finishing with a 102.5 snatch and a 132.5 clean and jerk. 

Imagine the odds I could have received if I’d have bet someone that Michels would one day break the record Carlton had set that day. But 27 months later, that’s exactly what happened! On May 9, 1981, Jeff snatched 166 kilos in the Milwaukee Open and aided his climb to Weightlifter of the Year honors from both the United States Weightlifting Federation and the readers of Strength & Health. 

Of course there were other lifters who were exceptional in 1981 but no one can dispute Jeff’s right to the honors. After all, his impressive record would make a good career for many. 

In March, Jeff dominated the action at the National Junior Championships in Northbrook, Illinois (scene of this year’s Seniors.)  His opening snatch was 15 kilos above his own meet record. From there, he went on to register eight meet records and five Junior American records. His 352.5 total exceeded the winning mark at the National Championship in San Francisco and established Jeff as the number one U.S. lifter in the 100-kilo class. 

Jeff didn’t lift in the Seniors because it conflicted with the Junior Worlds (one week later) in Italy. Lifting in Lignano Sabbiadoro – about 30 miles east of Venice – Jeff showed that an American can lift on equal terms with his Communist-bloc counterparts. 

In the “A” session of the 100-kilo category there were eight lifters – seven from Communist countries and Jeff. Despite terrible warmups, Jeff made a 165-kilo snatch and just missed an American record at 167.5 kilos. That put him in fourth place, just five kilos out of second. In the clean and jerk, he registered 185 kilos to maintain his fourth place position – the highest ever by an American in Junior World competition. 

In August, Jeff won his first international title – Junior Pan American champion. In an incredibly exciting contest, he matched Eliecer Fuentes of Cuba lift-for-lift through three snatches and two clean and jerks before finally winning the title on bodyweight. It should be pointed out, though, that Jeff was operating with a painful lower back injury that caused him to shift all his lifts to one leg. 

In September, Jeff debuted as a U.S. Senior Team member at the World Championships in Lille, France. In so doing, Jeff became the first U.S. lifter to compete in the Worlds before ever participating in the Senior Nationals. 

Nevertheless, Jeff opened a lot of eyes in Lille by going a spectacular six-for-six that included an American record snatch of 167.5 and a Junior American record total of 357.5 kilos. 

Pete George – 1952 Olympic Games titlist and five-time World champion – observed that for the first time in many years the European coaches and officials were excited about a new U.S. prospect. It made Pete feel as though he were back in the days when the United States was one of the sport’s leaders and new American lifters raises eyebrows wherever they competed. 

All of this was enough for the USWF, and its Executive Board voted Jeff as the federation’s Athlete of the Year on the eve of the Pan American Championships in Colorado Springs in November. But then Ken Clark went out and registered a 360-kilo total, thereby forcing Jeff to the number two spot in the U.S. in the 100-kilo division… and there’s no way you can be Lifter of the Year and not be number one. 

Since Jeff had to lose seven kilos to compete in the Junior Worlds, and five kilos to make weight at the Senior Worlds, we had long since decided that he would move up to the 110-kilo class. Here, too, there was a problem since he would have to break his best total by 17.5 kilos in order to tally the 375 kilos he’d need to move ahead of Carlton in the 110-kilo category. 

So, I tried to get Jeff used to the idea that he’d have to settle for the number two ranking in 1981. After all, he was still only 19 and he had plenty of time left in his career to garner the top spot. 

Boy, was I ever wrong! On December 12^th at the Mid-American Championships, Jeff had one of the greatest days ever attained by a U.S. junior lifter. In the snatch, he easily made 170.5 kilos on his second attempt to erase Mark Cameron’s name from the American record. We then agreed that 175 looked possible, and he made a very good try with it, just barely missing it after having it up for a couple of seconds. 

In order to surpass Carlton’s mark, Jeff then needed to make a 205-kilo clean and jerk – 12 kilos above his official best and 15 kilos more than he’d done since June. After a hard but solid second attempt of 197.5, the “number one” weight was loaded… and with “fire in his eyes” he made a beautiful clean and jerk!

So, he ended the year in much the same fashion as he began – by going on a record-setting barrage. At the Mid-Americans he set one American record and eight Junior American marks, he attained the number one U.S. ranking in his class and, for good measure, he earned a top-10 spot on the 1981 Junior World ranking list – the first time we’ve had an American on any top-10 World list in several years. By way of comparison, his 375 total was 15 kilos more than the third-place mark at the Junior Worlds and his 170.5 snatch would have given him a gold medal in Italy. 

All of these accomplishments throughout 1981, of course, completely justify his selection as Lifter of the Year… but who is this young man and how did he get started in lifting?

Born in Chicago on December 29, 1961, Jeffery Thomas Michels has lived on the city’s North Side all of his life. He attended parochial grade school and graduated from Gordon Technical High School, one of the nation’s largest all male high schools. He is now a freshman at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle where he hopes to major in engineering. 

Growing up in a boisterous, active neighborhood, Jeff exhibited little of his formal athletic talent in his early years. And while he never had the patience to participate in highly structured team sports, he was never an inactive person. He could be found at all hours playing softball, baseball, football, basketball and just plain “horsing around” on the asphalt streets and schoolyards of the center city. Weight training found its way into Jeff’s life when his buddies, Mark Levell and Richard Zingg, got a barbell and began training in various basements and garages and on porches. My favorite story from this period concerns a workout held on a third-floor porch. Somebody missed a lift and the barbell ended up buried six inches in the ground, three floors down.

Marty Schnorf spotted Levell – now one of America’s top middleweights – at a novice meet and he urged him to contact me. It turned out that we only lived a mile apart and I invited him to come down to Sayre Park. Several weeks later he arrived and he brought along his three training partners – Zingg, John Dolsen and Jeff. 

I’ll never forget that first training session. I gave them a free hand so that they could discover their level of accomplishment and get an idea of what they’d have to learn and unlearn. 

Unlike the others, though, Jeff really hadn’t trained very much and, consequently, he had no apparent bad habits. I thought he looked pretty good, in fact, but it was Roger Nielsen – now Region VI Chairman – who leaned over to me and said, “You’ll never get one better than that.” Four years later, of course, that prediction made Roger look psychic. 

Much of 1978 and 1979 were spent perfecting Jeff’s basic technique. During this same period – and indeed throughout Jeff’s first four years – we decided that he would compete as often as possible. In his first four years, Jeff has been in 37 contests – an average of one every six weeks. It is my belief that the importance of contest experience should not be overlooked in any beginner’s progress… and Jeff has always thrived on competing before an audience. 

Jeff’s rise to the top began before the crowd at the 1979 National Junior Olympics in Topeka, Kansas. A trip to Washington for the America Junior Cup was going to the winner and Jeff found himself facing a very tight contest with Donnie Robbins. Always very coachable, Jeff turned to me during his snatch warm-ups and quietly said, “Just tell me what to do.”

From that point on, all his thoughts were on the lifts, nothing else entered his head. Lifting in the 90-kilo category, he struggled to snatch 115 and, afterwards, I looked him “square in the eye” and told him that he’d have to make 120 to win the trip. It required a five-kilo jump in his personal record but – taking a leap and two steps forward while in the full-squat bottom position – he made a great lift and he was on his way. 

Jeff made his international debut after less than two years of training at the America Junior Cup in Washington on November 17, 1979. He came through with a 125-kilo snatch and a 142.5 clean and jerk to finish in third place. More importantly, however, that contest lit a fire under Jeff that has only gotten hotter with time. To a young man who had hardly ever ventured farther away from Chicago than his uncle’s Wisconsin farm, the lure of national and international trips was captivating. 

Three months to the day after the Washington meet, Jeff began his Junior American record-breaking rampage with a 142.5-kilo snatch and a 165 clean and jerk at the Illinois State Championships. That’s right, he snatched what he clean and jerked just 13 weeks previously. I’m sure many Senior lifters began thinking of Jeff as a lifter they’d have to reckon with some years down the road…but Jeff took the expressway. 

Just nine months later at the 1980 Mid-Americans, Jeff thrilled a home-town crowd by setting seven Junior American records – topped by a 157.5-kilo snatch and a 185 clean and jerk. He also moved aggressively onto the national Senior scene by jumping to 166 kilos in the snatch in an effort to log the Senior American record… a mark that would be his six months later. 

The final tally on Jeff’s Junior career is impressive to say the least. In a period of 22 months, he set 44 Junior American records and three Senior American standards. He rewrote the meet records at National Junior Championships twice. And these were not just minimal half-kilo increases to swell the number of his records.  In the 100-kilo class, Jeff moved the Junior American marks from 135 to 167.5 in the snatch, from 172.5 to 193 in the jerk, and from 305 to 357.5 in the total. In the 110’s, he moved the standards from 154 to 170.5, from 186 to 205, and from 333 to 375, with most of thes jumps occurring in just one meet. 

Now that Jeff is a Senior lifter, he has some very definite short-term and long-term goals. He’d like to become the second and lightest American to snatch over 400 pounds, and he’s hoping to break Cameron’s record total in the 110’s. Jeff and I both feel that he can be very competitive at the 1983 World Championships and although the Los Angeles Olympic Games are still far down the line, we are already planning on ways to deal with the pressures of being a contender. 

(I’ve heard rumblings from Sayre Park lifters that Jeff has snatched over 100 kilos for 40+ years running.  Incredible!)

At a height of just over 6-1, Jeff’s long-term future appears to be in the superheavyweight class. We will decide in late 1982 whether to make the move prior to the Olympics. But an interesting incident took place at the Worlds in France. Soviet superheavyweight champ Anatoli Pisarenko – who at 270 pounds represents the body style of the modern day supers – congratulated Jeff on his fine lifting and, with a smile, added, “I’ll see you in Los Angeles.” Only time will tell if Pisarenko’s prediction is as good as Roger Nielsen’s, made four-and-a-half years ago.

(spoiler alert: The Piz’s power of prediction was not so good.  Political tomfoolery kept Pisarenko out of the Olympics and Jeff’s infamous ’83 Pan Ams drug test and subsequent legal debacle blew his shot for being on the team.)

For any athlete to rise to the top, he needs a love for his sport and the complete dedication to devote himself to his training.  Jeff, of course, has both. But when he learned that I was to do this article, he mentioned that we should take the opportunity to thank all of the others who have contributed to his success.  Hence, I’d like to close this account with that list.

Roger Nielsen has always been very supportive, to the point of allowing us the use of his garage and basement for four months when Sayre Park was closed. And at various times over the past four years we’ve received excellent feedback on training plans, exercises and other ideas from Tom Leuthner, Harvey Newton, Jim Schmitz, Jerry Hannan and Marty Schnorf. Gene Waldo also comes in for a “thank you” for donating the floor of his garage to our efforts one summer. And finally, Jeff would publicly like to thank his parents who have become his biggest fans. 

  Jeff Michel’s Training

Variety is the key to Jeff’s training plan. Routines are set up on a monthly basis but the same workout is never repeated. During a contest month, Jeff performs 600 to 1000 reps and during a preparation month, he’ll do 1100 to 1500. Only the basics are done; exotic exercises are never employed. When he feels good, Jeff will frequently exceed his training goals by 10 or 15 kilos. On the other hand, when his energy level is low, he’ll back off somewhat. 

In planning a schedule, Jeff and his coach, Mark LeMenager, always think not of what Jeff has accomplished but rather in terms of how far he still has to go to achieve parity with he Europeans. While there’s no “typical” training week for Jeff, here is what he did two weeks before he triumphed at the December Mid-American meet:

Monday

Snatch – 12 singles to 155kgs; then two misses at 162.5 kgs

Front squat – seven sets of three reps to 182.5kgs; a personal record

Push jerk – eight sets of two reps to 180kgs. And then a personal record single of 190 kgs. 

Halting snatch pull – four sets of three reps to 140 kgs.

Wednesday

Military press – five sets of three reps to 85kgs

Snatch pull – eight sets of singles to 180kgs

Back squat – six sets of three reps to 190kgs

Saturday

Power snatch – six sets of three reps to 130 kgs

Clean and jerk – 12 singles up to 190 kgs

Clean pull – six singles to 197.5 kgs; then a miss at 205 kgs

Back squat – six sets of four reps to 200 kgs

 

Video of Jeff at 1983 Nationals.  Absolutely savage lifting where he indeed exceeds the 400 lbs snatch.  The stage has also got to be one of the best in weightlifting history. We used to be a civilized country with national weightlifting meets held in front of a faux castle with the guy who changes the scoreboard seated on the battlements. https://youtu.be/xca-1GdFrAY?si=-tPdjwVz1h2mqH8y