How much diagonally(to the side) should the camera be situated? I aimed for 45 degrees, but the leg press wa sort of getting in the way. How much should we aim for the side to avoid the squat rack getting in the way?

Points taken. Will work more on the lifting AND videotaping.

How much diagonally(to the side) should the camera be situated? I aimed for 45 degrees, but the leg press wa sort of getting in the way. How much should we aim for the side to avoid the squat rack getting in the way?

To gauge depth, we need to see the top point of the thigh at the hip joint and the knee. To clear the uprights of the rack, mid-point between 45 degrees and a straight side-shot seems to work well (for example, see my own ugly squat).

It is more important that there is nothing obstructing the leg and that the camera stays steady than the precise angle. In many cases, we can still get a good view of the depth by looking at the inside of the leg further away from the camera in cases where the closer leg is obstructed. The best way to determine what a good angle is is simply to video tape a few of the warm-up lifts to see if there is a clear view of the leg or not.

I also think that the height of the camera is generally more important than the precise angle used; with the camera at knee height gauging depth is a breeze, but assessing depth from higher angles is very hard.

In my opinion, your submissions where quite good. I would use a more acute angle (more to the side of the lifter) if possible, but I didn't find it hard to assess depth from your clips. The one thing that would be welcome would be to get the camera a bit closer to make the lifter fill up the space more.

The video taping guidelines are not meant to be precise formulas or grounds for automatic disqualification if not followed (we have no red light cause that states "camera is not positioned at 42 degrees"...). They are guidelines, but at the same time we recognize that there will be leg presses, cramped spaces, bystanders, bad lights and what may require creative solutions. With a bit of testing, a working angle can usually be found. But the point is, that you do need to do this kind of quick angle testing to make sure it works. It's not a coincidence that this step is mentioned twice on the meet checklist. 

Congrats to the competitors. Another strong showing by Brian. I am awed by the squat form of the rowing team. These were like from an instruction video for proper squatting technique.
Too bad that there were so many athletes who did not get all their attempts, but even more reason for them to come back stronger.

Tom Thekan taught us to lift and he is an awesome coach. We get in trouble if we don't do it properly.

Tom Thekan taught us to lift and he is an awesome coach. We get in trouble if we don't do it properly.

Now this kind of nonsense has to stop. Comments like that are NOT a ticket to an easy workout in the future. Contrary to popoular belief, flattery will get you no where. Now, bribery, on the other hand, goes along way.

Wait till the OL comp in February. LOTS of rowers AND softball players are looking forward to that one.

These meets provide a great motivating factor for an athlete's training. Whoever thought of this concept (virtual meet) is a genius (flattery). Your bribe is coming later.

TNT

I noticed some fairly odd nojudge calls for lifts which couldn't get much better from a video standpoint (like Alexander's deadlifts). I ran a query on the database and noticed that we have 24 nojudge calls from judge 1 (Matt), 18 from judge 2 (me) and 72 from judge 3 (Ryan). I called lifts I would have passed as nojudge with a fault if it was very clear, so the numbers for Matt and me stack up quite closely. With this large a discrepancy, I think there may be some misunderstanding or possibly technical glitch with the video streaming going on here.

Turns out the calls were well-founded. Ryan gave the Bulgarian and the Catalyst teams nojudges across the board because of a clear lack of newspaper.

The Catalyst team did not show the newspaper as per the rules in the same video clip as an attempt; rather they sent in separate newspaper clips for each lifter. In my mind, the decision as to whether to accept or decline submissions from a lifter rests with the meet director (i.e. me) so I didn't even think of telling the judges about me accepting their submissions even though somewhat lacking. But this policy has not been documented anywhere and the rules clearly say that "failure to produce the day's paper shall result in disqualification from the meet". Not having any way of knowing about the separate newspaper clips, Ryan did the logical thing by giving nojude calls for the whole group. Furthermore, it was probably a mistake by me not going strictly by the book.

Now, as mentioned earlier, the Bulgarians got their newspaper in late and it was only shown after the second or third attempt for some lifters. The rules state that "In the event that the newspaper is forgotten on the first attempt or the recording equipment fails, it is also acceptable to show it on the first possible subsequent attempt", so there was no problem with this per se. If I didn't misunderstand, Ryan deemed that the papers were too fuzzy to be able to discern a date. I totally agree, but on the other hand, the rules do not say anything about the date having to be legible. This won't work with the lower resolutions (eg. mobile phone clips), so the idea has been to just get a capture of the main news and front page to allow the paper to be compared to that day's paper at any later date. Many lifters do take extra steps to zoom in on the date which is very much appreciated, but not required. So in this case, there was a bit of a misunderstanding on how to interpret the newspaper rule.

As this case shows, the judging process still needs a bit of work so that it is clear how the lack of newspaper situations should be handled and by whom. For the next meet, the following changes will be made:

1) A checkbox with the text "Newspaper shown in clip" will be added next to the video for each attempt on the judging interface. Since the judges can't know in advance whether a videoclip is shown in later attempts, they will be instructed to pass their calls without regard to the whether the newspaper is there or not.

2) At the end of the meet, it will be verified that for each lifter there is at least one clip that has been flagged as containing a newspaper by at least two of the judges. If this is not the case, the lifter will be disqualified. This also means that the only accepted way of submitting a newspaper will be as part of an actual attempt, separate clips etc. will be ignored.

3) Nojudge calls will be flagged as a blank light instead of a red light.

I want to commend Ryan for taking a strict approach. I for my part apologize for the lack of information which led to this judging inconsistency, but I hope that the new measures will resolve this issue for future meets. We live and we learn.

Wait till the OL comp in February. LOTS of rowers AND softball players are looking forward to that one.

\o/ Welcome!

These meets provide a great motivating factor for an athlete's training. Whoever thought of this concept (virtual meet) is a genius (flattery). Your bribe is coming later.

Looking forward to that. However, as you can see from the above, we take judging very seriously so don't expect too much. Still, doesn't hurt (me) to try. 

Now, as mentioned earlier, the Bulgarians got their newspaper in late and it was only shown after the second or third attempt for some lifters. The rules state that "In the event that the newspaper is forgotten on the first attempt or the recording equipment fails, it is also acceptable to show it on the first possible subsequent attempt", so there was no problem with this per se. If I didn't misunderstand, Ryan deemed that the papers were too fuzzy to be able to discern a date. I totally agree, but on the other hand, the rules do not say anything about the date having to be legible. This won't work with the lower resolutions (eg. mobile phone clips), so the idea has been to just get a capture of the main news and front page to allow the paper to be compared to that day's paper at any later date. Many lifters do take extra steps to zoom in on the date which is very much appreciated, but not required. So in this case, there was a bit of a misunderstanding on how to interpret the newspaper rule.

As this case shows, the judging process still needs a bit of work so that it is clear how the lack of newspaper situations should be handled and by whom. For the next meet, the following changes will be made:

Rules are rules to be enforced. Each time something pops up - we can make the rules better.

WEe got the newspapper late. Then there was a problem with the camera - if it focused on the newspapper, everything in the distance got blurry. We(I?) decided to go for a blurry newspapper on the vids, and a snapshot with clear quality showing that this newspapper was indeed from the date stated. Snapshots were uploaded together with vids, and I even think that there was something written in the comments field of the lifterinfo.txt.

The more lifts we take part in - the better we get in the sport. IPF get used to their gear, we get used to our gear too.


Thanks for the strict judging. I will always enforce strict rules whenever I can, and would expect firplay and good atmosphere from all.

P.S. we're working on a duct tape squatting suit and bench shirt. Also bandages for kneewraps 

I would appreciate comments on our form. Some of the guys are worried about the pauses in the bench press.

I guess that couting "twentyone"(twentyone-twentytwo for the fastouthed) would be enough.

Sorry for the slow turn-around, Christmas and the server migration has kept me rather busy of late.

WEe got the newspapper late. Then there was a problem with the camera - if it focused on the newspapper, everything in the distance got blurry. We(I?) decided to go for a blurry newspapper on the vids, and a snapshot with clear quality showing that this newspapper was indeed from the date stated. Snapshots were uploaded together with vids, and I even think that there was something written in the comments field of the lifterinfo.txt.

You guys certainly went out of your way to deal with the challenges that popped up, much appreciated. The problem is that the scripts that prepare the judging interface only knows of attempts and any information sent separately won't make it to the judges or the spectators unless I hand edit it into the clips. In the past, when the meets were significantly smaller, I used to do just that while also doing my best to correct levels etc. to make even dark videos judgeable and so on. But with the larger meets running above 200 video clips each and having two small kids worthy of plenty of attention, I've given up on the manual reviewing and editing. In the end, this is probably a good thing as the only way to keep the meets scalable to a large number of lifters is to automate everything besides the submission of the meet details, the video uploads and the actual judging. This makes it the sole responsibility of the lifters to make sure the clips are adequate for judging.

At the same time, like I wrote below, we must be quite clear about what the minimum requirements for the clips are. While seeing the date is nice, requiring a clear shot of it as part of an attempt would put some serious limitations on the technical equipment. Virtualmeet.net is about allowing lifters to compete most anywhere and to that end we must do our best to keep the requirements realistic. In my book, and this needs to be spelled out in the rules too, a clear view of the newspaper with at least the major headline readable has to be good enough. In the case of suspicion of fraud, the newspaper is verifiable by checking the newspaper for the lift day.

In the end, our concept revolves around trusting the lifters, not around trying to make the rules as waterproof and, consequently, draconian as possible. There's a million and one ways to cheat, but, as the past two years have shown, this kind of honor system breads a very positive atmosphere that I think actually makes cheating rather pointless and unlikely. Simply, people of that bent won't find much substance here. If anything, the lifters actually tend to go beyond the requirements where possible by doing things like counting the plates out loud with a close zoom, uploading video of the weigh-in and pictures of the newspaper etc. etc. One thought in this regard would be to allow lifters to upload any extra meet material they'd like whether more stringent proof of the date, meet bloopers, commentaries or whatever. These could then become available in an extra section for the meet results organized by participant. What do you think?

The more lifts we take part in - the better we get in the sport. IPF get used to their gear, we get used to our gear too.

Very well put.

P.S. we're working on a duct tape squatting suit and bench shirt. Also bandages for kneewraps 

Good luck to you. 

I would appreciate comments on our form. Some of the guys are worried about the pauses in the bench press.

Your pauses were very borderline, but in my book a fraction too short. Honestly, I would not have complained about some of them getting passed, but I go by the mantra that our calls should be strict enough so that lifters can be reasonable sure that the same lift would pass in any federation. In that regard, I would welcome comments on your pauses from experienced IPF lifters.

A good pause does not have to be long at all, but the bar needs to very clearly stop AND stay put for just a fraction before pressed back up. On some attempts, like Ivan's 110kg, the pause was long enough, but the bar did not come to a complete stop. I think Brian's benches in this meet are a good example of pauses which are just at the mark; a quick but definitive stop, then launch. When I've prepped for meets with my training partner, our mantra has always been a quick one-two count which makes for a pause which is beyond dispute. In the same vain, we used to check the depth of our squats from the side for every single lift in training and if the partner thought they were high by even a fraction we would pay a fine of 50 cents. Come meet time, we had no doubt that we would receive only white lights for depth.

While there are times when it may be worth trying to hit the bare minimum pause to get a big lift, I think there is a lot to be said for going for a convincing pause in same spirit as hitting convincing depth on the squat. Convincing form will make sure that you get whites no matter whose doing the judging (provided you are strong enough for the attempt of course). That it looks mighty impressive does not hurt either. 

Just my .02 cents. This is a very useful discussion.