CJ Cummings has recently started performing a front squat workout that starts with the bar on the platform rather than in a rack. Once CJ has cleaned the weight, a weight that is in its own right a pretty heavy single in the clean for any training session, he must then perform a front squat AMRAP. Last week CJ went head to head with 178 kg. He managed to clean the weight and front squat it 6 times. Not only is this a heavier weight than any other American at his body weight can currently clean, it is also predictive of a 213 kg single in the front squat.
This week however CJ took it up a notch in terms of both weight and reps. Faced with 180 kg, a weight just 7 kg below his own competition record, senior American record, and junior world record, CJ managed to clean the weight effortlessly and then proceed to crank out another 8 reps in the front squat, essentially a set of 9. When put into a 1RM calculator this provides a much more exciting prediction of CJ’s capacities… a 232 kg front squat single. It is worth noting that CJ most likely has the ability to squat more reps at even higher weights if the bar was to start in the rack and not the floor. Perhaps Coach Ray doesn’t want CJ to know what he is truly capable of… Or perhaps he is just being mean!
CJ Cummings is the 73 kg junior world record holder in the clean and jerk and the total (187/335 kg at the 2018 World Championships). He is also a youth world record holder in the clean and jerk in the older 69 kg weight class (185 kg at the 2017 Youth World Championships). CJ broke his first senior American record at fourteen – a 153 kg clean and jerk in the 62 kg class – and has gone on to break and set many more. He is a three-time junior world champion (2016–2018) and a senior Pan American silver medalist (2017).
CJ Cummings trains at Team Beaufort Weightlifting under Team USA Senior International Coach Ray Jones.