John Henry Davis, a historic figure in American Weightlifting Records, became the first lifter to clean and jerk 400 lb. officially. He won two Olympic gold medals, six World Championships, and remained undefeated from 1938 to 1953.
John Henry Davis won his first Senior World Championships when he was just 17, shocking the Weightlifting world, which had never seen him before, nor seen anyone nearly so young win such a championship. He was the first lifter in history to C&J 400 lb. officially and won two Olympic Games and six World Championships. He was undefeated nationally and internationally from 1938 to 1953.

Prior to the publication of this website, there had been no comprehensive database with the history of American Weightlifting Records from 2018 on available. To address this gap, we’ve undertook a project carried out under the direction of Frank Mintz to complete such a history.

Frank’s involvement in the sport extends back to his childhood, when he attended many weightlifting events where his father, Larry Mintz, competed. Larry was one of the very few lifters ever to have won Nationals both in Weightlifting and Powerlifting.

Frank competed both in Weightlifting and Powerlifting competitions in his youth and he has maintained his involvement with the sport as a coach and a National level Weightlifting Official. He has also served as a Board member of the New York WSO (the USAW’s local governing body for weightlifting in NY State). In that capacity, Frank put together a comprehensive list of records for the WSO. He then agreed to take on our American Record project.

This is a very big project, but we think it is a critical one – a project that will give continued recognition to all of those who managed to establish American Records and offer all fans of the sport to know their history as told by the progress of records over the years.

We’ve initially published what Frank has managed to put together based on publicly available USAW records, reports in magazines and similar sources reliable sources from the year 2018 on. However, in compiling such a comprehensive we may have missed something.

Therefore, we are inviting all of our followers to report on any records they know about which do not yet appear on Frank’s list, by letting us know what record(s) you know of, your source of information, where it was set, when it was set, the amount lifted and of course the lift in which the record was made. We’ll attempt to ratify such records and who reported it to us.

We hope that with the cooperation of many, we’ll be able to maintain a complete database of all American Records that were created since 2018.

Below are links to our database as it stands currently.

Link to Men’s American Records https://weightlifting.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=2198&action=edit

Link to Women’s American Records https://weightlifting.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=2200&action=edit