GO HOME POWERLIFTING: YOU’RE DRUNK

Before I begin, I, and the world of strength sports, owe a LOT to powerlifting.  Powerlifting has given a lot in its short time.  From powerlifting we got a ton of specialty bars and equipment, training gear that can either extend training longevity or improve performance, and Kaz, among other greats.  However, powerlifting’s influence (through no fault of its own) hasn’t all been positive, and unfortunately is has been dragging down many new trainees who decide to venture out into the land of the internet and try to learn how to train.  What was once a sport about getting as strong as possible and winning meets has become one fixated on setting internet records and achieving the highest WILKS.  The whole world has turned upside down, cats and dogs are living together, mass hysteria, and so I say; go home powerlifting: you’re drunk.

Or possibly on bathsalts; jury is still out

The biggest issue that occurs with powerlifting is that trainees immediately equate powerlifting with strength training.  This is a part of the process of learning about the different subgroups in the lifting world.  Most of us, when we first got into lifting, identified any serious lifter as a bodybuilder.  For most of us, this was simply the only thing we knew regarding someone who took lifting seriously. We were exposed to Arnold, knew he was a bodybuilder, saw the muscle mags full of bodybuilders, etc.  Most of us still encounter this amongst our peers and family, in that, no matter what it is that we do, we’re bodybuilders.  Once you dive a little deeper, one tends to learn that there is at least 1 other subgroup that ISN’T bodybuilders, and these people tend to be powerlifters.

However, realize that, once again, this is just lazy research manifesting itself.  Of the select few that know there is a difference between a bodybuilder and a powerlifter, who among them ACTUALLY know what a powerlifter is compared to a strongman or weightlifter?  Most people just take the quickest distinction; bodybuilders are people who train to get big, powerlifters are people who train to get strong.  Knowing this, if you want to get big, you train like a bodybuilder, and if you want to get strong, you train like a powerlifter.  And herein is where the crisis begins.

Not the first time a lot of strength was lost over a Crisis...Christ I'm a nerd

Let me come out and say a statement that is going to piss off a lot of people: powerlifting was NEVER about getting stronger.  Not once, in the history of powerlifting’s existence, has it EVER been a sport about getting stronger.  Powerlifting is about getting the highest total possible on 3 lifts.  Getting stronger HELPS in powerlifting, but so does getting stronger help in American football, boxing, wrestling, basketball, swimming, etc.  Because powerlifting has people specifically lifting weights, we interpret it to mean it’s a sport solely about strength, but this is simply confusing the effect for the cause.  Powerlifters lift weights as part of their competition, but it is still fundamentally a sport/game with a goal of winning.  This is why, in some cases, the strongest person at the meet DID NOT WIN.

How can I say this?  It’s a strength sport, no?  Yes, but it’s a SPORT, and strategy, technique and practice will ALWAYS come into play when discussing a sport.  One of the key elements of practice is, of course, frequency and perfection.  Hence, a powerlifter will often perform their competition lifts in their training, and they will do so in a manner where they are practicing to the standards of the sport in the hopes of engraining the correct motor pattern in order to maximize their skill improvement.  This maximized skill translates into more weight moved, because one has become BETTER at moving higher weights; but we all know that BETTER does not mean STRONGER. The powerlifter is playing a game, and they’re playing it to win.  If you are trying to get stronger, don’t play their game.

And don't hate the player

New trainees get confused by this.  They see the frequent practice of a powerlifter in their programming, decide they want to train like a powerlifter because they want to “train for strength”, and then are aghast at the notion of only benching, squatting and deadlifting once a week at most.  Surely such infrequent practice won’t allow one to maximize their strength, no?  No!  Once again, we confuse skill for strength here.  If one benches twice a week, they practice the bench twice a week, and twice in that week they train their pecs, shoulders and triceps (yes yes bench nerds; I know there is MORE than that, just stick with me).  If a trainee benches once a week and then does dips the other day a week, they practice bench 1 time and dips 1 time, but they STILL train their pecs, shoulders and triceps twice in that same week as well.  The frequency is the same; the amount of STRENGTH gained can be the same, it is simply the skill that diminishes at one lift in exchange for an opportunity to practice another.  BUT, consider the exchange here; less practice for an opportunity to train the body at different angles and get it stronger IN TOTAL versus in only on specific movement.  Doesn’t that sound more rewarding for a NON-powerlifter, whose goal is to get as big and strong as possible rather than win a powerlifting meet?

But a big part of this pursuit of perfection on these lifts is because someone out there decided there needed to be some sort of gatekeeping of programs.  You don’t get to do X program until you can squat Y, and if you can only squat Z, you are better off doing program W.  It’s insanity, and purely a mechanism put into place for internet warriors to assert dominance over new trainees and maintain a status quo of mediocrity by prescribing awful training and never promoting anything that allows growth.  Saying you need to lift a certain amount on a certain lift before you’re ready for a specific training program operates off some sort of insane belief that all humans will reach these lifts through the same training. 

This guy MIGHT hit a 3 plate squat before the second coming of Jesus

Consider this; you take 1 trainee and have them ONLY squat, bench or deadlift.  No assistance work, no conditioning, only those 3 lifts.  You take another trainee and have them run a complete program, with a variety of core lifts and assistance work and conditioning.  The first trainee will most likely have the higher total of the two in a short span, because the first trainee is solely dedicated to those 3 lifts.  However, if the first trainee gets a 1000lb total in 6 months and the second trainee takes 2 years to get there, are we really saying the first trainee was more experienced than the second, and therefore more ready for a more advanced training template?  Of course not.  Those lifts were arrived at in totally different circumstances, and simply using a set number as a checkpoint makes zero sense without considering these factors.  Trainees need to free their minds from the shackles that they have to pass some sort of standard before having permission to train.

But let’s get to talking about the other dirty trick powerlifting has pulled on us; in these most recent years, it’s become a sport about being as SMALL as possible, not as big and strong as possible.  This is a result of the influence of the internet in regards to records sharing.  In the pre-historic era, “Powerlifting USA” was the only real way to get meet results, outside of word of mouth.  This meant you’d typically find out about records set MONTHS after it had occurred, and so trying to chase records on individual lifts or totals was a silly idea.  By the time you “broke” the record, it may be the case that someone else had ALREADY broken it before you, and all your prep and energy was wasted.  It made much more sense to try to win the MEET, not an individual lift record, and this meant finding out who your competition was, figuring out how they were picking their attempts, and trying to find some way to edge them out.  Hell, before WILKS was a thing, all you had to go off of was your total, so you tried to get as big and as strong as you could so that you could win.

Looks like it worked back then too

But now?  With meet results being broadcast live, let alone records being instantly recorded, powerlifting has become an "internet sport".  You don't compete against people; you compete against numbers.  This has bred a culture of trophy hunters for individual lift records; folks with the ideal anthropomorphic structure of a certain lift who specialize their training to focus on this lift and set meaningless records.  They take 2 token lifts on the others, and then set their internet record on their big lift. Many of the records being set are being set by lifters competing against NO ONE; backyard meets or small shows where guys are by themselves, just trying to set some sort of record.  There is no competing against a person, and no need to be strategic in selection in the hopes of winning.  And the last thing these people need to ruin their shot at a record is to move into a higher weight class, even IF doing so would let them actually WIN a meet with a solid total, so they learn to maximize weight moved while minimizing bodyweight gained.  This is a solid strategy to keep setting individual lift records in weird sub-groups and classifications, but for a trainee looking to get BIGGER and stronger?  It's madness.

BIGGER IS STRONGER!  We KNOW this.  Not on an intellectual level; on a primal, INSTINCTUAL level.  This is why animals make themselves appear bigger as a means of self-defense; it's trying to tell the predator "I am stronger than you imagined; back off".  This is why, when we were young and saw bodybuilders, we KNEW they were strong, and it took the internet to somehow convince us otherwise.  No no, "strength" is a skill, they said.  Strength is a product of practice and CNS efficiency.  Bullcrap.  Remember the first World's Strongest Man?  Remember how Lou Ferrigno held his own the whole time?  Remember how Franco Columbu, despite being BARELY 200lbs, was doing awesome right up until the point he blew out his knee RUNNING with a refrigerator in his back?  Building big muscles is building STRONG muscles, even IF it does not directly translate specifically into larger 1 rep max numbers on a handful of lifts.  There is a significant value to be had in training a variety of rep ranges and angles in order to develop strength IN TOTAL, irrespective of if your gym total goes up.  We're in the business of getting bigger and stronger; not winning meets.

It is not uncommon to see this many metals at a meet with 12 competitors

Now, don't get me wrong; a real, actual dedicated powerlifter KNOWS all this.  Once again, I do not write this in an attempt to discredit powerlifting proper; simply the bizarre state of affairs surrounding the sport as it exists within the net.  Guys who want to win meets and be the best LIFTER they can be utilize a practice of accumulating volume and getting bigger and stronger all around, but instagram heroes and Mr. Wonderfuls of the week muddy the waters for new lifters looking in trying to learn how to get stronger by "training like a powerlifter".

What's the takeaway here?  Realize that powerlifting isn't strength training; it's a sport, with it's own priorities, rules and guidelines.  Being strong is important in powerlifting, but it's not the SPORT of being strong; it's the sport of moving the most weight.  When we confuse weight moved with strength possessed, we miss out on the other variables that are at play.  

HOW LONG DO YOU TRAIN?

There is a lot of discussion in the world of lifting regarding how long one should train for, to include how much training would be overtraining and at what point catabolism kicks in.  There is also a LOT of science out there to back up various claims regarding optimal training duration, and people from all camps are all too excited to come racing back to these studies whenever they need to validate their beliefs.  However, there is a factor that people must consider before they start quoting these various optimal numbers; time spent in the training facility is not necessarily time spent training.  In fact, in most cases, it’s not even close.  I’d even go so far as to wager that those spending the most time in the gym are doing some of the least amount of training.

Another reason I like to train at home

We hear people brag about their epic training sessions all the time.  2 hour training sessions, 3 hour training sessions, all day, etc etc, but all of this is bravado.  Consider how much time is ACTUALLY spent training in these sessions compared to simply being physically present in the gym.  In most instances, these people are resting, 3, 5, 8, sometimes even 10+ minutes between sets.  In many instances, longer training sessions correlate to longer rest periods, as, of course, that’s logical.  You spend more time resting between sets, so you spend more time in the gym.  But does this equate to more time TRAINING?  Absolutely not.

Let’s say that a set of 10 takes 20 seconds to complete.  You take 2 trainees; 1 who rests 1 minute between sets, and 1 that takes 5 minutes between sets.  Both do 3x10.  Trainee #1 is done with his training session in 12 minutes.  Trainee #2 is done with their training session in 20 minutes.  Who trained more?  Neither; they both TRAINED for the same amount of time; 10 minutes.  One simply recovered faster than the other.  However, let’s say both trainees spend an hour in the gym on that day, training at the rates previously established.  NOW who trained more?  Clearly trainee #1.

If I screwed up the math, keep in mind, I'm more familiar with this guy than numbers...but that means I can still tell who is the superior lifter

THIS is the factor one must take into consideration when evaluating the potential for overtraining and fatigue in a trainee.  So many times, someone observes a trainee say they train 3 hours a day and immediately jump to cautionary tales of overtraining and exertion, but I go to the opposite conclusion; this person isn’t working NEARLY hard enough.  This person is leisurely resting 10 minutes between sets, talking to their friends, sipping water, scrolling through facebook and in general not breathing hard or exerting themselves.  This person isn’t taxing themselves to any significant degree to force adaptation.  This person is at serious risk of UNDERTRAINING.
I’m sure there is an amount of training that one must engage in that will trigger catabolism, but most trainees engage in practices that are inherently designed for self-preservation specifically for this.  Most trainees rest until the point that their heart rate has returned to a state of normalcy.  They rest until their breathing has returned to a normal rhythm.  They rest until they are ready for maximal exertion.  These aren’t inherently negative practices, but they ARE moments of NOT training, and it’s what must be factored in when it comes to deciding the impact of the length of one’s training sessions.

If you are pushing yourself to the point that you AREN’T actually recovering between sets, you most likely ARE at risk of actually going catabolic in your training sessions, but thankfully your body has a built in self governor on this one; your conditioning level.  Most trainees simply aren’t going to sustain the necessary amount of output for a long enough period of time to need to worry about this.  It’s because, once you push the body that hard for a long period of time, your body eventually quits as a means of self-preservation.  The people that CAN overcome this barrier do so as a result of intentionally exposing themselves to this sort of stimulus, and even THEY engage in this practice in limited quantities.  Marathon runners, super endurance athletes, elite crossfitters (yeah, I pissed off a lot of people with that one), etc etc, they put themselves through a LOT to get to this point; it’s not going to be some average gym rat that is lifting weights 3 days a week.

Apparently one of these is the "after" photo. Coulda stood to engage in some overtraining

But why not go view that as a challenge?  Why not get yourself to the point that an hour training session is actually damn near an hour of training?  Think of the benefits of such training density; the sheer amount of volume that can be accumulated in a short time, which can mean more volume if one REALLY wants to actually train for 2-3 hours.  Imagine how strong your conditioning base would have to be in order to actually push yourself for that long; to be almost fully recovered after 1 minute of rest between heavy lifts, to be able to giant set without affecting your latter lifts, to be able to deadlift AND squat heavy in one workout.  My longtime readers will recognize the facetiousness of those comments, but to many on the net, what I just mentioned are deemed IMPOSSIBLE feats by those who have not got themselves in good enough shape to actually TRAIN for as long as they are present.

This isn’t school; you aren’t being graded on attendance.  Simply being in the gym is NOT time spent training, and affording yourself the luxury of a 3 hour session is most likely promoting habits you should avoid.  Try putting yourself on a time limit and doing whatever it takes to get the workout knocked out in that time.  See if you can train hard enough to go catabolic; you might find that, in the process, you get some of the greatest growth in your life.