You've heard about this sport everywhere and you know that powerlifting athletes are really strong but what is this sport REALLY all about?

Powerlifting has been growing in popularity and its training methods have been used to increase performance by not just powerlifters but by people in other sports that simply need to get stronger. The name "Powerlifting" however is actually misleading because the sport is not about power, but strength. For those of you that don't know the difference, strength is the maximum force you are able to exert, and power is the RATE of force performed. In other words, strength is the maximum weight that you can lift, and power is how hard you can push in a certain amount of time. Lifting requires strength because you don't have a time constraint and can take your time to focus up your energy into the lift. Basketball however would require tons of explosive power because you have to move quickly while changing directions and stopping and going. Another comparison is that strength is the MAX speed of a car, while power is the ACCELERATION of a car.

Ok, on the actual sport. Regular powerlifting measures an athelete's ability to benchpress, sqat, and deadlift. This is not to be confused with olympic weightlifting, which measures a more complicated series of movement where the lifter brings the barbell from the ground to over his head. Powerlifting is very modern and has started around the 1960's. It measures nothing but absolute raw strength in the three lifts. Competitors are divided up into weight classes where every man and woman will compete against others their own size which makes the event very fair and gives credit where it is due. Imagine if there was a professional leagure for basketball players under 5'9". How nice would that be.

Training in powerlifting is definitely different from training in bodybuilding. Bodybuilding routines are meant to stimulate muscles into growing. Powerlifting stimulates muscles into getting stronger and getting more and more use to lifting a heavier weight. Although your muscles need to be bigger to be stronger, this is not necessarily always the case. There ARE ways to get much much stronger without getting much much bigger. That is the secret to powerlifting and it keeps us all looking normal and veiny and bulgy like those bodybuilders.

Any individual no matter how small or skinny can enjoy and succeed in this sport. The point of the lift is to lift as much as you can and powerlifters are usually able to lift over two, three, or four times their weight! I've seen 114lb guys benchpress 300lbs, and 110lb ladies benchpress over 250lbs. Then we also have monster Ryan Kennelly who benchpressed over 900 pounds! No bodybuilder has even come close to that. Powerlifters really are the strongest people in the world, alongside the olympic lifters and strongmen. By the way, MOST strongmen competitors are powerlifters.

Anyway, the sport is insane and anybody can become superstrong if they train correctly. It's also a great sport if you want to get freakishly strong without looking freakishly huge. How cool would that be?! "Hard-gainers" and skinny guys could easily bench 300lbs if they trained correctly! Tired of spending money on nutrition and supplements to bodybuild? Want to try something new? Want to be a star despite your smaller body size? Try powerlifting.

Now get up and do it. Don't be a sissy, train hard and start embarassing those bodybuilders at the gym!

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