Considering that weightlifting has been threatened to be thrown out of the Olympics, they might have no choice. Splitting into different federations seems to have been detrimental to powerlifting as a whole, but bodybuilding seems to have endured. I have never heard of a drug tested strongman meet - is there such a thing? That hasn’t taken away from strongman’s popularity.
Strongman is popular because it’s fun as shit to watch. It overcomes the drug thing. Bodybuilding has the same issue powerlifting does.
I’m going out on the opinion limb a bit, but I think my opinion is pretty easily supported here… Strongman has succeeded where the other iron sports have failed because it is visually more appealing. There’s variety. Average people can understand it better than they can powerlifting. If you’re sitting in front of a tv, and you see a guy performing a max effort squat with 800 lbs, it’s going to look essentially the same as a guy squatting 225 with large bumper plates. It doesn’t register with the non-lifting viewer. BUT, when one watches a dude running with a refrigerator strapped to his back, or pulling an airplane with a rope, or holding up 2 giant pillars with chains, the average guy will say ‘HOLY SHIT HE"S PULLING A FUCKING AIRPLANE!’ And it’s so impactful, and so attention grabbing that nobody actually cares whether the competitors are on drugs or not.
Basically, if strongman was as boring to watch as powerlifting is, we’d be paying attention to the drug thing there too. The drug issue is a side show, and when the main attraction doesn’t keep our attention, our eyes turn to the side.
8 Likes
You definitely have a point. At the same time, when ordinary people ask me how much I bench and I tell them 370, or whatever it was before that, they usually look at me in awe and say “that’s crazy, man!” or something to that effect. But still, it’s hard to compare that to running with a fridge on your back.
When I was a little kid they used to show WSM reruns just about every day on TSN, I used to watch that regularly. When I first saw weightlifting I wasn’t really impressed because I just didn’t understand what was going on. I think that more people lifting raw will make PL seem more like something that people can relate to, vs. huge numbers in gear, but I don’t expect it to surpass strongman any time soon. Either way, it’s my preferred sport and I’m not about to stop.
I’ll watch a powerlifting meet when they swap out the plates and barbell for a huge apparatus filled with Playboy Bunnies, desperate to be squatted by a freakish brute.
3 Likes
I think, too, that when one looks at the top heavyweights in strongman you think ‘damn that guy is just massive’.
When you see top untested bodybuilders they look like freaks and the average person thinks ‘steroids’.
I have specifically pared down comp warm ups just for this reason. I find warm up rooms stressful and crowded. Jockeying for time on the platform and worrying about it takes more out of me than cutting out sets. The less I have to do, the better. Mind you I’m not particularly great but I’m always surprised when I see lifters warm up with what looks like a training session.
1 Like
definitely agree here. I strongly believe most lifters spend waaaaay too much time and energy on their warm ups. I don’t get it at all. I think for a lot of folks, they’re sapping more energy than they are aware of. I know I said earlier that you can’t just limit your warm ups, but to the extent you’re talking, you definitely can. I know I warm up with far fewer reps than most people. I never squat with just the bar, certainly don’t deadlift with it. I also take full plate jumps for each warmup set until I’m about a plate or less away from my max. If I’m planning on working up to, say, 550 or something in that neighborhood, I’ll probably hit like 3 reps at 135, 3-5 at 225, 2-3 at 315, 2-3 at 405, 1 at 495, and then smaller jumps. I do this both in training and comps, if I can. But it wouldn’t bother me if I had to start at 225 or even 315. I’d rather do that and hit my heavier warm up sets than get more reps in but only be able to warm up to, say, 4 plates.
1 Like
Warm-ups are cheating. Lift super raw.
But really, I wholly endorse most of what has been said in this regard. It’s also why I think powerlifting is so werid; guys are getting bent out of shape because they weren’t able to beat some sort of internet numbers rather than the people in their weight class, mainly because no one cares about winning meets anymore.
1 Like
But do they actually know what that means? I mean it’s cool, but it doesn’t translate to say pressing a 370 pound (insert anything that weighs 370 pounds). At my job, no ones gives a fuck when they know how much I can squat, dead, ohp, anything. But when they see me pick up kegs or load up heavy buckets with ease, they take notice. It’s very hard for the average person to grasp what heavy actually means. My dad is a mechanic and literally gives two fucks about lifting weights or how much I can do because he knows that he can out work me when it comes to loading tires and shit. I’ve seen him pick up the end of a motor with one hand to get a rag out from underneath it just to wipe off his hands. At that moment I couldn’t care less how much he could dumbbell row or some shit.
Clearly my numbers aren’t as big. I generally open deadlift around 295-300. Mine are 135-5, 225-2, 265-1. That’s all. No foam rolling. No stretching. Three sets and some chit chat with friends.
It’s different when you’re new and figuring out what works for you. I’ve had the same for a long time and it wasn’t always that cut and dry.
that’s totally reasonable.
I’ve got a comp coming up in just under 2 weeks. I think I’ll make a video of the warmups so y’all can see the idiocy that occurs at these strongman shows.
Something that I forgot to mention about my last show that kind of just occurred to me: so, we had the log press first in the day. the empty log weighs 170, so that’s the minimum anyone was gonna be able to warm up at. It’s kind of funny that, following an event where everyone’s clean and pressing 170+ to warm up, literally every single competitor aside from me felt it necessary to deadlift 135 and 225 to warm up. Also, a side note: I won the deadlift by 30 lbs, and probably could have taken another 30 lbs jump if I had been challenged. I only used 2 attempts to win. Efficiency is a good thing, lol.
1 Like
re: deadlift warmups
In a meet I don’t feel like I need a whole lot of warming up for deadlift because I’m still sort of warmed up from squatting, and like I said the meets I compete in are usually around 3 hours from start to finish. In training I normally do a bit more to warm up unless I squatted earlier in the same session, which I do at time. It’s just squatting in particular that I feel I need to do more to warm up properly, but I don’t do any foam rolling or anything like that. A quick glute warmup and then start squatting, that’s it.
Not really, unless they lift weights, but they know that it’s a lot more than they weigh and sounds heavy. You talk to some guys who “go to the gym”, they will say “I was benching real heavy yesterday”, you ask how much: maybe 185x6 or something. If you lift a fridge over your head that’s another story altogether.
1 Like
I don’t think I’ll ever warm up my deadlift again haha. My biggest pull 655 was done cold, no warm up after laying in the gym floor for about hour watching people lift haha.
4 Likes
Best comment EVER.
Definitely don’t wait to start doing meets. The earlier you start the better. It will be good to start early because it’ll help you familiarize yourself with the process plus you can meet a lot of people that share the same interest.
1 Like