I’m pretty sure he’s talking about Eddie Berglund. For sure he wouldn’t be able to bench nearly as much without an arch, but so what. This isn’t about how much you could or couldn’t lift in a particular situation but how much you can lift within the standards of the sport.
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Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t it all raw with wraps until the 80’s when squat suits and bench shirts came out? I know that raw was not a separate division and it was like the equivalent of lifting beltless with Nike Airs once the gear came out, it just took a while for competing without suits and shirts to become a thing again.
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This is what I’m saying. It was just powerlifting. It wasn’t raw because that was “the spirit of powerlifting”: the gear simply didn’t exist. Once it did, it was included, and even before that people were finding ways to get the most out of what they had, like stuffing tennis balls behind their knee wraps to get more bounce, wearing super tight denim shorts to get bounce out of the squat, etc. “Cheating” is pretty much the spirit of powerlifting.
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That’s the spirit of sport, generally. It’s about who wins, not who looks the best (while losing). To quote Louie: “There’s nothing fair in sports. If your dad has money and can send you to Ronald McDonald basketball camp and my dads too poor, are you cheating?”
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To add, there’s a lot of mobility work, training, and technique behind arching. Think about how you brace on your squat, press, and deadlift, versus how differently you brace on bench. Or leg drive in bench with an arch vs without an arch.
If I’m correct, Arching is also safer on the shoulders too because you get to pack your shoulders/upper back musculature. And if that’s a factor in athlete longevity, it’s something that all athletes should implement or, at the very minimum, try to do.
Have you looked at Olympic style lifting? Now, people who compete in that are also looking for every competitive advantage, but you might find that some of the things that are disappointing you about Powerlifting are somewhat less of a factor there; there are only so many things you can do to move the weight from the floor to arm’s length overhead. In any event, to me, Powerlifting is really about competing with yourself and trying to be stronger than you were yesterday; that’s what I love about it. If you think about it that way, it really doesn’t matter that someone else has a ridiculous arch in his bench, etc. But obviously you’ll have to decide for yourself whether Powerlifting is your thing.
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As a recreational P-Lifter I fully agree to this, nicely said.
As a general point, there will always be a very small number of individuals who will get a massive genetic benefit given a fixed set of rules. This will always be true, even if you start changing rules to flat back or no-sumo. I think you have to look at what better alternatives there are and whether these alternatives can:
- Be observed and judged in a fair and consistent manner
- Will make the athlete perform the lift as safely as possible
On a no arch scenario, I can see that this might be difficult to properly observe. Also a true flat back forces the lifter to take max load on a non natural lordotic spine. Retracting shoulder blades will become more difficult (resulting in longer ROM), which may lead to even more pec tears. I am not saying it would be impossible, but every fixed set of rules will have its own drawbacks. If a true test of strength is the goal, you could even go as far and remove all the coordination and technique and just measure how strong a muscle can contract in relation to its size, but I believe we all agree that we consider this as part of the “skill/lift”.
Lastly, (just like in the Olympics) the sport needs to grow and be popular for the better of everyone. This can only come with exciting events with WRs being broken, so I would doubt that it is in the interest of big federations and sponsors to change the rules now, which might result in overall less weight being lifted. P-lifting is in one way already “fairer” than the olympics as there is a drug-tested (not drug-free) an untested category.
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Fair enough.
AKA weightlifting, cheating is part of the sport. I’m not against steroid use but I don’t support people who compete in a drug tested fed or division when they are using drugs, fortunately in PL there are untested fed/divisions and nobody (other than retarded social media commentators) can say anything. However, in WL there is no such thing as an untested division and most if not all of the top lifters were/are using PEDs.
Look at the last two Olympics, people who came in 3rd or 4th now have a gold medal because everyone ahead of them tested positive. Now it has been said that passing a drug test is just part of the sport and it’s hard to really call it cheating if nearly everyone in the whole sport is doing it, but does that not conflict with the “spirit of sport” or whatever you want to call it? Will a big arch increase your bench more than using steroids for years on end? Don’t call it cheating if it’s allowed because by definition it is not cheating.
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“Polish weightlifter Tomasz Zielinski is set to receive an Olympic bronze medal despite finishing ninth at London 2012 - and being currently banned himself.”
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/37371735
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If I remember right, there’s a story about Fred Hatfield actually requesting that the squat stand be moved after unracking before setting a world record squat. Was that cheating? Nope- it was innovation.
The thing is that everybody wants a competitive angle. Look at WSM last year. Eddie Hall sandbagged on the viking press and didn’t push everything he had- he did just enough to win. Is that cheating? Those competitors that went first had to do everything they could to put up reps with no knowledge of how many would win the event. The one who went last had to do 1 more. Competition is an art in and of itself. Being creative within the bounds of what is allowed is about winning.
You can powerlift to win or you can powerlift to beat yourself (or you can do both). If you do it to win, you use every trick in the book that you have available. If it’s shit talking a bit to get in a competitor’s head, trying to get folks drunk the night before, or whatever. Just win.
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Lol! That’s great. 9th to 3rd.
I think some of the foreign countries have a bit more motivation to cheat. We always joke that the ones who fail are going to get killed (mostly Russia, Germany, Korea, China, the countries with which the US has had trouble).
As a taller, weaker person I’d really like to see this defined in terms of distance. 
“Squat the bar 14” down from your locked out position."
@skinnydeadliftgod I think you’ll find that strongman is the closest thing you’ll find to a “fair” strength sport.
@flipcollar gave you some great and genuine advice. You’re not going to be elite by age 20. But you might be at 25-30. You don’t have to gain 20 lbs in a year. Aim for 5-8 lbs a year every year until you’re satisfied.
Whether you stick with power lifting or switch to something like strongman, say goodbye to your abs. You don’t need them.
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Out of curiosity, whats your bench, op?
262lbs paused
Makes sense to why you think big arch benchers arent “respectful to the original spirit of powerlifting”
You must think this guy is the biggest “cheater” for benching 1.5x than you:
Hes not a “cheater” because he benches 1.5x more than me,but because he achieved it with more than 2x less than my range of motion. I dont think anyone here is believing me that i really am not butthurt or jelous becausw my own bench is weak. Even if i had the strongest raw bench on the planet my opinion would still be the same. Except that some of these replies have convinced me that there really cant be done anything to stop arching so whatever.
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He’s been using world record(s) in the plural form consistently, so that’s pretty much what I was getting at. Seems an exaggeration to me. And that it only applies to the lowest weight classes, which he happens to compete in for some reason.
There are just so few powerlifters really putting up big numbers with a huge arch when you look at the sport overall. It’s a rare thing. The only reason I arch my back the way that I do is for shoulder safety/stability. I used to bench with a flatter back, and I ruined my shoulders and tore a pec because of it.
The whole thing is just silly though. I don’t see why anyone would complain about a competitor in any sport playing by the rules of the sport.
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True, but doesn’t powerlifting have complaining to thank for the numerous federations and multitude of world records in every federation and division they’ve separated themselves into?
It seems to me that complaining about powerlifting is as true to the spirit of powerlifting as anything else.
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There are also guys setting records with no arch at all. There is a guy named Leon Brown, he happens to live in Ottawa too, he is about 52 now if I’m not mistaken and holds the IPF bench record in the open division and isn’t far off from the drug tested all time record as listed on PLwatch. He doesn’t arch and he doesn’t even use leg drive, he tore a quad squatting in one meet and was still able to bench just fine. I can’t remember if he set a new record that time or not but he won a gold medal for bench. Who knows, maybe he’s cheating by being old and not using leg drive.
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In case anyone doesn’t catch what I’m saying, the point is that if arching was cheating and guaranteed you a massive bench then how come nobody is beating Leon when there are plenty of flexible young guys in the 105kg class?
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