Ditto what punisher said about your shoulders, so add some face pulls each day (can superset them with something else if preferred) and you’re good to go.
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I don’t really understand… Did Steve not lift heavy?
He was strong but I’ve read he was a believer in using lighter weights using strict form. Apparently he was approached and accused of not being strong with the weights he was using. He proved them wrong of course.
Heavy is relative of course
In truth, a there only difference in looks between a powerlifter and a bodybuilder isn’t a product of the amount of weight being lifted but the emphasis of the training, and even then, if we’re talking natural competitors, good luck spotting the difference. A natural bodybuilder might have a better quad sweep than a powerlifter, but if I take two 5’9 180lb dudes at 5% bodyfat and one was a powerlifter and one was a bodybuilder, you’d have a hard time telling them apart.
You need to get stronger to get bigger and bigger to get stronger. The guys only lifting heavy all the time don’t get this, nor do the folks only lifting light.
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This is true. I feel power lifter have thick but narrow backs due to Deadlifts, thick triceps, oversized legs and glutes.
Are you of the belief that bodybuilders also don’t deadlift, or that powerlifters don’t do assistance work for their back other than deadlifts?
Or, how about this thought exercise; would you be inclined to believe that basketball makes you tall? If you look at basketball players in the NBA, they’re all quite tall, so one would conclude that, no? What we’re witnessing is more the natural selection of sports; certain physiques, structures, leverages, etc, lend themselves to some sports better than others.
I imagine when you say “powerlifters look like X”, you’re talking more about successful powerlifters that one sees in social media, because they get the focus, but if you head down to a local meet you’re going to see a whole lotta different bodytypes. In addition, a good powerlifter is going to spend a good amount of time out of the low rep ranges as well. This is where assistance work is done, and even in the off season, time gets spent here. The lower rep/heavier stuff is great for peaking, but it’s a misunderstanding that a powerlifter is a guy who is also hammering low reps and heavy weight.
Ultimately, my takeaway is to spend a lot of time in various rep ranges, and only start to specialize when you have a meet coming up.
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What do you consider over size legs?
Franco Columbo kinda lifted heavy…
In reality How Reeves looked had allot to do with his natural Body structure
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Big legs in relation to the rest of the body. And I’m going by what I see. Friends who power lift, guys at the gym. They all just seem to have that look. I can tell right away. A lot of them seem to have big rib cages too but this could just be me. The only science behind that is possibly squatting expanding the rib cage but I think the idea of expanding the rib cage is a myth
Also Franco Columbu was a power lifter before being a body builder. I think arnold met him at a strength competition. If you look at his pics from his power lifting days he had that body I’m taliking about. At least in the pictures in the book I read.
Asthetically one feature you see with successful body builders from the golden age are very wide backs, broad shoulders mostly genetics, tight waist, and proportioned legs.
I’m aware bodybuilders do power exercises too. They do a lot of others as well. For back I think a more popular exercise is pulldowns/pullups for that v taper and a lot of Incline pressing vs flat, and various leg movements not just squats. Obviously it depends on the person but overall this is what I’ve observed
I realize my comment about how powerlifters look seems pretty ignorant. It’s just my own observations.
I agree though, multiple rep ranges seems to be key
You have described the assistance work for a lot of powerlifters and strongman that I know.
Absolutely. I’m saying they’re more of a staple in a body builder routine. The ones I’ve seen anyway.
I feel we will have to agree to disagree.
While i dont personally see to much difference in exercise selection, the application seems to be different. Both use assistance to build size, but in terms of weakness improvement a strength sport athlete will generally use assistance as a tool to build his tested lifts, while a bodybuilder will, generally, use assistance for the primary purpose of rounding out their physique; not necessarily for the direct goal of improving a certain lift.
If you were viewing it from the outside however, i wouldn’t be able to tell who was doing what outside of the obvious heavy dudes benching with 100lbs of chain added, and even then i wouldn’t REALLY know what, if any, strength sport they were competing in.
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You may be seeing those naturally bottom heavy guys who gravitate towards programs like Starting Strength and the like and call it “powerlifting training”. What are their bench numbers compared to their other lifts?
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This is exactly it, and it’s something a lot of folks who don’t/haven’t competed in ironsports don’t quite get.
People think that it boils down to this; you follow a certain program for a certain ironsport, and then it allows you to compete in that sport. In reality, it’s reversed; you compete in an ironsport, and you follow the routine that allows you to do that. What this means is that an athlete will do WHATEVER routine is necessary in order to do their best at their sport.
At my very first powerlifting meet, I was doing DoggCrapp, and actually had my best competitive bench ever at 342. But wait…wasn’t I following a bodybuilder’s routine? Well no, that can’t be right, because I was a powerlifter, right? So whatever routine I was using was a powerlifting routine, yeah? Wait, I know some natural bodybuilders that run sheiko in the off season because they say the volume is great for growth. But that’s a powerlifting routine, right? So those bodybuilders are powerlifters? Well…they went on stage and got judged on their physique, so probably not, but maybe? And when I competed in Strongman, I ran Matt Kroc’s bench program. Wait, Kroc was a powerlifter, and if I was benching SURELY I was a powerlifter…except that I never benched in a strongman show. Now this is getting confusing.
There aren’t bodybuilding programs, powerlifting programs, strongman programs, etc. There are programs used by the competitors of these sports, but following said programs doesn’t necessarily make one that type of athlete, nor does it ensure success in that sport. If it turns out that my biceps are holding me back, I’ll be doing preacher curls next Monday, and I bet you if it turns out that people realize that the log press builds crazy delts, you’ll see the next Mr. Olympia hammering it.
So goddamn true. This is the shield so many unsuccessful trainees hide behind. Not very big, fat, don’t do a lot of work in the gym, only lift in the 5 rep range? It’s cool bro, I’m a powerlifter.
Oh yeah? How many meets have you done?
Real powerlifters are cool. I like them.
It seems like a new trend among the younger guys now since it’s not hardcore to say you’re training for hypertrophy so you’re a powerlifter lol. One of the long standing supplement sites has been marketing to this demographic well. I see a lot of them wearing the t-shirts.
Yup. It’s a mark of shame to admit that you want to actually look like you lift weights. Hell, usage of the term “hypertrophy” itself was one of those sneaky ways to hide it. I remember when I started, you just said “I want to be bigger and stronger”, but now if you say you want to be bigger you have to be prepared for all the snide insults and condescension from folks squatting a massive 155lbs for 3x5, so you say you want hypertrophy instead so that you sound legit.
And then you pair this with the pervasive idea that getting bigger means training entirely different than if you want to get stronger, and that the two goals are impossible to achieve at the same time, and it’s just become a mess. We had a topic very recently where a guy was under significant emotional turmoil because they felt like they had to make some Sophie’s choice decision between the two when designing/following a program.
I don’t really see a point to what I’m writing, but you’re fun to vent with.
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Lol just yesterday I walked into the small gym I sometimes go to that’s near my house and realised all the 20kg plates were gone. Then I saw a bodybuilder acquaintance I hadn’t seen for a year deadlifting 7 plates for a double. Weak fucker.
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Here’s what I’m noticing in real life.
First, as I’ve written before, the younger guys nearly half my age are doing their version of powerlifting/strength training i,e, always maxing out at 1-3 reps multiple times a weak, and they are already having hip, lower back and shoulder pain and spending 30mins foam rolling and stuff before even starting their workouts. They are underdeveloped and lift much less than me. My warm ups take less than 5mins.
Second, it’s like they’re ashamed to be doing “hypertrophy work” and they do not put much effort in it. I doubt they get much out of it by just going through the motions.
Seriously, this not good at all in the long run. Shit like this can be done by someone with a good base of muscle, technique and the experience to autoregulate the load for the main lifts, not relative beginners.
Wait… i have a point… people should really stop this hypertrophy vs strength crap until they’re advanced enough to do whatever the fuck they want.
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