Weight training didn’t have catchy names for programs back in the times of Reg Park.
It was a very esoteric “sport” in the 1950’s and pretty much until the movie Pumping Iron. Very few people lifted weights. The mantra of coaches back then was “lifting weights makes you muscle bound.” By 1970 at North Carolina State University only two football players lifted weights at all. They lifted with the rest of the students that lifted weights at the school weight room. That was my first weight room.
What should you criticize without familiarity?
This is nothing more than common sense.
I have some fundamental knowledge of 5/3/1, but don’t know enough to make any comment.
The whole going back and forth with T3hPwnisher about that is that if you look at the standard 5/3/1, no variations..you can tell it’s built on powerlifting principles. You could be pedantic and say, “well it’s not a powerlifting program because you don’t truly peak on it”. But people who say “5/3/1 isn’t powerlifting” are often arguing from a competition-specific definition: “A powerlifting program must peak you for a meet.”
But in practice, powerlifting is strength training with a focus on the squat, bench, and deadlift. That’s literally what 5/3/1 does. To deny it’s “powerlifting” because it’s generalized is like denying Sheiko is powerlifting because not everyone running it competes. Wendler wrote 5/3/1 after leaving competitive powerlifting, and it was his way of making powerlifting-style training sustainable for life after competition.
That’s were I don’t agree. Powerlifting is a sport. It is not a training type. People who complete in the sport of powerlifting call themselves powerlifter. If you are following one of the many 531 programs but do not compete you are not a powerlifter and you are not doing powerlifting programs.
I agree, powerlifting is a sport. But “powerlifting training” is a training style. Competition status doesn’t retroactively change what your training principles are. You’re still training for the same qualities, the competition just formalizes it. Powerlifting principles don’t magically appear only when you sign up for a meet.
Saying “If you don’t compete, your training isn’t powerlifting training” is like saying:
-You can’t do Olympic lifting unless you go to the Olympics.
-You can’t train like a boxer unless you fight professionally.
-You can’t follow a football strength program unless you’re in the NFL.
I definitely called my shot on this one.
You should start a training log here, dude. Seems like you have similar Training ideals to me, so I’d be interested in seeing what your training looks like on a day in, day out basis.
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It is time to end the semantics arguing. Since 1966 Powerlifting meant training and competing in the specific “odd lifts” Bench Press, Squat, and Deadlift. Not just one or two of them, but all three of them. Example: If someone wanted to break the state record in the Bench Press, they also had to successfully execute a legal Squat and Deadlift to make the record official.
As I see it, though you insist on misusing the word Powerlifting, you actually are meaning strength training. Then, all of your comments become specific. Once a person uses 5/3/1 principles to improve his overhead press, he is no longer Powerlifting training. He is strength training. The overhead press is not one of the Powerlifting lifts. Therefore it is not Powerlifting training by definition.
If you train boxing and do not fight you are not a boxer. As you said you are just someone who trains like a boxer.
Notice you said a football strength program and not an NFL program. Even you are distinguishing between the two.
Just because a program focuses on strength or uses the big 3 or 4 movements, does not make it a powerlifting program.
Jonathan Warren, Golden Era Bookworm, John Meadows and Joel Kellett are my favorites
It’s a category error to assume only competitors “are” what they train. By that logic a pianist who never performs isn’t a pianist, a chef who never sells food isn’t a cook, a runner who never enters a race isn’t a runner.
Competence and practice define activity; competition merely validates it publicly.
“Notice you said a football strength program and not an NFL program. Even you are distinguishing between the two.” That’s a false equivalence, an “NFL program” is tied to a specific organization , not a training philosophy. But a “powerlifting program” isn’t tied to the Powerlifting Federation it’s tied to the training method.
"Just because a program focuses on strength or uses the big 3 or 4 movements, does not make it a powerlifting program.” That’s partially true, but it misunderstands what makes a program “powerlifting-based.” Using the big 3 isn’t enough to make something powerlifting, but using them with powerlifting principles absolutely does. 5/3/1 in its standard form isn’t “just a strength program” it’s a powerlifting-style strength program designed by a powerlifter, built around powerlifting methodology.
Powerlifting is a subset of strength training. “Once a person uses 5/3/1 principles to improve his overhead press, he is no longer Powerlifting training. The overhead press is not one of the Powerlifting lifts.”
This is technically true, the overhead press is not a current competition lift in modern powerlifting, but that’s not the same as saying it’s “not powerlifting training.”
Historically the overhead press was a competition lift. Remember Reg Park? Back then, the bench press wasn’t even popularized until the late 1940s. So even though it’s not in competition now, the training principle remains identical. You’re still applying powerlifting methodology to a closely related movement. The way you described it means that even elite powerlifters don’t “do powerlifting training” half the time, because they aren’t literally doing competition lifts every session. If you apply powerlifting principles: submaximal progression, specificity, periodization, and assistance for the big lifts, then you’re doing powerlifting-style training whether your main lift is a bench press or an overhead press.
In Olympic lifting. It was the first lift of the three.
Right, and that’s exactly my point. The overhead press was a judged competition lift before powerlifting even existed as a formal sport. Powerlifting didn’t invent pressing strength; it inherited a tradition that used to prize the overhead press instead of the bench. So historically, pressing strength has always been part of the same lineage of competitive lifting.
What were they doing if they were doing it in the 1940’s. It sure wasn’t powerlifting methodology. Powerlifting didn’t exist. No. They were strength training.
I just don’t see how you cannot grasp that simple concept.
Powerlifting training is a subset of strength training.
I understand your point that powerlifting as a formal sport didn’t exist in the 1940s. My point is that the methodology behind powerlifting: progressive overload, compound lifts, assistance work, and systematic strength progression, already existed in practice. Modern powerlifting simply codified and formalized these principles. Applying them to the overhead press in 5/3/1 is therefore entirely consistent with the lineage of strength training that predates the sport itself.
And those specific principles are what ?
Yep agree and I would go further and say the powerlifting training only really applies when training for competition.
Someone who cooks is a cook. Someone who does this commercially and prepares food for sale is a chef. You are using two completely different terms to define the same thing. Same way you are mixing strength training and powerlifting.