I don’t actually love competing. Abd I just trained several years without taking any meets.
I just did goal oriented strength training, I had fun, I made some progress, specially in OH strength, but I was not a powerlifter.
It did not make my training anything less. But I was just a guy who liked strength training. I still am the same dude, I just decided to do some powerlifting again.
I wonder where I would be if I chose to limit myself by saying “I need to first compete in bodybuilding to be a bodybuilder”. Would I have had the same amount of faith in my training methodology?
I just like competition. Fairly judged competition.
Your fear is that your perception of your physique might not match reality.
No it doesn’t. Does training like a boxer make you a boxer?
I saw a 74 year old woman who’s first bench attempt in a meet was the bar. She is a powerlifter.
And your fear is defining reality for yourself which is why you let others define reality for you instead. You need a group of people to tell you that this is an official meet in order for you to finally have the privilege to identify as a powerlifter. I never needed that as a bodybuilder
I claim there is no single universal powerlifting or bodybuilding methodology.
And I don’t need to believe religiously in one methodology.
I do separate my meet lifts from my gym lifts though. Since doing a lift in a meet is harder and therefore more valuable than doing it in a gym.
Being a powerlifting or bodybuilder is not strictly beholden to competing.
Sure. We can define ourselves what we are. But others don’t need to aknowledge that.
If I define myself as an world strongest man competitor, but I’m not, what does it change?
If we go towards the route that anyone can just say that they’re X or Y, and other need to agree, definitions loose purpose.
Well I’m not referring to blatantly defining yourself as whatever. I’m tying it to an objective methodology with an objective goal in mind.
So if you said you are an astronaut out of thin air, I wouldn’t believe you. But if you built your own spaceship and went to space by yourself without being a part of NASA to go to the moon, I’d argue you’re an astronaut.
I never cared one way or the other about being called a Powerlifter. So you missed the mark by a country mile. That is not me. My guess is that I competed in 60 to 70 bodybuilding contests. No one who knows or knew me calls me a Powerlifter.
Yet you care about gatekeeping the identity of a powerlifter behind a competition (which by the way the legitimacy of every competition is questionable and not absolute). The difference is that I’m going much deeper down to the methodology while you’re only sticking to superfluous titles based off competition only.
You recall incorrectly.
Similar to how you tried to literally change history about when BBB came out 
Yet BBB will always be a variation of the original 5/3/1. And the original 5/3/1 revolves around powerlifting methodology.
Yes, it is.
How about the analogy I posed? Are you a boxer simply by training like one? Or do you actually have to step in the ring for a fight?
What differs strength training principles (such as they are descripted in Scientific Principles of Strength training for example) from powerlifting principles?
To be considered an astronaut, you must reach an altitude of 50 miles according to U.S. definitions (NASA, FAA, Air Force)
In the end that all that matters.
Incorrect.
Yes you’re a boxer if you train like one. We should not underestimate those who don’t compete. How funny would it be calling out someone on not being a boxer despite training like one and then getting it handed it back to you in the ring when you’re a competitive boxer? That would be the biggest joke
If the boxer does some barbell training accidentally he’s not a boxer, but a powerlifter. Don’t forget that.