Being a competitor myself, why did a 4th place satisfy you?
And you trained for the goal of looking the best you could the day of the contest?
If you don’t understand the mindset of challenging yourself with competitive sports even after doing it, then I don’t know what to say. I guess enjoy doing 12s.
Because at the end of the day I’m always 1st in my own mind because I made the most of the hand I was dealt. It’s possible that the 1st place guy didn’t have to make the most of the hand he was dealt. That’s what truly matters at the end of the day. Being the best version of yourself trumps being the best out of everyone else.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
You’re framing competition as the defining feature of challenging oneself, but personal progression, intensity, and methodology are valid measures of growth, even without formal competition. Enjoy limiting yourself, I’ll do my 12s and not limit myself
I see.
That’s not the gotcha you think it is. Competing to compare yourself for information or growth doesn’t contradict the idea that letting comparison dictate your happiness can steal joy. They operate on different levels
I am okay with that.
But it also might factor in your apparent disdain for competition.
You appreciate the process more than many.
I tend to look at the process as the necessity to make the destination.
You’re misrepresenting my argument as usual. I don’t have disdain for competition. I have disdain for elitists and gatekeepers who want to discount someone being a powerlifter just because they don’t compete, yet employ full powerlifting methodology for their training.
You’re the one limiting yourself by choosing to be beholden to a crooked organization in order to call yourself a powerlifter at the end of the day. Just because you limit yourself doesn’t mean that there’s no such thing as being a non-competitive powerlifter. Maybe some people don’t care as much about crooked organizations like you do.
If you didn’t care about crooked organizations, you wouldn’t discount people training like powerlifters who never compete.
I agree. I said something quite similar already.
Allow me to restate this one more time:
I have been around a very large numbers of persons lifting weights. I have never met anyone who didn’t compete in Powerlifting that called themselves a Powerlifter.
IMO, you are an advocate without a client.
3 Likes
That’s the kind of circular reasoning that keeps this discussion stuck. You’re saying you’ve never met a non-competitive lifter who calls themselves a powerlifter but that’s only because people have been conditioned not to use the term unless they compete, even if their entire training revolves around powerlifting methodology.
The fact that such people exist in large numbers following powerlifting programs, tracking progress in the big three, running peaking cycles, and testing maxes, is the client you think doesn’t exist. They just don’t use the label because of cultural gatekeeping.
The competition only formalizes what’s already being done.
Now I get it.
You are a social justice warrior.
So now we devolved into throwing buzz words. Let’s expound further on that buzz phrase. Your stance is actually the social justice warrior position here, your gatekeeping of identity based on external validation. You’re policing who’s allowed to “identify” as a powerlifter based on institutional approval, rather than acknowledging the objective practice itself.
You relying on external validation and social identity policing is the same behavior you mock in SJWs. Can’t make this up
Go to a meet. Just as a spectator. You will never find a more open, kind, and helpful room of people. There’s no gate-keeping. Remember the 74 year old woman I told you about? The only gate is literally signing up for the meet and being able to squat, bench and deadlift the open bar.
My position is to leave as it has historically been. That is by definition the conservative position. I know there was no rule as such, but it was implicitly viewed as such by all lifters, by and large.
Social justice warriors are seeking progressive change.
“Can’t make this up” Now that is a novel comment.
1 Like
So you admitted that you are gatekeeping by basing identity off external validation not the objective practice.
So the 74 year old woman is a powerlifter but the 25 year old dude who’s been powerlifting in his garage for several years with massive numbers but hasn’t competed is not a powerlifter.
You can’t run away from the practice of powerlifting or its methodology
That’s actually the irony of your argument. You’re claiming the conservative position is to “leave it as it’s historically been,” but the very history you appeal to has already changed multiple times.
The sport of powerlifting itself was born out of lifters who didn’t want to be bound by Olympic weightlifting standards, that was a progressive act at the time. They took existing strength practices and formalized them into something new. By your logic, the early powerlifters were “social justice warriors” for refusing to conform to the established weightlifting institutions.
So if we’re being consistent, maintaining the spirit of powerlifting means honoring that independence, not gatekeeping it behind federations. In other words, the “conservative” thing to preserve isn’t bureaucracy; it’s the tradition of lifters defining strength on their own terms.
Got it. Participation trophies for everyone then.
1 Like
That is correct. They’re both strength training, but only granny is a powerlifter.
That’s actually the opposite of what I’m saying. I’m not asking for participation trophies, I’m saying your definition depends on them.
If the only thing that makes someone a powerlifter is whether they compete, then you’re the one defining legitimacy through external validation, not through performance or mastery. That’s the true “participation trophy” mindset needing official approval to feel accomplished.