I just got back into powerlifting after a 25 year hiatus. I started training again at a gym here in Sweden - (I relocated here for work) - and found a pretty hardcore gym to train. I noticed the prevailing school of thought here is to just drop the bar after standing erect with a deadlift. You know, just let go and drop the bar like you throwing away a gum wrapper or something after each rep.
Back in my day, I thought this was verboten. As far as I recall, there were even rules against dropping the bar in competition as well, so we trained to that standard.
What gives? is this a European thing? A new thing? A Russian thing? A way to reduce stress and prevent injury of the lower back maybe?
You must maintain control of the bar during competition. In the gym it doesnt really matter. Dropping the bar removes the eccentric and causes a tad less fatigue.
Definitely not the European thing, as far as I’ve seen. Mind you, I haven’t been in any Swedish powerlifting gyms! Might be a product of the bumper-plate-happy CrossFit crew or just a mini-culture within your particular gym.
Mark Rippetoe wrote a good arcticle for this website about this:
It’s not the norm in Sweden; at least the gyms where I have trained and currently train. When I have seen it occur, it is usually some CrossFit type person dropping small weights trying to look strong. A lot of the Crossfit gyms out here are full so sometimes they infiltrate other gyms.
If you’re on a platform, I don’t think it’s a big deal to drop the weight during training. I used to do it when wearing my deadlift suit due to the suck factor of going back in the hole with it to set the weight down.
If you’re competing be careful it doesn’t become a habit. I’ve seen people dropping it in the warm-up room and then forgetting and dropping it on the platform. It sucks to lose a lift for something technical.
[quote]UAphenix wrote:
If you’re on a platform, I don’t think it’s a big deal to drop the weight during training. I used to do it when wearing my deadlift suit due to the suck factor of going back in the hole with it to set the weight down.[/quote]
Every time I try to lower the weight down in my deadlift suit, I feel like it threatens my ability to procreate.
[quote]UAphenix wrote:
If you’re on a platform, I don’t think it’s a big deal to drop the weight during training. I used to do it when wearing my deadlift suit due to the suck factor of going back in the hole with it to set the weight down.[/quote]
Every time I try to lower the weight down in my deadlift suit, I feel like it threatens my ability to procreate.[/quote]
If THAT isn’t a good reason to go RAAAAWWWW I don’t know. Not the kids man.
Just be glad that you 1) have a cool gym to lift at & 2) a gym that lets you dfeadlift.
I have literally had my gym membership on the verge of revocation from deadlifting. I even placed it back on the floor as gently as possible but it still makes a noise. Both of those gyms no longer exist BTW so f**K em…lol.
Now I lift in my garage and the management doesn’t care what I do.
Thanks for all the responses…good stuff to think about. Yes, I do feel lucky to have a gym like this, and since it is fully equipped with bumper plates and has excellent, sturdy, lifting platforms with a kind of springloaded subfloor providing a shock absorption affect - I assume it makes it a quite an attractive prospect to drop the weight. I am also assuming it makes them feel bad-ass to drop the weight and make a massive thud-type noise…it can be done with a relatively light weight so you get a big bang for the buck.
There are also Olympic weightlifters in the gym and I suspect the powerlifiters see how those guys drop the weights and want to be part of the club too…
I also see the benefits of removing the eccentric portion of the lift, sometimes, but one must be careful to not create a bad habit…but these freakin guys do it aall the time. In the mini subculture of this gym it seems to be the norm. That’s cool, now I know.
Bitte schoen. Yeah, Riptoe is awesome…you gotta love that dude! That Texas drawl…
I miss speaking German, was pretty good 25 years ago when I was stationed there. I lost most of it especially now that I am picking up Swedish.
Man, I remember there were some big dudes in the gyms around Kaiserlautern/Pirmasens back in the late 80’s early 90’s. We used to hook up our German friends with Weider supplements, protien shakes, etc. back before the economy was global. You can get all that stuff anywhere now though. Those were some good times back then…I think I did my part in supporting the local economy and the Parkbrau brewery.