How Far Wrong We've Gone

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

I’m hoping this thread will iniate one of the prolific authors here into a little critical analysis of the present state of affairs of all things related to human movement of a barbell. This may or may not be original thinking to some here. ^ That in itself is a good example of why this board is pretty freakin good…it covers sooo much ground related to lifting.

Not in any particular order… First, the real start of periodization evidently had nothing to do peaking of max lifts and everything to do w/ the peaking of the steroid dosage. Bob Hoffman simply drew the wrong conclusion about some information he came into possesion of.

Second, the deplorable conditions of powerlifting. Ironmind make mention of this in one of its catalogs by saying jokingly “going shopping for a federation”. I mean hell just how many federations are there? Now it seems every major fed has its own raw, equipped, tested, untested, breifed, unbreifed, wrapped, unwrapped divisions. I’m not standing on both or either side of this fence but I personally feel something needs to be done once and for all. I realize this probably not gonna happen but I can dream right? I guess its just a personal decision, or is it?

Why is it most juicers (I use a little) honestly feel that anabolic hormones were/are pharmaceutically engineered for athelitic purposes? < Total BS. I posted this elsewhere but as an example…Equipoise was definitely NOT originally engineered for freakin horses. No offense to Mr Ed but Equipoise technically means balance not equine drug.

I’m sure this has Jeff Everson has written something similair to this thread but I’d like to know if anyone else here feels anything similair to how I do.

I feel much better now.

2

How many feds do you have in Belgium? In the UK we have 4. 2 tested, 2 not. It’s quite a nice set up really. BWLA for single ply, BDFPA has a stonger unequipped field, then BPC and BPO for non tested mulit-ply lifters. I have lifted in 2 and spectated in another and have found good judging and great comps to be found in all 3.

The US, whilst an important country for lifting, is not the standard model for the rest of the world when it comes to fed proliferation, so why should it concern you in Belgium?

As for gear let other people do what they want and get on with your onw thing. I lift in tested feds, but am happy to watch and enjoy non tested comps. Further I am an unequipped lifter but can still enjoy watching single-ply and multi-ply lifting. Good lifting is good lifting, and as long as your not pissing in my pond more power to ya!

3

Good point Ian.

Pardon my ignorance but aren’t the BPC and BPO the same, just the BPC renamed BPO to fit in the WPO?

4

[quote]Boffin wrote:
Good point Ian.

Pardon my ignorance but aren’t the BPC and BPO the same, just the BPC renamed BPO to fit in the WPO?[/quote]

As far as I know, the BPO is the WPF affliate and BPC was joint GPC/WPC. Not sure if it’s still the case.

In Ireland we’ve the IDFPA, IPF, GPC and IPO.

5

And in the US we have 47289572957348 federations.

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For every federation you can find on powerliftingwatch.com there are 2 bench/strict-curl federations.

7

Wow!!! Great responses. First - Cheeta, if your avatar is your girl…U are one lucky MF! She looks Icelandic/Nordic 4sure.

Pierce / Scott - You got that shit right!

There has gotta be some kind of organization sometime soon. Too much BS today in PL’ing. What’s it gonna come to - Hiring someone to do the lifting for you and you get the credit.

8

[quote]FortDodge wrote:
Wow!!! Great responses. First - Cheeta, if your avatar is your girl…U are one lucky MF! She looks Icelandic/Nordic 4sure.

Pierce / Scott - You got that shit right!

There has gotta be some kind of organization sometime soon. Too much BS today in PL’ing. What’s it gonna come to - Hiring someone to do the lifting for you and you get the credit.[/quote]

FortDodge, that IS Cheeta. And she’s single! HAHA!

On the topic of lifting feds, there’s too many. Honestly, 1 single ply fed, 1 multiply and 1 raw fed. That’s all we need. There’s no way to fix this, so I won’t bitch further.

I think lifting in general has been tainted by the fact that there IS no money in it. Its already been ruined just as sports w/ money have. Rampant steroid usage, squats a mile high, no standardization of rules, etc etc.

I love lifting, but its really hard to make it legit as OL has been made legit in the past.

On that note, I’m taking a nap.

9

[quote]FortDodge wrote:
Wow!!! Great responses. First - Cheeta, if your avatar is your girl…U are one lucky MF! She looks Icelandic/Nordic 4sure.

Pierce / Scott - You got that shit right!

There has gotta be some kind of organization sometime soon. Too much BS today in PL’ing. What’s it gonna come to - Hiring someone to do the lifting for you and you get the credit.[/quote]

Cheeta’s picture is Cheeta.

In Canada we have the CPU (IPF affiliate), CPO and CPA.

10

[quote]Synthetickiller wrote:
FortDodge wrote:
Wow!!! Great responses. First - Cheeta, if your avatar is your girl…U are one lucky MF! She looks Icelandic/Nordic 4sure.

Pierce / Scott - You got that shit right!

There has gotta be some kind of organization sometime soon. Too much BS today in PL’ing. What’s it gonna come to - Hiring someone to do the lifting for you and you get the credit.

FortDodge, that IS Cheeta. And she’s single! HAHA!

On the topic of lifting feds, there’s too many. Honestly, 1 single ply fed, 1 multiply and 1 raw fed. That’s all we need. There’s no way to fix this, so I won’t bitch further.

I think lifting in general has been tainted by the fact that there IS no money in it. Its already been ruined just as sports w/ money have. Rampant steroid usage, squats a mile high, no standardization of rules, etc etc.

I love lifting, but its really hard to make it legit as OL has been made legit in the past.

On that note, I’m taking a nap.[/quote]

3 feds is too many as it is. We dont need a 1-ply fed and a multiply fed, you’re either assisted or youre not. If you’re wearing a shirt i dont care whether its 1 ply, half a ply or 37 ply, you’re getting assistance out of it. When there are single ply guys who cant touch a bench, I dont care, you’re just as jacked up as teh multiply guys

i’d liek to see 1 fed, 4 divisions: drug tested unequipped, untested unequipped, tested equipped, untested equipped

11

[quote]KBCThird wrote:
Synthetickiller wrote:
FortDodge wrote:
Wow!!! Great responses. First - Cheeta, if your avatar is your girl…U are one lucky MF! She looks Icelandic/Nordic 4sure.

Pierce / Scott - You got that shit right!

There has gotta be some kind of organization sometime soon. Too much BS today in PL’ing. What’s it gonna come to - Hiring someone to do the lifting for you and you get the credit.

FortDodge, that IS Cheeta. And she’s single! HAHA!

On the topic of lifting feds, there’s too many. Honestly, 1 single ply fed, 1 multiply and 1 raw fed. That’s all we need. There’s no way to fix this, so I won’t bitch further.

I think lifting in general has been tainted by the fact that there IS no money in it. Its already been ruined just as sports w/ money have. Rampant steroid usage, squats a mile high, no standardization of rules, etc etc.

I love lifting, but its really hard to make it legit as OL has been made legit in the past.

On that note, I’m taking a nap.

3 feds is too many as it is. We dont need a 1-ply fed and a multiply fed, you’re either assisted or youre not. If you’re wearing a shirt i dont care whether its 1 ply, half a ply or 37 ply, you’re getting assistance out of it. When there are single ply guys who cant touch a bench, I dont care, you’re just as jacked up as teh multiply guys

i’d liek to see 1 fed, 4 divisions: drug tested unequipped, untested unequipped, tested equipped, untested equipped
[/quote]

Ideal maybe, practical…not at all.

Any powerlifter with a brain can tell you the sport is in a very distressed state right now, and the hundreds of federations are not helping. However you just can’t go about grouping two totally different things with one another.

Multiply, untested, lax rules and single ply tested, strict rules federations will forever be polar opposites, I see no happy medium.

12

[quote]Power GnP wrote:
I see no happy medium. [/quote]

The WPF.

Single ply, non-tested, solid and consistent judging.

Not exactly ideal for most, but it’s abotu as happy as medium as you’ll find!! And I know alot of drug free guys don’t like competing against guys on the sauce. It doesn’t bother me tho.

13

I haven’t yet competed in PL, but I can definitely see how having a hell of a lot of feds is bringing the sport down. Look at Oly lifting as an example of what PL should strive for: One governing body (at the international level anyway), and one person who can claim to be the best in their weightclass.

Hell, even in (professional) Strongman having multiple organizations is causing all kinds of trouble: IFSA and WSM competing for athletes, sponsorship dollars, etc. At least in the amateur ranks there’s some consistency, because everything’s run through NAS. Personally, I agree with KBCThird’s idea: One fed, four divisions, but maybe split the equipped divisions into single and multi-ply. So one fed, 6 divisions, then everyone’s happy.

14

Just have 1 federation. I don’t know what to say about testing/steroid usage. I don’t really want to get into that argument.

Make this federation an equipped federation. It seems to me that’s where most of the strongest powerlifters are and where the direction of powerlifting is going. If it’s your first meet and you just want to get a feel for the sport but you haven’t learned the gear, then don’t use gear.

And how is it that the most elite bodybuilders can just live off nothing but endorsements but powerlifters need real world jobs?

15

is NASA affiliated with another fed ?

if not , how come nobody ever mentions it ?

16

Jeez, I’m glad I started this thread! I think if one thing stands out its the need to organize. I guess if I had to organize PL’ing it would be > untested + equipped, tested + raw. Who the hell knows anymore what to do?

17

I would say in the short term compete how you want and use powerlifting watch to compare yourself to others to see where you really rank. I agree winning a “World” championship in a meet that has 2 states represented means nothing and I wish the smaller feds wouldn’t even pretend to a do a world championship or have “World” records.

I must say (and may get flamed for it, I am fine with it) that in the future the gear needs to go. I would certainly be greatly disappointed if in 50 years from now we are still using gear and I don’t think history will judge us kindly for it.

18

[quote]Power GnP wrote:
Multiply, untested, lax rules and single ply tested, strict rules federations will forever be polar opposites, I see no happy medium. [/quote]

I would submit the notion that lifters will lift to what is consistently judged, whatever that may be. If it’s hip-crease-below-top-of-knee, fine, if it’s 2" above that, that’s fine too, as long as it’s judged consistently. Lifters will adapt. People need to stop worry so darn much about whether it’s how things have always BEEN done and start worrying about how things are always GOING to be done, from here forward.

And what Stones Are Fun said about liking my idea but wanting to add a single ply division - that’s contrary to my entire point. As soon as you open the door to making a distinction between single and double ply, you allow plausible rationale for distinguishing between double and triple, triple and quadruple, quadruple and quintuple … (this could be fun)

I would say to those guys who want to compete in single ply, welcome to the ranks of the equipped lifter. To those who dont want to compete with multiply guys, take off your shirts and go compete with the raw guys.

19

“Any powerlifter with a brain can tell you the sport is in a very distressed state right now, and the hundreds of federations are not helping”

When I go to meets I don’t find this to be the case. In the UK we don’t have 100’s of feds. Don’t let internet s**t storms cloud the issue. When I go to meets I see guys and girls having a ball and going for it, with little bitching about other feds etc. At the BPC finals last year there were lifters from all different feds coming to watch and enjoy some lifting!

It would be nice to have only one fed with several different divisons but it aint gona happen. I think most would be happy with 3 or so feds. I think the US would benefit this pooling of talent.

20

It’s funny… at our last IDFPA meet, two guys I train with from the IPO/GPC came down to help us out.

Former IDFPA vice-prez was there. Now lifts in the GPC.

Another GPC lifter was down handling an IDFPA lifters.

At the last IPO comp the GPC lifter and former IDFPA vp was handling a lifter there.

There’s no real bitching between feds here either. In fairness I don’t think there even is in real life in America. The majority of it seems to go on online.