I agree. My last meet I had to skip one or two warm-ups and jumped about 120 lbs to my opener. I was fine. It’s partly mental I think, we condition ourselves to think we absolutely MUST have however many warm-ups but when you get down to it, as long as you execute the lift properly you’ll probably be OK. That’s what training is for, getting ready to do what we need to do.
This was my point exactly. Be better then the version you were yesterday or 12 to 16 weeks ago. Set up a goal and finish it.
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Is it worth training with less Warm-ups (bigger weight jumps) or is the risk not worth it?
I would say not worth it.
It just seems like an unnecessary risk.
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You’re right, I don’t know a whole lot about strongman. I didn’t realize that there was so much time between events. I mostly just watch some highlights and that kind of thing now and then, it looked to me like they only really maxed out (1rm I mean) on deadlift and log press, but more often it’s for reps. Are World Strongest Man and the Arnold strongman meet like that too, in terms of warm ups and time between events?
The thing with powerlifting is that you’re not just competing against the other people in the same meet, but against everyone in the sport that is competing under the same standards (gear, monolift vs. walked out squat, tested or untested, etc.). So if you show up ready to set a new world record but get fucked over because they switched up the flights at the last minute you are fucked, and there isn’t a way to explain how it’s fair. It only makes sense to have a level playing field, otherwise what is the point of having records? If you squat and bench today and come back tomorrow for deadlifts (as I have heard happened in at least one fucked up meet that went overtime) then you obviously have an unfair advantage on deadlift. Compare that to the way most IPF affiliated meets go, with maybe 3 hours from the first squat to the last deadlift.
I’m not saying you’re wrong at all, just that the sport should be performed to certain standards so that everyone knows what to expect and can prepare accordingly. What if every NBA court had different net heights, or what if football fields weren’t all the same length?
By the way, when I asked which event I meant was it deadlift, log press, etc.?
I wouldn’t advise it, there’s a higher injury risk and in most meets it won’t be an issue. If it is, it will only be on squat anyway. You can even get a set or two in with the empty bar. However, there were some old school guys like Doug Hepburn and Paul Anderson who didn’t do a lot of warmup set. I once found a PDF version of one of Hepburn’s books (my computer died on me since), he had something like three warm up sets before work sets. And he wasn’t lifting light weights either. Paul Anderson did a lot of different things over the years, but at one point it he was doing a set or two then eat and rest for a couple hours and go back to do a few more sets with zero warm up.
Come to think of it, Arnold Schwarzenneger and Bruce Lee are two well known guys who got injured by skipping warmups, thinking they were so advanced that they didn’t need them anymore. Bruce Lee fucked up his back doing good mornings with no warmup and was in constant pain for the rest of his life.
Not worth it. Risking injury.
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Yeah, as many others have said it’s not worth it. Chances are that if you have to skip warm ups, you should still be able to hit your openers. That’s why its best to have an understanding of the “365 strong” or “everyday max” mentality and know what you can hit on any given day in any circumstance. Also, [quote=“MarkKO, post:45, topic:231483, full:true”]
I agree. My last meet I had to skip one or two warm-ups and jumped about 120 lbs to my opener. I was fine. It’s partly mental I think, we condition ourselves to think we absolutely MUST have however many warm-ups but when you get down to it, as long as you execute the lift properly you’ll probably be OK. That’s what training is for, getting ready to do what we need to do.
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I would think like this for your life in training in general. It is essentially what Pavel preaches and what Josh Bryant considers being “gas-station ready.” You don’t get warm-ups in life, etc.
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Just start with 50% of your max haha. Cuts out half the warm ups. I’m not joking either. Especially for squat and deadlift. I find it quite easy to do. I do some stretches, movement prep, rolling, 3 plates go on and I work from there. I also usually don’t put less than 2 plates on the bar any more learned that from Adrian Larsen. Warm up with a bunch of other little moves and the go right into about 50%. I kinda feel going any lighter than this and it isn’t heavy enough for me to actually train and practice proper technique.
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My deadlift nor my squat are huge at all, but I completely agree with this. I know a lot of big squat and deadlifters start with the bar to warm up, but I really only do that with OHP and Bench. When I squat the bar I don’t feel like I’m doing a squat the way I would squat my top sets, but more like I would air squat. I usually start around 135 or 225 depending on the day really.
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Personally, I find squatting the bar and some light weights helps me loosen up more than any other stuff I have tried. I spend about 2 minutes doing glute bridges to warm that up then empty bar, 135x5, 185x5, 225-245x3, and so on. If I just throw on 225 or something like that then I’m too tight to hit depth and everything feels off. In the meet that I keep complaining about it went 135x5, 225, 315, and 355 for about 2-3 each, then a single with 395 and a 435 opener.
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See I’m the exact opposite. I can’t really even hit depth or brace properly until I have 315 or more on the bar. I don’t want or need to be loose though. I wanna be tight as needed to just barely get to where I need to be. Once 600 plus is on the bar it pushes me down either way.
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Every baseball field is at a different altitude, and every baseball field is a different size and shape. All golf courses are entirely different, even the type of grass and sand used varies. There are several types of tennis courts. So no, not all sports have to be played at the exact same standards across the board.
Pro strongman events are run more efficiently than amateur ones. So no, WSM and the Arnold are not run the same way. They have far fewer competitors. USS national amateurs probably has 30+ competitors per division. WSM finals is like 8 or 10 guys. When you compete at higher levels, you get better treatment, generally. I’m fairly certain Lilliebridge has not run into a situation where he was not allowed to properly warm up in years. So if you’re actually talking about guys who are attempting world records, practically speaking, they are not running into the same issues that you, personally, are. The reality is that you are NOT competing against competitors worldwide until you are competing at that level. So you can’t expect to be treated as such.
The specific event I didn’t have good warmups for was the deadlift at this last comp I did. Anything that isn’t the first event will carry this problem, though. For the keg toss, I got exactly 1 practice throw. No practice stones. No warmup on the tire. I got plenty of warmup for the log because I showed up early and it was the first event. But if it had come 2nd or 3rd, I wouldn’t have been able to do this.
I agree with what Reed said a few posts down from you about starting with 50 percent of your max. The reason so many of these strongman shows get fucked during warmup time is because idiots want to hit sets of 10 with 135 to warm up. At this last show, I was basically yelling at dudes to get their heads out of their asses and just load the bar with at least 2 or 3 plates to start, and not turn it into a full fucking workout first. They wasted SO much time with these nonsense light warmups, and every fucking dude felt the need to touch 135. One guy even used straps lol.
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Baseball certainly seems to be the odd sport out of the bunch in that regard. Strongman is similar in a way because every comp. is going to have different events. Golf courses might all be different, but they also have a different par for each hole and course.
Just to clarify about Carlos Moran, he won best lifter at RUM a couple years back and the at BOB meet that he was complaining about Malanichev set a couple world records, I assume it was only his flight that got fucked up. He’s not some no-name lifter. I read something where Sheiko was responding to a question about what weight to start warming up with and he responded that he has seen Malanichev warming up with an empty bar at a meet. I don’t think that Reed’s warmup approach is necessarily wrong, do what works for you when you are able to, but in some cases you have no choice but to go with the flow of things. Looking at IPF worlds the other day, Jezza Uepa could have possibly set a squat WR but he got fucked over twice on the squat command because the head judge thought his knees weren’t locked. The jury gave him two more attempts but walking out over 900lbs so many times and standing around waiting is going to cause some fatigue no matter what. In the end, life isn’t fair and you have to do the best with the opportunities you have. Not every day is going to be a PR.
Well, when it comes to the IPF, the worst spotting ever was at 2016 worlds in Texas. I have never seen any bullshit like that at any local meets, why should it happen at worlds? I get the point that it’s not really the same standards in an insignificant local meet, but if you want to go to worlds (at least here in Canada) you have to first get a qualifying total at a local meet, then provincials and regionals, followed by nationals. If you get fucked over and bomb out or get injured because of some bullshit that was out of your hands and you had the potential to go to worlds, that really doesn’t seem right to me.
Interesting fact: the raw qualifying totals for Boss of Bosses are actually lower than the Ontario Powerlifting Association and Canadian Powerlifting Union standards for provincials and nationals. They want to set the bar high (metaphorically speaking) at every meet and make us perform to the same standards, but there is no accountability for the people running the show. At my meet last month there were two or three judges who didn’t even show up, they had to call in some replacements and the meet director ended up judging. Maybe those who didn’t show should have their judging certification revoked, unless they had some justifiable emergency.
it shouldn’t. lifters definitely should have expected better, without a doubt. In regards to that spotting (I’ve seen what you’re talking about), I would expect better in a training session at my gym. That was unconscionable. There is absolutely NO reason why those kids should have been spotting anyone, ever.
The overriding problem with powerlifting in general, and why a meet that could be considered the absolute height of the sport could be so poorly run, is that at the end of the day, powerlifting generates almost no money, and is a small, fringe sport. It’s as fringe as a sport can be. That makes standardization a problem, along with the fact that every single federation has a different rule book, and there are a million federations. powerliftingwatch is nice and all, and Soong’s list and all that, but the reality is, there’s nothing particularly ‘official’ about those records. The only real, official records are those of individual federations.
Ok, so the Moran thing. I feel like you’re not aware of my strong involvement in the sport of powerlifting over the last decade. I know Carlos, he posted on here for years. Detazathoth or something. And we’re friends on facebook. He’s not a no-name, but as far as I’m aware, he’s not a world record holder. He’s just a really good lifter. This, again, speaks to what I was saying before about certain athletes getting treated better than others. You said it yourself here, Malanichev had zero issues at the SAME MEET Carlos had problems. Probably because Carlos isn’t setting any records and Malanichev is. They know if they fuck up Malanichev’s flight, he ain’t coming back.
I haven’t seen the Jezza thing you’re talking about, so I can’t comment on that.
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With the IPF’s ambitions of getting into the Olympics, you would think they would take this kind of shit more seriously. As far as money, the USPA seems pretty generous. If I was in the states I would probably compete there instead, although I’m not about to win anytime soon. But you know, it seems that powerlifting wasn’t always so obscure. I had to look for this article, “Is Powerlifting Undergoing a Resurrection?”, written by Marty Gallagher (Ed Coan and Kirk Karwoski’s coach)
"Powerlifting rose quickly and fell even quicker. There was a time in the 1970s when powerlifting had a TV contract with ABC and was in the regular rotation on ABC’s number one ranked Saturday afternoon sport show, ABC’s Wide World of Sports. For a glorious decade, before the implosion, scattering and fragmentation, powerlifting championships filled halls and venues to capacity. Powerlifting was on TV and promoters fought one another to put on championship events. Having a lone national federation and a lone international federation ensured control, ensured uniformity on the rules and ensured judging strictness at the regional and national level competitions. We had a lot of charismatic athletes back then, men such as Larry Pacifico, John Kuc, Kaz, and Doug Young. All were at their awesome respective peaks and all were featured in long, extended slots on TV.
Audiences liked powerlifting. Our apogee was a long WWS feature on world 242 pound champion Doug Young. At the 1978 world powerlifting championships Doug broke three ribs on a 722 squat. He pushed through and with great drama, finished the competition in excruciating pain – all documented in a 30 minute feature segment. With three broken ribs the Mighty Texan benched 544 and deadlifted 704. His Wide World of Sports segment was narrated by a young Bryan Gumball and indeed, powerlifting seemed destined to hold down a regular TV spot, much as Lumberjack competition, or arm wrestling, or strongman. Instead, powerlifting was kicked off TV after being branded as an unrepentant drug sport. "
The article goes on to explain that splitting into different federations with different rules is what basically killed it, but now powerlifting is becoming popular again because of raw lifting. Personally, I heard about powerlifting a long time ago and never gave it much thought because bench shirts and squat suits were things I had never seen in real life and I wanted to actually get strong, not just lift big weights with supportive garments that move hundreds of pounds. There was no raw meets around here until a few years ago. Anyway, powerlifting may one day reclaim its former glory but it probably won’t be soon and might not be the IPF.
About the drug thing, they should just have a separate untested Olympics. People are cheating in every sport, why not let them and allow them to compete against others who do so, like in powerlifting and bodybuilding? Just increase the punishment for failed tests to something like a public flogging. Nobody is talking shit about the WSM guys taking stuff.
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No Olympic sport is looking to turn themselves into a niche competition.