Reason for Geared Powerlifting?

There is no “reason” for geared lifting. Raw and geared are two different sports. Like Rugby and Rugby League. Slalom skiiing and freestyle skiing. Monopoly classic and the Batman version.

Same weight gear (barbell with heavy stuff on it) but different equipment used to lift it.

Not better, just different. Trying to say one is better than the other is just horse crap and usually involves people who need to get a life.

[quote]michael_xyz wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
I compete mostly raw and have done a bunch of geared meets. Just recently picked up some mulitply stuff and it is awesome. I want to start getting into more and more gear because raw lifting is ruining the sport… did I just break the internet?[/quote]

How so?

Personally I don’t see a problem with it in general. The only thing I don’t like is records getting broken because of gear improving. Although it’s bound to happen I just feel like if X lifter set a record in 1980 and then that gets broken by Y solely because gear is better then it’s a bit unfair. Is Y really stronger?

In absolute terms, yes, but I think it’s a bit odd how that can be the case when in reality X is stronger than Y.[/quote]

Those records only exist in the first place because the drug testing wasn’t very good. If everyone did steroids and used multiply, there wouldn’t be any retarded gear debates anymore and the playing field would be completely level for everyone.

[quote]Triceptaurus wrote:
There is no “reason” for geared lifting. Raw and geared are two different sports. Like Rugby and Rugby League. Slalom skiiing and freestyle skiing. Monopoly classic and the Batman version.

Same weight gear (barbell with heavy stuff on it) but different equipment used to lift it.

Not better, just different. Trying to say one is better than the other is just horse crap and usually involves people who need to get a life.[/quote]

LIES

The Batman version is so much better.

I like the “slimming” effect I get from gear.

Bluntly put, powerlifting gear makes all wearers sexy!

[quote]ranengin wrote:
I like the “slimming” effect I get from gear.

Bluntly put, powerlifting gear makes all wearers sexy!

[/quote]

I’m going to have to second this. In particular deadlift suits with the wide straps give me an awesome X shape.

[quote]Bingbeast wrote:
The best lifters will be the best lifters - geared or not. [/quote]

This.

i find both of them good.

[quote]ouroboro_s wrote:
I compete in gear simply to move more weight. It’s exciting and fun and adds a completely different dimension to the sport.

However, unlike Liquid Mercury, I train mostly raw because training in gear for me is heavier weights and that burns me out faster than training raw. I also don’t have hip flexor issues.[/quote]

To be fair I’ve never truly pushed it in gear and only worn briefs one time as well as power pants a few times and a shirt one time. I sucked at the shirt and couldn’t get the hang of it but wearing the briefs or the power pants really helped me in terms of my recovery, but again that’s in part due to my hip flexor. If I got in a suit and really attempted to push things I’d probably have a bit more trouble recovering.

This topic is funny as hell; allow me to spin a bit. Imagine if someone said that the only reason Usain Bolt can run a 3.94 sec 40 was because he was wearing Brand “X” shoe and brand “X” running suit. What if someone said that the reason Lance Armstrong could win 7 Tours was because he rode a 15# bike. You Hunt? You used an bow right? Not a new compound bow but an stick with a string made of gut right? Better yet a spear cause that’s raw man. Pick any sport, any champion and suggest it was gear that allowed them to excel at that sport. You’d prolly get told something along the lines of “well they would kick ass at that sport regardless of what gear they have because they are that good, they are in fact the best at what they do, the gear, which is accessible by all, merely helps them achieve their goals in the respective sport”.

Now you change the sport to lifting weights and the fucking egocentric gym rats come out in droves to decree that gear is suddenly “cheating” and and all that dribble that comes with it. So you bench raw with and arch… that’s cheating too because you didn’t press with full ROM. I say fuck it… lets all ride down to NASA JPL and get in their Gravity machine! yeah try to bench that 405 at 6 G’s man!! haha.
The American society is built on excesses. You got an F-150 with a V-8… ha girly man truck! I got an F-250 with the V-10 Diesel, your girl got 36 C tits, mine gots the 38 DD, your gun has 6 shots, mine has 17+1 in the pipe… point is embrace the GEAR!!
I will end this rant by telling myself all those smart ass forum comments like “cool story bro” ,and “lolz”, and “this”… ok so I digress…

Seriously tho, I’m 39. I’ve gone from raw or die to gear whore or die to in the middle to IDGAF anymore. Here’s fact for me… If I train raw all the time I feel beat up. When I feel beat up I end up sitting on my ass on the couch or not doing as much in the gym because I’m beat up from last time. That’s never good. when I train in gear I can lift heavier weight and afterwards I feel a shit ton better, which allows me to train again sooner. In the end I get more training and feel good doing it. I’ll take being a “CHEATER” and still be in the gym in 20 years than being some old broke down guy who “used to lift weights” any day.

[quote]StrengthDawg wrote:
This topic is funny as hell; allow me to spin a bit. Imagine if someone said that the only reason Usain Bolt can run a 3.94 sec 40 was because he was wearing Brand “X” shoe and brand “X” running suit. What if someone said that the reason Lance Armstrong could win 7 Tours was because he rode a 15# bike. You Hunt? You used an bow right? Not a new compound bow but an stick with a string made of gut right? Better yet a spear cause that’s raw man. Pick any sport, any champion and suggest it was gear that allowed them to excel at that sport. You’d prolly get told something along the lines of “well they would kick ass at that sport regardless of what gear they have because they are that good, they are in fact the best at what they do, the gear, which is accessible by all, merely helps them achieve their goals in the respective sport”.

Now you change the sport to lifting weights and the fucking egocentric gym rats come out in droves to decree that gear is suddenly “cheating” and and all that dribble that comes with it. So you bench raw with and arch… that’s cheating too because you didn’t press with full ROM. I say fuck it… lets all ride down to NASA JPL and get in their Gravity machine! yeah try to bench that 405 at 6 G’s man!! haha.
The American society is built on excesses. You got an F-150 with a V-8… ha girly man truck! I got an F-250 with the V-10 Diesel, your girl got 36 C tits, mine gots the 38 DD, your gun has 6 shots, mine has 17+1 in the pipe… point is embrace the GEAR!!
I will end this rant by telling myself all those smart ass forum comments like “cool story bro” ,and “lolz”, and “this”… ok so I digress…

Seriously tho, I’m 39. I’ve gone from raw or die to gear whore or die to in the middle to IDGAF anymore. Here’s fact for me… If I train raw all the time I feel beat up. When I feel beat up I end up sitting on my ass on the couch or not doing as much in the gym because I’m beat up from last time. That’s never good. when I train in gear I can lift heavier weight and afterwards I feel a shit ton better, which allows me to train again sooner. In the end I get more training and feel good doing it. I’ll take being a “CHEATER” and still be in the gym in 20 years than being some old broke down guy who “used to lift weights” any day. [/quote]

Cheater…

I like gear because it adds another dimension to lifting. A lot more thought goes into lifting with gear. You have to think about what work you’re going to do in your gear, what work out of the gear, constantly working on technique to get more out of the gear. Plus you can lift more weight and who doesn’t like that (other than during the lift when you feel like you’re about to get crushed).

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]grettiron wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
I compete mostly raw and have done a bunch of geared meets. Just recently picked up some mulitply stuff and it is awesome. I want to start getting into more and more gear because raw lifting is ruining the sport… did I just break the internet?[/quote]

It might be… to many elitist, RAWWWWWWWWWWWW, my-shit-don’t-stink-and-I’m-better-than-you attitudes with influx of 10000% raw lifters. [/quote]
LOL[/quote]

LMAO

In terms of recovery would reverse band lifting do the same thing as gear? Does it have to be a suit or shirt in order to lift more weight yet feel more recovered, when compared to raw lifting?

[quote]S.Fisher_47 wrote:
In terms of recovery would reverse band lifting do the same thing as gear? Does it have to be a suit or shirt in order to lift more weight yet feel more recovered, when compared to raw lifting?[/quote]

For me Reverse band stuff is prolly about half as effective in terms of feeling good afterwards. Yes you can handle more weight too but it’s still you stabilizing the weights the entire range of motion. The thing is with reverse bands I tend to go all out to take advantage of the extra help I get with the bands. For example, on bench pressing, whatever I can get off my chest once I can generally get 3 reps on with a reverse light band. The gear holds you very tight eliminating much of the stabilizing effort on my part in the bottom positions. Probably the best way I can describe this would be to liken it to Hammer Strength machines. You are using more weight than you normally would but you still have to exert a shit ton of effort to move this extra weight but it’s supporting you the whole time. Does this make sense? here’s another example that I just thought of. You know how you are warming up in Squats and you don’t have your belt on, you have to stabilize all the weight, then when you put the belt on you feel rock solid? well it’s kind of like that but multiplied a few times.

Good point StrengthDawg although I do think about things like they have better shoes, the jump-off thing at the start (don’t know name) and other things I’m sure. It all does help.

I know it’s just the progression of the sport which is fine. But it’s progression - usually - in a negative way. Too much multi-ply lifting means high squats which is ridiculous. I don’t know if the rules are different for the depth needed to hit but… come on, we all know it’s high. Now someone might say that’s progression of the sport and they don’t feel beat up if they half squat but there’s a fine line when you have to just stop and think “Come on, this is stupid”.

Not saying all geared lifters lift high but I’d say in general you see a lot more high squats with multi-ply lifters than raw.

I started powerlifting in college (1996), through USAPowerlifting’s collegiate division. At that time, if you wanted to compete, you had to do at least single ply. Of course, other federations had raw divisions, but these were not well contested. So there were no events such as a raw nationals, Arnold Classic, raw worlds (IPF World Cup, 2012 Sweden).

I am not a fan of adding more divisions, as powerlifting is a sport that already has too many. I definitely believe that raw lifting has made powerlifting much more accessible. One can participate, without having a ‘pit crew’ help you put your straps on, wrap your knees, put on your bench shirt, etc.

I was getting very good at using my gear, squeezing into tighter suits. I could get 150 lbs out of a suit and knee wraps for squats. I could get 80 to 100 lbs out of a shirt, and 50 lbs out of a suit for deadlifts. I made the switch to raw lifting in 2007, as I grew tired of having to depend on other people for my contest traing. I trained with a team in college (Texas A&M), so back then, it was not much of an issue. I asked myself, why did I start powerlifting, to learn how to use a piece of fabric, or to get stronger?

beef

Sorry, I switched to raw in 2009.

[quote]michael_xyz wrote:
Good point StrengthDawg although I do think about things like they have better shoes, the jump-off thing at the start (don’t know name) and other things I’m sure. It all does help.

I know it’s just the progression of the sport which is fine. But it’s progression - usually - in a negative way. Too much multi-ply lifting means high squats which is ridiculous. I don’t know if the rules are different for the depth needed to hit but… come on, we all know it’s high. Now someone might say that’s progression of the sport and they don’t feel beat up if they half squat but there’s a fine line when you have to just stop and think “Come on, this is stupid”.

Not saying all geared lifters lift high but I’d say in general you see a lot more high squats with multi-ply lifters than raw.[/quote]

It is possible to squat to legal depth in multi-ply gear. In my opinion some organizations have made it acceptable to blatantly squat high. But to say that gear leads to high squats is extremely short sighted. People squat to the depth they need to get white lights. If your organization is loose on the judging, and you know you can come up 3" high and get the lift passed, why would you bury yourself?

(No disrespect intended to any of us high-squatting multi-ply lifters.)

The biggest issue with geared powerlifting is that “world records” fall more rapidly in this sport than any other sport on the planet. Think about that for a second. How often does the 100m or 5000m world record get broken? How often does the raw bench record get broken? When new gear comes out records fall. I have drawn my own conclusions from this.

I like it all. Raw allows easy access for beginners and doesn’t require helps. Gear can help you train when you’re banged up. And the top guys really aren’t any stronger than the best back in the day .