Powerlifting, Year One, Part I

[stef]

by Gary Gibson

I recently competed in my third powerlifting meet, exactly one year to the day after my very first meet. I thought the one year mark of my nascent competitive career would be a grand time to look back and give serious thought to what I’d been doing. The great thing about powerlifting is that it is so easy to measure progress. You can’t lie to yourself because the numbers are right there to keep you honest. Do I weigh more this year than last? Is my total higher in the same amount and kind of gear? Simple.

Full Article (http://startingstrength.com/articles/powerlifting_year_one_gibson.pdf)

Resources Page (http://startingstrength.com/index.php/site/resources)

[TomV]

Great article, Gary. I've been holding off using a belt as I'm only squatting 253x5x3 @ 230lbs BW but after reading this article I think I'm going to start using the belt on my work sets and just warm up beltless.

[FatButWeak]

I am wracking my brain trying to think of a logical, smart way to respond to the anti belt crowd, but am not smart enough. This is a task for a mathematician or physicist.

Can someone who is algebraically or algorhythmically inclined explain how/why getting many, many pounds stronger using a belt, then taking it off and displaying the newly earned "raw" -i.e. unbelted - strength, which is x% less than the geared max allows for greater gains because x% of an exponentially larger number is better?

Even though taking off the belt means one loses X% of one's strength, it is x% of a much larger number than it would have been had you not been training with a belt.

This may be a logical fallacy, but it illustrates my point: squatting on a doucheball causes one to squat y% less than squatting on stable land. But who the hell would argue that squatting on a doucheball for 6 months (and, let's say, imporving your doucheball squat by 75 pounds) will cause a 75 times y% increase in your stable land squat? At a minimum, your skin has not adapted to such a weight, and that argument carries throught all the systems of the body (except, perhaps, one's sense of balance, which is an insignifcant componenet of the stable land squat). Conversely, lifting heavier weights with a belt causes an increase in the strnegth of all the body's components (skin, tendon, bone, muscle) except, arguably, the gut muscles.

I dont think this is true, however, since all the strongest lifters I have ever seen wear belts, and they all have powerful midsections.

This is exhaustng. Just wear the belt.

[PVC]

It's about fucking time. Gary's been hyping this article for the past month.

[simonsky]

sad:(. i remember reading your first article and desperately wanting a belt, now i still dont have one :(

[MAD9692]

sad:(. i remember reading your first article and desperately wanting a belt, now i still dont have one :(

Gary was also right about knee sleeves, I suggest you procure these as well.

[GripAU]

Good article. Now all we need is Inzer belts to arrive in Australia at under $80 shipping and under 6 weeks delivery time. Going to go with a titan toro belt.

Good effort, Gaz

[Kincain]

gary, very good article! I think these kind of texts are invaluable, we all undergo a path of learning and it is good to read about some ones else his experience, this will only make yourself a better athlete. Thanks!

[leocreilly]

First, great article, and well done on your strength gains. I am still in my early stages of startingstrength, but as I look towards means for increasing my squat going fwd I was wondering if someone could flesh out the following:

"Pavel Tsatsouline was once asked what the best formula for mass and strength was. His answer: Pins Into Pillars followed by the daily practice of the Power To The People protocol of a couple sets of five with a heavy-ish weight, five days per week. The idea is to get bigger and stronger with the volume and then really focus on perfecting and refining the strength in the competition lifts by dropping the volume and upping the frequency."

Does this imply PIP and PTTP on the same days? Doing PIP and PTTP in conjunction (with PTTP on rest days)? Or finally, doing the PIP program, then following it with the PTTP program? For the record, I am not familiar with the PTTP program, and this could be the root of my misunderstanding...

[Gary Gibson]

Mass focus, then strength focus. The sort of volume you have to do during a volume specialization like PiP is not going to lend itself to strength performance. A more blended approach would require a reduction in volume. This is exactly what Texas Method does with its x5x5 day followed at the end of the work week by a max five, triple or single day. When doing x5x10 thrice weekly with escalating loads, dedicated strength days just aren't going to be that productive.

[Hugh]

Ok, so im convinced I should be using a belt now.

But when your 85kg and you just got up to 90kg x 5 reps in ss is it too early or should I just have been wearing one from the start?

Secondly with regards to belt choice which do I go for?

I mean is there much difference between the benefits of a powerlifting belt vs a weightlifting belt?

Thanks for the great article.

[Shaf]

Decent piece of work there, Gary.

[LeonidasfromSparta]

Ok, so im convinced I should be using a belt now.

But when your 85kg and you just got up to 90kg x 5 reps in ss is it too early or should I just have been wearing one from the start?

Secondly with regards to belt choice which do I go for?

I mean is there much difference between the benefits of a powerlifting belt vs a weightlifting belt?

Thanks for the great article.

First of all good article, I liked especially the logic explanation for the different exercises.

@Hugh, I would suggest that you wear the belt now, for the work sets and that you buy a belt that is uniformly wide in all its length. For more information I would suggest you read the book.

[tallison]

Nice article. Looking forward to more.

This:

"I am in constant awe at how random, dangerous, and painful an animal existence is. In the midst
of all of this, barbell training – especially the squat – is the one human activity that I know brings
improvement. Everything else – sex, art, music, philosophy, religion, politics, etc. – is suspect. "

Makes me wonder when you're going to give Fluxboy and Knkavo some competition in the word-smithery of short story writing. Very nicely put. Probably hard to fit on a t-shirt, though...

[stickman]

Here's a working hypothesis for why training with a belt also increases your raw lift:

1. Let us assume that your core is the weak link in the squat. Thus you will not be able to raw squat more than, say X lbs.

2. When you raw squat at X lbs, the only muscle group getting close to enough stimulus for growth is your core. But at X lbs, you are maxed out - you cannot easily generate enough hormone response with just your core to get further growth.

3. You put on the belt. This removes the core as the limiting factor for your squat - now legs are the limiting factor. The legs, having more muscle volume, will generate a greater hormonal reponse than your core did. Cool. You should start growing again.

4. However, to work the legs enough, you still have to give it all you got with your core - the belt doesn't do the work for you. So you are still stimulating your core - but now, you are doing so in an environment that has more anabolic hormones floating around. Ergo - your core responds favorably.

If you now take off the belt, and squat raw - well, your core is stronger than it was, so you can squat raw better than when you started.


This model may be falsifiable by experiment. Let's see - if this model is true, then it seems to me that if you go BACK to just training raw at this point, it is likely that you would actually regress, as you would not be able to generate sufficient hormonal response from your raw squat to keep your core in its elevated fitness state.

Did that make sense??

[msingh]

Did that make sense??

Nope. I think Gary's argument is more believable because it doesn't hinge on any mysterious 'hormone response' mechanism, like yours does.

[TrackJunkie]

It's only mysterious if you don't understand the body's mechanisms of growth.

[stickman]

I don't think "hormone response" is terribly mysterious. Maybe I used the wrong jargon - but I thought that improvements in function and changes in form in response to stress are for the most part mediated by hormones. Isn't that how physiological signalling is primarily carried out in vivo?

[PVC]

Did that make sense??

Your model is correct, except for the "hormone response" parts.

[stickman]

For those of you having trouble with the "hormonal response" bit, read Rip and Lon's PPST chapter 4, "Basic stuff you need to know".

In particular, read pages 93-101, "Hormones: Mediators of Physiological Adaption". If you can't be bothered to read the whole thing, then read the second paragraph on page 100. I quote:
"The bottom line for the athlete is that the body reacts to the stress of training with a specific set of hormonal responses ... If the coach designs an appropriate training program and the athlete adheres to it, and gets adequate rest and good nutrition, the body will respond - largely through hormonal mechanisms - optimally to training, and improved performance will be the result."

[Matti]

I was the other weeek a bit confused whether to change back to high bar or keep doing low bar squats. Even though I have had SS for about a year it was not until this summer I found out where exactly the bar should be on a low-bar squat. Up until then I had used what I though was a low-bar position but it was actually a kind of mix which placed the bar clearly on the traps but I still for some reason I kept pushing forward with my arms. In short it was not good.

Using the low bar makes my back angle more horizontal, but the press from the hole up is much easier so I think I'm on to something. And a more horizontal back I guess is not that bad as long as the shoulders rise with the hips. However I still sometimes raise my chest instead of driving the hip, and in a low bar bottom position with a lot of weight on that is not a good idea. Then I want to get back to safer high bar, even if that also has its disadvantages. I have short torso and long legs, which gives me troubles with a high bar psoition, because I need to lean my back forward in order to balance the weight and with the bar on my traps that gets heavy. I read your article and it makes a lot of sense so I now deloaded a bit and try to get the form really correct with the low bar position.