Powerlifting Sport History and Introduction

Powerlifting is a strength sport that comprises three events, or disciplines if you will. These include the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. Like any other sport that requires strength training, powerlifting has its own rules, specific exercise techniques and equipment. It takes years of practice to master proper techniques and become a professionally prepared athlete in this sport.

Sport of powerlifting began in the USA. Initially there was no powerlifting but something that was called odd lifts. Such sport encompassed a broad range of heavy lifts, which sometimes included the present exercises, like squat, bench press, and deadlift. From state to state, the rules varied, until at some point the sport as we know it today was formed. From there on, it was popularized and accepted widely in Russia, United Kingdom and in many countries throughout the World.

In the present day we have a number of federations Worldwide that function separately from each other with their own specific version of the rules. The International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) presents the international governing body for the sport of powerlifting. Some of the bigger federations include RAW, USAPL, ADFPF, WPC, WPO, APF and so on. They all fashion their own specific rules about lifts that are performed, equipment that is used, whether the drug testing will be carried out and many other related matters.

Powerlifting involves very specific strength training, where the goal is to achieve a maximum lift and not muscle stimulation, which is often the main goal in related sports, like bodybuilding. Fast twitching muscle fibers are trained using maximal and sub maximal weight with low repetition count. Nutrition is planned around the training to accommodate the necessary recuperation and growth of muscles and tendons in the body. Such eating schedule primarily involves usage of protein and lots of carbohydrates to fuel the training. Besides basic compound movements, powerlifting training includes many supplemental exercises for strengthening particular parts of the body. Although it is so, the emphasis still remains on building power in the main three events: squat, bench press and deadlift.

Apparel that is used for powerlifting is usually made from strong and durable single-ply (single-layer) polyester material. In addition, powerlifting suits are made from denim and canvas materials and in multiple layers (multi-ply), which are allowed or not, depending on the specific federation that you are competing in. Wrist wraps and knee wraps are used to protect the joints and tendons from strenuous training and competition and to prevent any possible injuries.

Some of the most prolific professional powerlifters that used to set records in their time were Rickey Dale Crain, Lee Moran, Ed Coan, Kirk Karwoski and many others. They made the powerlifting sport what it is today.

Important thing is to differentiate powerlifting from other similar sports like Olympic Weightlifting, Bodybuilding and Strongman. People very often confuse these sports for each other, which is not that unusual since they all have something in common, and that is training to achieve powerful lifts and increase strength.

Sports Nutrition FAQ

Why is Sports Nutrition Important?

Athletes need to focus in on sports nutrition including what kind of supplements to take if they are to be competitive and on top of their game. They not only need to know the required ratios of organic nutrients such as proteins, carbohydrates and fats but also when to take them. This is especially true of extreme sports in which strength and endurance activities may require above average consumption of nutrients.

Why Does Sports Nutrition Seem Subjective at Times?

It may seem subjective sometimes. One reason for this may be that athletes from different sports have different metabolisms. An elite strength athlete such an Olympic weight lifter may eat 3-4 thousand calories a day. An Olympic long distance swimmer may eat 10-12 thousand calories a day (that is not a misprint). Olympic divers, gymnasts, and high jumpers need to be light, lean, and strong and so consume less heavy foods. It depends on what physical demands a sport puts on your body. Macronutrients gotten from Wholesome foods are what you need. You can’t go wrong with protein from red meat, chicken and fish, whole grain carbohydrates and plenty of colorful vegetables and a smidgeon of fruits.

What’s the Next Big Thing in Sports Nutrition Supplements?

Decades ago, for example, powdered egg whites were the protein supplement to take before whey protein powder became popular and was mass produced. In the late 1990s, creatine monohydrate became quite popular in the Olympics. In the past decade or so we’ve seen branch chain amino acids (BCAAs) in powdered form that are supposed to help the body better synthesize the proteins in food. There are energy gels that endurance athletes shoot down their throats during long runs and bicycle rides. Energy gels are made mostly of simple carbohydrates like sports drinks without the liquid part. Nutrient timing has been bandied around a bit for some time. This is the practice of loading up on carbohydrates and protein before athletic events or workouts and then loading up again afterwards with (especially) carbohydrates to replace glycogen stores in the muscles.

Beware of sports studies done under the name of science. The P.H.D.’s involved are many times paid by supplement companies to make trials appear subjective. Instead, they skew the data to hype up sales. Good wholesome (organic, unprocessed, complete) food is the best thing for you most of the time.

What is a Good Sports Nutrition Pill to Take if I Want to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle?

There is no magic pill. It’s more about common sense in which you eat good wholesome food and just train hard. If you are a gymnast, your energy levels and the inches around your waist will signal to you what to do. If you are not eating enough, you will feel tired. If you are not tired and you are putting on weight (fat) then you need to eat less.

Some coaches or personal trainers will tell you it is impossible to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. You either bulk up or cut down. Be aware that usually when you lose fat/weight you also lose some strength along with valuable muscle mass.

Which is the Best ALL IN ONE Sports Supplement while Weight Training?

Probably whey protein that also contains creatine monohydrate in it is your best bet. This will put your blood chemistry into a positive nitrogen balance which is a suitable environment to acquire and maintain lean body weight. Another must-have for sports nutrition would be some kind of omega-3 supplementation. Omega-3 fatty acids have been proven to decrease inflammation and increase insulin sensitivity.

As Far as Sports Nutrition Goes, What Amounts of Carbs and Protein are considered “High”?

There are no hard and fast rules. Some say less than 100 grams of protein is sufficient along with 150-200 grams of carbohydrates. That would probably be adequate for an office worker who walks a couple miles a day on their lunch break. Again, it depends on the demands you are placing on your body. Strength athletes have been known to consume up to 300 grams of protein a day to maintain and build up lean body weight. For weight training and weight gain, over 200 grams of carbohydrates might be needed.

What Kind of Career Options Will I Have with a Degree in Sports Nutrition?

You will have many opportunities to work as a sports nutritionist in areas in which highly competitive people are either maintaining dynamic and robust lifestyles or are trying to build up to more healthy and active levels. This may include working for corporation wellness programs, gyms, and college or pro teams. You would in essence function as a sports dietician. It might also be useful to obtain a personal trainer certification along the way. Try to stay in shape after you get that degree in sports nutrition. There is nothing sadder than a middle aged out of shape person who has some kind of health or fitness degree.

I Don’t Have Time to Cook or Eat Full Blown meals. Can’t I Just Skip Food and Take Supplements All Day Long?

Try it and see and let us know how that works for you after the doc puts you on an intravenous drip. No, seriously, you need daily feedings of wholesome and complete nutrients.

I’m on a High Protein Low Carb Diet, Which Sports Can I Excel In?

This is a tricky subject. Low carbohydrate diets in high performance athletics are still relatively new. Your body needs some type of energy source which can be only from either carbohydrates (turned to sugar and then stored in your muscles and liver as glycogen) or (good) fats. A low carb diet may work in endurance sports as long as you have more fat and less protein (as opposed to high fat and high protein), plenty of vegetables and occasional servings of fruit. In strength sports, however, in which explosiveness is required such as sprinting, it would be hard to find an athlete who doesn’t eat carbohydrates. More research is needed here. Sadly, much of the research concerning sports nutrition is paid by supplement companies.

Powerlifting Sport History and Introduction

Powerlifting is a strength sport that comprises three events, or disciplines if you will. These include the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. Like any other sport that requires strength training, powerlifting has its own rules, specific exercise techniques and equipment. It takes years of practice to master proper techniques and become a professionally prepared athlete in this sport.

Sport of powerlifting began in the USA. Initially there was no powerlifting but something that was called odd lifts. Such sport encompassed a broad range of heavy lifts, which sometimes included the present exercises, like squat, bench press, and deadlift. From state to state, the rules varied, until at some point the sport as we know it today was formed. From there on, it was popularized and accepted widely in Russia, United Kingdom and in many countries throughout the World.

In the present day we have a number of federations Worldwide that function separately from each other with their own specific version of the rules. The International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) presents the international governing body for the sport of powerlifting. Some of the bigger federations include RAW, USAPL, ADFPF, WPC, WPO, APF and so on. They all fashion their own specific rules about lifts that are performed, equipment that is used, whether the drug testing will be carried out and many other related matters.

Powerlifting involves very specific strength training, where the goal is to achieve a maximum lift and not muscle stimulation, which is often the main goal in related sports, like bodybuilding. Fast twitching muscle fibers are trained using maximal and sub maximal weight with low repetition count. Nutrition is planned around the training to accommodate the necessary recuperation and growth of muscles and tendons in the body. Such eating schedule primarily involves usage of protein and lots of carbohydrates to fuel the training. Besides basic compound movements, powerlifting training includes many supplemental exercises for strengthening particular parts of the body. Although it is so, the emphasis still remains on building power in the main three events: squat, bench press and deadlift.

Apparel that is used for powerlifting is usually made from strong and durable single-ply (single-layer) polyester material. In addition, powerlifting suits are made from denim and canvas materials and in multiple layers (multi-ply), which are allowed or not, depending on the specific federation that you are competing in. Wrist wraps and knee wraps are used to protect the joints and tendons from strenuous training and competition and to prevent any possible injuries.

Some of the most prolific professional powerlifters that used to set records in their time were Rickey Dale Crain, Lee Moran, Ed Coan, Kirk Karwoski and many others. They made the powerlifting sport what it is today.

Important thing is to differentiate powerlifting from other similar sports like Olympic Weightlifting, Bodybuilding and Strongman. People very often confuse these sports for each other, which is not that unus

Planning Strength and Speed Training For American Football

American Football, like many other sports, has a history of coaches with a poor understanding of the sport’s demands inflicting upon players the necessity to run laps of the pitch, and engage in other forms of training at odds with the sport’s unique demands. With a constant stop start style to the play, with the average play lasting no longer than ten seconds, followed by a much longer rest period, its demands are closer to traditional sprinting and weight training methods, than sports such as Rugby or Boxing, where there is a much greater endurance element required. At the same time, the sport has a big element of lateral mobility and technical considerations to consider, absent from pure speed or strength sports.

This article will look at ways to incorporate speed and strength training methods to assist a player looking to improve his speed/strength during the football off-season. Each element will be considered individually. Given the wide range of requirements for the different positions in football, this article will focus on training planning for a typical week for Linebackers, Backs and Strong Safeties, although the advice is applicable to most positions except Kickers and Offensive/Defensive Linemen. Even then, many of the elements would remain broadly similar for these positions.

Strength Training

Most American Football players today will already place a large emphasis on strength training as this has been emphasized for a comparatively longer time in the sport due to the ever increasing demand for larger and stronger athletes. This does not mean that players should automatically follow the training advice handed out in bodybuilding magazines, or follow a generic college training program. Unfortunately, most college programs suffer from being overly simplistic due to the need to try to train 40 or 50 athletes at once in a facility. This type of training leads to the most simple, easy to administer programs being handed out to athletes, rather than the most effective. Similarly, athletes who believe bodybuilding programs can enhance sports performance may potentially gain some muscle size but at the expense often of relative strength and speed going down, as well as a decrease in joint mobility if emphasising single joint exercises. Additionally, bodybuilding programs’ emphasis on training to failure and exhaustive work on individual muscle groups will lead to less energy being available for the high intensity, explosive work which football demands.

Split Training vs Whole Body Training

Most players will often follow a typical bodybuilding protocol where individual muscle groups are trained once per week with very high volume. Unfortunately, while this may work under certain circumstances for bodybuilders, football players cannot afford to adopt this method. Most significantly, this method of training makes it very difficult to integrate training with the demands of improving other elements vital to success in football. For example, many bodybuilders will train back, quadriceps, hamstrings on separate days. This will mean for most of the time players will have insufficient energy to perform their other drills, sprint work etc due to excess muscular fatigue. Furthermore, split training will mean the central nervous system is always under stress from constantly performing high intensity activity leading to impaired recovery and ability to perform other drills outside the gym with the required intensity.

This leaves two options. The first is to adopt a lower/upper body split and the second is to adopt a full body training program. Both options have their advocates. Splitting the body into lower/upper will mean legs get trained twice a week meaning five days are left for rest. By only training legs on those two days, a greater volume of work can be performed on training days compared to a typical whole body approach consisting of hitting the weights on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday basis, where because of the increased frequency and need to train upper body as well, leg training volume would need to be reduced.

Depending on the athlete’s needs an upper/lower split is usually more useful for increasing strength and muscle size as many will struggle to maintain the intensity needed for a long, whole body training workout. A sample lower/upper body split would be as follows:

Sample Strength Training Split

Monday

Squats 4 x 4-6
Romanian Deadlifts 4 x 4-6
Step Ups 2 x 8
Pullthroughs 2 x 8
Ab Rollouts 2 x 8

Tuesday

Incline Bench Press 4 x 4
Hang Cleans 3 x 3
Shoulder Press 2 x 6
Pullups 2 x 6
Tricep Extensions 2 x 8
Barbell Curls 2 x 8

Thursday

Power Cleans 5 x 3
Snatch Grip Deadlifts 3 x 5
One Legged Squats 2 x 6
Glute Ham Raise 2 x 8
Hanging Leg Raises 2 x 10

Friday

Close Grip Bench Press 3 x 5
Pullups 3 x 5
Incline Dumbell Press 2 x 8
Seated Row Machine 2 x 8
Tricep Extensions 2 x 12
Dumbell Curls 2 x 12

Speed Training

Speed training for football players needs to consider the fact that football sprints are usually of much shorter duration than sprinting in track and field events. At the same time the body mechanics of football players will be different to those you see in top class sprinters.

Having said that, a speed training program for football players will have a large degree of overlap with that of Olympic athletes but with a limited requirement for the type of speed endurance work performed by sprinters during the summer track season. Instead a football program should primarily emphasise acceleration techniques with a smaller component of top speed work so that for the rare occasions that a full sprint is required, the player is able to maintain his top speed for longer.

Although there are many differing views on how to train speed, the approach used by Charlie Francis[i] is one which works well for integrating the other aspects of football training.

Speed Training Template for Off-Season

Monday

Warmup – 5 min general warmup
Mobility Exercises – 10 min
Running Drills – 10 min
Start Work – 6 x 10m (Practise a 3 point or 2 point stance and perform a maximal 10m sprint)
Acceleration Work – 6 x 20m (2 or 3 point stance and accelerate through to 20m)
Acceleration Work – 2 x 30m (Run from standing start to 30m)

Rest times between sprints should be 2-3 mins for 10m work, 3-5 min for 20m work, and 4-6 min for 30m work to ensure full recovery is attained.

The astute reader will notice the sprints are combined on a day where the weights pushed will be heavy. Depending on the athletes needs, they could sprint in the AM and do the weights in the evening or vice versa. Both approaches will work. The main factor behind placing sprints on the same day as weight training the legs is to allow for greater CNS and muscular recovery. Trying to sprint on separate days (e.g. on Tue) would mean the legs still being fatigued from the day before and then having less rest before the next weight session for legs. By contrast, combining weight training with leg work on the same day is something sprint coaches usually recommend.

Tuesday

Warmup – 5 min general warmup
Mobility Exercises – 10 min
Running Drills – 10 min
Tempo Work 8-10 x 100m @60-70% speed

Tempo training is running the distance at a sub-maximal speed and walking the next 100m. It is very important both for active recovery (recovering from the previous day’s exertions), learning to run in a relaxed manner (many athletes strain too much when sprinting maximally), and for overall conditioning and fat loss (the intervals being approximately similar when running/walking, as the work/rest time in football and in fat loss protocols such as Tabata).

Wednesday

With another high intensity day scheduled for Thursday, Wednesday is a time to rest and recuperate. Some mobility and drill work is okay for those who need it though.

Thursday

Warm-up – 5 min general warm-up
Mobility Exercises – 10 min
Running Drills – 10 min
Start Work – 6 x 10m (Practice a 3 point or 2 point stance and perform a maximal 10m sprint)
Acceleration – 3 x 20m
Acceleration – 3 x 30m
Top Speed – 3 x 50m

Thursday’s sprint training session is partnered with a relatively low load, explosive lifting weight training day. The sprint distances complement the weights by being of a greater distance and speed. This is the day when the football player will work his maximum speed but we keep acceleration work in, albeit at a reduced volume, as acceleration is a very important factor for football as well as helping to warmup the body for the top speed work. Rest times can be up to 10min long for the top speed sprints. The work conducted has to be of a high quality with full muscular and CNS recovery between sprints the aim of the athlete.

Friday

Tempo Work – 8-10 x 100m
This day is a repeat of Tuesday

Saturday

Warm-up – 5 min general warm-up
Mobility Exercises – 10 min
Running Drills – 10 min
Start Work – 4 x 10m (Practice a 3 point or 2 point stance and perform a maximal 10m sprint)
Acceleration – 3 x 20m
Acceleration – 2 x 30m
Top Speed – 2 x 50m
Top Speed – 2 x 60m

Saturday is the day when we should be at our freshest. There is no weight training prior to training and we are furthest removed from the draining effects of the heavy weight training conducted on Monday and Tuesday. There is a greater emphasis on top speed work this time with an increase in the distance up to 60m. This should be the time the athlete is setting his best times.

Sunday

Rest

Going Past a Week

At this point it should be pointed out that the approach given is for a sample training week in the off-season. Strength and speed training should still be periodized as normal. A favored approach of many programs is to gradually increase training volume and intensity before incorporating a week of reduced volume and intensity to allow for supercompensation and CNS recovery to take place. A 3/1 split of hard training followed by an easier “unloading” week will help promote continued improvements rather than trying to constantly add weight/sets/sprints to the program which will only lead to stagnation.

At the same time, other exercises and techniques will usually be incorporated to provide the athlete’s body with new challenges but the overall goal should remain the same which is to increase strength and speed over the long haul. Although it will be easy for a beginner to make rapid improvements in both strength and speed following a structure such as that outlined, at some point it is likely that either the weights or the speed work will have to be reduced in volume (although not intensity) and maintained so that the other quality being work can be emphasized.

Most 100m sprinters will usually go from a program where strength increases are emphasized in winter to one where weight training is restricted to maintenance only so that full attention can be devoted to maximal speed work during the summer months.

Of course, for American Football players, they may have a differing view on which element needs emphasizing but the fact remains that given that neither strength or speed improvements in-season are realistic, the player should look at his off-season training program and consider which variable he needs to work on the most. Then, he can perform a greater or lesser amount of speed or strength work as deemed appropriate by him and his coaching staff. For a strong athlete with limited speed this would mean reducing the volume of his weight work on his training days and training speed first in the training day, when the CNS and muscular system is freshest. On the other hand, a weak, fast athlete may wish to perform a limited amount of speed work and increase his weight training volume so that he can bring up his strength levels quicker.

Other Factors

Many other factors beyond how the athlete structures his training are important including mobility drills, nutritional support, supplementation, recovery and regeneration techniques, and technical work. Although these are beyond the scope of this article, each element should be implemented carefully. Please check the other articles at this site for further reading.

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