By Dave Chesser
The difference between powerlifting and strength training isn’t widely understood. The difference is strength training is done for beginners with the sole purpose of getting them strong. Powerlifting is joining competitions where you compete in bench, barbell squat, and deadlift. If you aren’t competing, then you aren’t a powerlifter. There’s no need to say “we aren’t powerlifters” if you aren’t competing because no one would think you were anyway.
There seems to be a serious effort in the so-called strength and conditioning field to avoid getting strong on the basic lifts like overhead barbell press, barbell back squat, deadlift, and barbell bench press. The reason is simply this – most trainers are not doing these movements themselves and do not know how to progress them, let alone train clients with them.
Instead, what we’re seeing is a type of dong-yi-dong mentality where you can pretend that rack pulls are the same as deadlifts (they are not), quarter squats are the same as full barbell squats, and half range bench presses as the same as full range bench presses. Many trainers are using movements with a very small range of motion and telling people they’re the same but they clearly are not, as anyone who has done full range movements will tell you.
Many times assistance moves are substituted for the major movements and that’s a huge mistake. The assistance moves only exist to assist the major lifts, not replace them. If you as a trainer are avoiding the major lifts then you’re doing yourself and your clients a huge disservice because the only way to measure strength to any kind of standard is through lifts that have an established standard and that’s the major barbell lifts.
Powerlifting has actual standards for their lifts or the lifts don’t count. If the hip isn’t lower than the knee, the squat doesn’t count. No one cares what a great athlete you were in high school or what you quarter squatted one day in the gym with horrible form. No cares about the deadlift you think you did where your hips didn’t extend at the top or the PR you sent in bench press where you bounced the bar off your chest and had your buddy do half the work in helping you rack it.
So while we aren’t powerlifters (again, something that doesn’t need to be said), the standards set by the powerlifting community serve our purpose in helping us get strong. Without standards, we have no way of knowing if we’re getting strong or not.
In my opinion, trainers that want to talk about strength and conditioning need to stop avoiding the issue and stop reading endless amounts of articles about training and actually spend time under the bar getting experience. Anything less is a great disservice to the clients!