Quote:
Originally Posted by JimLogg
Man, this thread has given me a newfound respect for equipped lifting. Some pretty strong numbers in here, even raw.
Thanks!
Equipped lifting is way harder & more technical than raw. If you are a little bit off with your form on a raw lift, its relatively easy to correct it. If you're a little off with your form on a multiply lift, you're screwed. I use the comparison that raw lifting is like checkers while equipped lifting is like chess. In order to lift well in equipment, you not only need to have a very strong base, but you need to be very good technically.
Prior to trying equipped lifting, I never thought I would do it. It looked like too much effort just getting into and out of the gear, and the gear is expensive, and generally, raw lifters look down their noses at equipped lifters - there's a weird stigma about that for some reason. I never looked down at geared lifters before I became one. I just didnt think I wanted to do it.
Then I tore a pec. Some smart teammates suggested that I rehab the pec by using a fairly loose fitting bench shirt and do a lot of volume to high boards. It worked like a charm. During my rehab, a friend who lifts raw (he doesnt lift with me) suggested to me that I think about getting into gear if I want to be a powerlifter long term, because gear protects joints (and pec muscles). After that, my coach, who didnt know about what the other guy said, said similar things. I thought about it for a little while and decided to go full multiply.
Since I started doing multiply, I learned that the sport began in gear. While the gear was way less supportive and effective than what we have today, all competitors used whatever gear they could to try to get an advantage. Raw lifting was not even in existence until somewhat recently.
Raw is great because it allows more people the opportunity to get their feet wet in the sport without needing tons of other people to help with gear and spotting. Basically every geared lifter I know likes raw lifting and says nothing but good things about it. That respect does not go both ways. Many raw people have huge misconceptions about what gear is really like. For a while, it looked like geared lifting was starting to fade away.
After lifting for years with my team and seeing the best lifters at the biggest meets, I cant say enough about how great it is to be in this sport. In the last 14 months, I saw Dave Hoff total a world record 3014 at APF nationals, then saw him win the WPO against guys like Matt Minuth (who broke the all time 242 WR by lifting his 3rd DL attempt AFTER tearing a bicep on his opener and dropping the 2nd attempt), Brian Carroll, Chris Della Fave (who would have beaten Minuth if he had been able to lock out his 3rd DL of ~915, which he pulled up to just below the knees), Bob Merkh, and many others who are the best lifters I have ever witnessed. The women lifters were amazing to watch as well. I felt honored to have two of my teammates put up good totals in this meet, which was by invitation only. From what I understand, last year's WPO might have been the greatest meet ever.
The next meet I plan to lift in, here in MN, is a very unique meet. All lifters compete vs each other using coefficients for gear vs raw, tested vs untested, young vs old, etc. This meet gives away significant cash prizes as well. In order to try to get more geared lifters involved, they reduced the entry fee by 33% for geared lifters. Apparently the first day registration opened, 18 lifters registered and 13 were multiply - this was before the meet even showed up on the APF site. Dave Hoff said "this looks like a good meet to squat 1300 @ 275" (the all time WR is 1,267). I heard the whole Westside evening crew is thinking about coming here for this meet. All that is going to make it difficult, if not impossible, for me to win any money, but it is going to be a lot of fun competing against these guys.
Geared lifting is making a nice comeback and I am glad to be a small part of it.
