Trends in Powerlifting

Powerlifting has been around since the late 1960s, and before that, there was weightlifting, which is now an Olympic sport.  As powerlifting progressed, people began using special implements and equipment to help them lift heavier weights.  This became common practice and was thus titled Equipped Lifting.  With the use of special equipment, such as bench press shirts and squat suits, people were able to lift very heavy weights in lower body weight categories.  The main benefit of a shirt or a suit is that they are incredibly rigid and offer a sort of “spring” effect from the bottom of the eccentric (lowering) phase through the concentric phase (pushing) phase.  Some 30 years later, there began a trend to move away from using equipment, and to lift “raw”.  Raw powerlifting is essentially completing a movement with no other asset than your own strength; no rigid shirts, suits, knee wraps or elbow wraps, and no hand straps either.  Raw powerlifting began picking up momentum as people were drawn in by the appeal of “raw” human strength.  From the 90s and in to the 2000s, raw powerlifting picked up momentum and the equipped divisions began to shrink.  Nowadays, raw lifting is the default, and only a few lifters venture down the equipped path.  The growth of raw powerlifting also made it more approachable and accessible to newcomers.  It is difficult to get accustomed to lifting in equipment, as it is very uncomfortable and requires a whole different skill-set altogether.  As we approach the 2020s, raw lifting has become a sort of gold-standard, with many high-profile lifters and coaches strictly focusing on raw lifting.  Raw divisions are much larger, competitive, and more common than equipped ones.  Most impressively, over the last 10 years, we have seen an explosion in the development of exercise and nutrition methods for raw lifters.  As I mentioned, equipped lifting requires a whole secondary skill-set and thus requires a whole different style of training.  With the advent and progress of raw lifting, the community has been exceptional in discovering new and better ways to train for raw human strength.  With each major meet and world competition, we are seeing records being broken and sometimes broken again and again, by different competitors on the same day.  Most especially, growth of the raw divisions has encouraged more women to begin participating, and they are becoming incredibly strong.  The current world-record holder in the 132lb class, for raw squat, is a woman!  Marianna Gasparyan beat out Mike Booker by 11lbs with her performance May 26^th, 2018, a truly amazing feat of strength.