I consider a strength sport to be any sport where strength plays a major role. This includes sports like powerlifting, weightlifting, highland games, Strongman, shot put, discus, hammer, javelin, and stone lifting. All of the athletes in these sports are very strong, but how much of a role does strength actually play in becoming the best?
It seems people forget that these are all sports, and sports involve a lot more than just strength. Sports involve many physical skills like muscular control, speed, power, and balance. Then, there is the mental part where athletes need intelligence, positive attitude, understanding of technique, and mental control. So, although these athletes are seen as some of the strongest in the world, how much of a role does it really play in their sport?
All of the throwing events, such as highland games and field events, have an enormous amount of skill involved. These events take a huge amount of technique, balance, and mental toughness that takes years to fully master. On top of all that, you also need to be very strong. So even if you do master all of the techniques of throwing but don’t have the strength to back it, you will go nowhere. On the other hand, you can be one of the strongest guys around and still not be a good thrower if your technique is bad. These sports take a balance of everything from strength to skill.
I once read an article about the Crouser brothers who were all very good field event throwers. One of the brothers discussed how in one season he was bench pressing well over 500 lbs and could throw the shot put in the mid-50s (feet). The next season he was only benching in the mid-400 lb range but threw over 60 feet. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but you get the point. The second season he spent more time throwing and working on his technique in contrast to the year before when he worked mostly on his strength. This leads me to the conclusion that strength is not the only factor in throwing events. Finding the right ratio of explosive strength, balance, technique, and mental attitude seems to be the key to throwing at a world class level.
Sports like Strongman and stone lifting appear to be mostly based on strength. From personal experience, I’ve learned this isn’t necessarily true. I’ve had the opportunity to train with a few top Strongmen and play with many Strongman implements. The first time I picked up an Atlas stone I couldn’t believe how hard it was. Then I tried again with a few pointers from some Strongmen, and it was instantly much easier the next time. I learned more and got better at handling the implement every time. I even analyzed the techniques of the Strongman on television.
I’ve noticed that when a new event is added, there will only be a couple of guys who do really well at it. By the next year, everyone does really well at it. This is because they duplicate the new apparatus so that they can train with it and learn the most efficient ways to do it. This leads me to the conclusion that Strongman isn’t only about strength but has much more involved. There are other major factors like your cardiovascular conditioning, technique, and mental state. So this sport, like throwing, has a balance of strength and skill.
Weightlifting is a sport of enormous power and explosion. This sport obviously involves much strength, but there is also much technique, balance, and flexibility. The strength used in weightlifting is more explosive strength like in throwing but heavier. Many of the strongest people in the world would have a hard time snatching or clean and jerking the weights that Olympic weightlifter can do. This is because Olympic lifters have trained their balance, flexibility, and technique for years. It’s not just because they’re strong.
Powerlifting is probably the most recognized sport for raw strength, but I would have to say that this is far from the truth. Powerlifting is a sport performed by athletes. It isn’t just about brut strength. There’s an incredible amount of technique and mental aptitude involved. In order to lift the most weight, a lifter needs to understand the proper techniques and the muscles involved and have the mental fortitude to lift the massive weight and the balance to execute the lift. I have seen many situations where a weaker guy beats a stronger guy in the meet. There’s so much involved in hitting your best numbers at the meet.
In my opinion, the meet is usually won by the guy who prepares the most and has the best technique. Often the strongest guy isn’t the winner. A good example of this would be a guy who can squat 800 lbs with terrible technique. He’s on the balls of his feet, his butt comes up first, and it looks more like a good morning. This guy could be beat by someone with perfect technique who squats 825 lbs. The guy with bad technique is actually stronger than the person who squatted 825 lbs, but he hasn’t learned proper technique and loses 50 to100 lbs because of this. Therefore, he loses to a weaker person. So, as with all the other strength sports, powerlifting is a mix of a lot of strength, technique, balance, intelligence, and mental attitude.
Even though these sports are all considered strength sports, none of them are solely about strength. In fact, these sports were never even set up around the fact that the strongest athlete should win. In throwing, you get three to six throws at each event. Most people hold back on their first attempt just wanting to get a decent throw in. Then, they try to put one out on the second attempt and really go for it on the third. Most people will only have one attempt to really push themselves and that is very difficult considering all the other things involved in making that great throw.
In Strongman, you usually only get one chance at each event and that leaves almost no room for error. In powerlifting and weightlifting, you only get three shots like in throwing. For your first attempt, you usually go for a number that you’re confident you can do easily. This is followed by an attempt that is somewhere near your best. On the third attempt, you go for a max. Again, this only leaves one attempt to show your real strength and that is a difficult task considering all the possible things that can go wrong to make you miss the lift. How many times have you heard of a person doing his best lifts or throws in training? If testing strength was the main goal of these sports, then they would not limit the attempts. You would go until you’ve done your best. You wouldn’t have the stress of only having three attempts, and you would be able to reattempt throws or lifts if they were poor simply do to technical errors. These sports aren’t based on pure raw strength. They are more about competition and performance. In my opinion, this is the way it should be. This way there is more of a level playing field. A guy who is intelligent and works hard has a chance against the guy who is gifted with raw strength. You can’t just be a big dumb ox and excel in any of these sports. Almost all of the champions of these sports are intelligent, hardworking people.
Now, this brings me to the real question of this article. If strength was never really the main factor of these sports, what is wrong with the addition of better lifting gear or equipment? Special gear and equipment are used in most of these sports to help improve the results. In throwing, there are different styles of implements. I’ve seen shot puts of many sizes and even shot puts with a smaller steel ball inside to help get more inertia for more distance. There are various discuses with most of the weight in the center or most of the weight on the outside ring. This is all to try to get more distance. There have even been advances in the shoes that most throwers wear.
In highland games, throwers wear spikes in the front of their boots to help them lean back and stabilize their feet in the hammer. Some hammers now have PVC handles to give more whip and a longer throw. Strongmen have also had many advances too. During the truck pulls, many Strongmen wear climbing shoes to get great traction. They also wear modern powerlifting suits for squatting and deadlifting events. They wear straps for grip strength and use lots of tacky when doing the stones.
Weightlifting is one of the sports that hasn’t had too many changes to it. On the other hand, powerlifting has probably had the most advancement through lifting gear with monolifts, better squat suits, better bench shirts, and even better bars. I do feel that most of these changes have made the sports safer, especially in powerlifting. I’ve had a few incidences where my powerlifting gear kept me from getting hurt worse than I did.
The real question is whether or not the advancements have changed the principles of the sport. I don’t think they have. They may have changed the way people train and the technique they use, but the basic principles are still the same—out throw or out lift the other competitors to win. The playing field is still fair, and everyone has the same accesses to the same stuff. I feel a sport has to keep progressing in order to keep growing, and all these advancements help make that happen. If you think about it, the one sport that has changed the least is the one in the most danger of becoming extinct—weightlifting!
If the strength sports were to start limiting the new advancements, where would we draw the line? New gear and equipment aren’t the only reasons that athletes are doing better. There have been huge advancements in nutrition and supplements. The training technology and equipment are way better than even ten years ago. Should today’s athletes not be allowed to use modern supplements and protein drinks? Should they only be allowed to use old lifting equipment and old programs? Where would it all stop? Should there be an asterisk next to a world record because the athlete used Muscle Milk?
It seems the biggest reasons that this subject is so commonly argued is based on the fact that people keep trying to compare athletes from the past with athletes from today. This seems to be most prevalent in powerlifting. I feel this is a big mistake. I give respect to any athlete who was one of the best in his day. It doesn’t matter if a guy from the 1970s was stronger than a guy from the 1990s. This is a question that will never be answered, and I would have to guess that the guy from the 1970s used the best available to him at the time. If he was in the 1990s, he would probably still use the best available to him. There was also a time when steroids were legal and easier to obtain for some athletes. Things change and certain athletes of different eras had different advantages. As for the world records, if a guy had a world record in his day, then he was awesome. World records are meant to be broken. It’s good for the sport. Anyone who really cares about the sport will understand that there are differences in the sport over the years. An athlete who was high ranked in his time or even held a world record is very impressive. That is all that matters.
Powerlifting seems to be the main sport where this argument of using better equipment always comes up. I hardly ever hear of it in any of the other major sports or even the other strength sports. However, almost every sport has had changes like this. The advancements in golf clubs and balls have been amazing. I’ve never heard anyone say that they should go back to wood shafts and old style balls. Maybe we should make basketball players go back to chuck tailors, and if you don’t think that would make a difference, go run up and down a court for an hour in them.
There have even been changes in baseball, although I did hear some bitching about that. The batters wear more protection, the balls have changed, bats are more advanced, and there have been changes in pitching mound heights and the number of games played. The advancements in football equipment have really changed over the years, too. There aren’t any leather helmets, and now players use much better padding. If today’s lineman played in old equipment, they would probably kill each other or at least knock each other out. Even tennis has been changed by new technology. Give the modern player the heavy old wood rackets and see how they do. I think the difference between strength sports and these others is that people see all these as sports and people see the strength sports as just feats of strength. They are sports and like these others the advancements haven’t changed the principles of the sport.
I would hope that people would learn that strength events are sports and that change is going to happen. There is much more involved than just being strong, and that is a good thing. The sports used to be about technique, hard work, attitude, mental capacity, balance, and flexibility, and it is still about all those things. All the new advancements just added to the skill of the sport, but strength still plays a major role like it always has. Maybe the solution to this problem, at least in powerlifting, would be to keep all types of lifting, from raw to single ply and multiply ply. I believe the real fans would understand the difference and respect each type of lifter. It would be like drag racing with stock, pro stock, and top fuel. That way everyone gets to see the type of lifting they like—lifting with no assistive gear to lifting with the best gear possible. Personally, I don’t think it really matters what type of lifting someone chooses. We’re all striving to lift the most we are capable of in our own chosen situation and become the best we can be.
I tend to talk more about powerlifting because right now it’s my main focus, and it drives me nuts to see the direction that the sport is heading. There are too many egos, too much bitching, and too much arguing. This is a great sport and should be in a way better place. The sport peaked in the 1980s and that’s crazy. This sport should be huge or at least at the level of Strongman. We should be lifting on television, we should be making some money, and we should be recognized for what we do. I think we need to stop all the complaining and organize everyone together. The main problems seem to be gear and judging. The solution is simple—one federation with all three types of lifting. As for judging, get together and compromise on standard rules. One of the most important keys is to make powerlifting marketable to the general public. This can be done by making the shows as exciting as possible with lights, music, and the charisma of the lifter.
The lifters need to be introduced to the public through television, newspaper, or radio interviews. This will give the fans more information about lifters and more of a reason to support a particular lifter. Hence, there will be more of a reason to want to attend competitions. With a bigger draw of spectators to meets, this may make it easier to eventually get television coverage. The lifters themselves can be a tremendous boost to getting the word about powerlifting out. They can be getting interviews with local newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. This will start to get powerlifting some recognition and help lifters get local sponsors. This may not seem like much, but if all lifters started working on this, it would have a big impact. I know it isn’t really that easy, but maybe we can start moving in a more positive direction.
I’ve always been a big fan of all the strength sports. I still remember being a young kid and wanting to grow up to be some sort of strength athlete. My first love was to be a shot putter like my father was in high school. I then found weight lifting and Strongman. All my heroes were big, massive, strong guys.
Weight training and my pursuit of more strength has had profound effects on my life. The things that I learned from strength training have made me who I am today. The friendships I have forged through strength training are some of the most important ones of my life. I was born to be a strength athlete. I live to be a strength athlete, and I will die a strength athlete. I think many lifters feel the same, and I hope that when they read this article, they realize that we are all very similar. We can make it better.
Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit us at www.EliteFTS.com.