Strength Sports Gear, and Where is it going? - by Chad Aichs

Strength Sports, Gear, and Where is it going?

I consider strength sports as any sport were strength plays a major
role. 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 a lot of physical skills like muscular
control, speed, power, and balance. Then there is the mental part where
athletes need intelligence, positive attitude, the ability to
understand 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 the
technique of throwing but do not have the strength to back it, then 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. So
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 one season he
was bench pressing well over 500lbs and could throw the shot put in the
mid 50s (feet). The next season he was only benching in the mid 400lbs
range, but threw over 60 foot. I do not 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 were he worked
mostly on his strength. This leads me to the conclusion that strength
is not he 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 have learned this is not necessarily true. I have
had the opportunity to train with a few top strongman and play with a
lot of strongman implements. The first time I picked up an atlas stone
I could not 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 get better at handling the implement every
time. I even analyses the techniques of the strongman on tv. I have
noticed that when a new event is added, there will only be a couple of
guys that do really well at it. By the next year they all do real 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 is not only about strength,
but has much more involved. There are other major factors like your
cardiovascular conditioning, your technique, and your 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 a lot of strength, but there is also a lot of
technique, balance, and flexibility as well. The strength 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 do to years of training on there balance, flexibility,
and technique. Not just because they are strong.

Powerlifting
is probably the most recognized sport for raw strength, but I would
have to say that is far from the truth. Powerlifting is a sport
performed by athletes. It is not just a about brut strength. There is
an incredible amount of technique and mental aptitude involved. In
order to lift the most weight a lifter needs to understand the proper
technique, the muscles involved, have the mental fortitude to lift the
massive weight, and the balance to execute the lift. I have seen many
situations were a weaker guy beats a stronger guy in the meet. There is
so much involved in hitting you best numbers at the meet. In my opinion
the meet is usually won by the guy that prepares the best and has the
best technique, often the strongest guy is not the winner. A good
example of this would be a guy that can squat 800lbs with terrible
technique. He is 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 that squats 825lbs. The guy with bad technique
is actually stronger than the person that squatted 825lbs, but he has
not learned proper technique and loses 50 to 100lbs 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.

So 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. So most people hold back on
there first attempt, just wanting to get a decent throw in. Then try to
put one out on the second attempt and really go for it on the third. So
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 throwing. The first
usually being a number that you are confident you can do easily,
followed by an attempt that is some were near you best. Then on the
third 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 hear 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 have done your best. You
would not have the stress of only having three attempts and you would
be able to reattempt throws or lifts if they were bad simple do to
technical errors. These sports are not base 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 that is intelligent and works hard has a chance against the guy who
is gifted with raw strength. You can not just be a big dumb ox and
excel in any of these sports. Almost all the champions of these sports
are intelligent hard working people.

Now this brings me to the
real question of this article. If strength was never really the main
factor of these sports, then what is wrong with the addition of better
lifting gear or equipment? Special gear and equipment is used in most
of these sports to help improve the results. In throwing there are
different styles of implements. I have seen shot puts of many sizes,
even shot puts with a smaller steel ball inside to help get more inersa
for more distance. There are various discuses with most of the weight
in the center or most of the weight on the outside ring, all to try and
get more distance. There have even been advances in the shoes most
throwers wear. In highland games thrower wear spikes in the front of
there boots to help them lean back and stable there feet in the hammer.
Some hammers now have pvc handles to give more whip and a longer
throws. Strongmen has also had many advancements too. During the truck
pulls a lot of 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 us lots of tacky when
doing the stones. Weightlifting is one of the sports that have not had
too many changes to it. Powerlifting on the other hand, has probably
had the most advancement through lifting gear. With the 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 have had a few incidences were my powerlifting gear
keep me from getting hurt worse than I did. The real question is if the
advancements have changed the principles of the sport. I would say no
they haven’t. They may have changed the way people train and the
technique, 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, were would the line be drawn. New
gear and equipment is not the only reason that athletes are doing
better. There have been huge advancements in nutrition and supplements.
The training technology and equipment is way better than even 10 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. Were would it all stop? Should there be an
asterisk next to a world record because the athlete used Muscle Milk.

I 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 and this seems to be most prevalent in
powerlifting. I feel this is a big mistake. I give respect to any
athlete that was one of the best in his day. It doesn’t matter if a guy
from the 70s was stronger than a guy from the 90s. This is a question
that will never be answered and I would have to guess that the guy from
the 70s used the best available to him at the time. If he was in the
90’s he would probably still use the best available to him. There was
also a time were 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 that really cares about the
sport will understand that there are differences in the sport over the
years. An athlete that was high ranked in his time or ever held a world
record is very impressive. That is all that matters.

Powerlifting seems to be the main sport were 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, but almost
ever one has had changes like this. The advancements in golf clubs and
balls have been amazing. I have 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, then 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, there have been changes in
pitching mound heights, and the amount of games played. The
advancements in football equipment have really changed over the years
too. No more leather helmets and much better padding. If todays lineman
played in old equipment than 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, were people see the
strength sports as just feats of strength. They are sports and like
these others the advancements have not change 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, 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 are all striving to lift the most we are capable of in our
own chosen situation and to become the best we can be.

I tend
to talk more about powerlifting because right now it is my main focus
and it drives me nuts to see the direction the sport is going in. 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 80’s and that’s crazy. This sport should be huge or at least 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 together. The main
bitch seems to be gear and judging. 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. Also 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 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 is really not this easy, but maybe we can start working in a
more positive direction.