iron for the arm: essay on powerlifting
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Thursday, March 26, 2009 12:57 PM
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so due to my hospitalization i missed a hell of a lot of school, my gym teacher told me he'd give me and A if i wrote a four page essay on any sport, so i chose powerlifting. though i'd put it on here and see what you guys think, i'd much appriciate any corrections and or fellings about it..
IRON FOR THE ARM
For years, the best of the best athletes find themselves looking for the greatest challenge they can find. Striving for perfection, they turn to the world of competitive powerlifting. Powerlifting is all about the iron, it’s a strength sport that has found itself spreading around the world, when only decades ago it was seen as more of a mindless cult, than a disciplined revolution requiring intense training and competition, and above all a heightened sense of perseverance.
A powerlifting competition takes place as follows; competitors and organized in rank usually based off weight class(usually smallest w-class to heaviest). Each competitor is allowed three to four attempts on each lift depending on their rank. The lifter’s best valid attempt on each lift counts toward his competition total. If two or more lifters achieve the same total, the lighter lifter ranks above the heavier lifter.
The main events in a convential powerlifting competition are the three most respected in the weightlifting arena, the squat, benchpress, and the deadlift. Each requires the major muscle groups of either push of pull actions to be fully active, more so than a isolate execise. These are compound movements, if you have true strength, that’s the way to show it. Generally speaking, a meet would start off with squat, then bench press, and the deadlift will be the final lift of that meet. If the federation also has an event for strict curls this will normally occur before the squat event. Also, in some federations there are "push-pull only" meets where lifters only compete in the bench press and deadlift, with the bench press coming first and the deadlift after.
Training for powerlifting is a composite of all the strongest forms of exercise. A competitor wants to be as strong as possible and have pure explosive power. To obtain such ability, an adapted type of cross training is used, and believed to be the most effective. On one day specific muscle groups are isolated and trained with low sets and high repetition of low weight, this developes what is known as slow twitch (type 1) muscle fiber. On another day, the goal is to focus on compound movements where a “max out” is reached while lifting the higest weight possible at a set to rep. rate ratio of 5x5, targeting fast twitch (type 2) muscle fiber. In this way and athlete can get the strangth he/she wants without risking his/her explosive ability.
Although powerlifting always uses the squat, bench press and deadlift as events, different federations have different rules and different interpretations of the rules, leading to a myriad of variations. For example, the ADAU and 100% rew fed. Does not allow the use of any supportive material. While APF, IPA and WPO, allow opened or closed back bench shirts, multi-ply gear, and a wide array of gear materials such as canvas, denim, polyester etc. Among many federations there are differences in what qualifies as a “good lift”, when looking at the bench press some feds will allow the barbell to bounce off the chest while other look to see that a lifter can hold the bar with their upper arms parallel to the ground for 2-5 seconds before the rep is completed. It depends clearly on the federation and what they decern to be the proper method to weigh true strength.
As controversal as it may be, powerlifting will never cease to grow in popularity. As long as there is a 400lb ball of cement, or a pile of iron plates laying aound, theres going to be someone that tries to pick it up… and someone else who tries to do it faster.
MY CHOICE:
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